While at work today I saw the news on the situation over in South Korea and it prompted me to write this article – only spent an hour on it but hope you enjoy!
On December 3rd the South Korean president with no prior announcement or warning declared emergency martial law. This was the first declaration of martial law since the country’s democratisation in 1987. Martial law suspends all existing laws – meaning there can be a suspension of normal civil rights and the use of military law on the civilian population. By imposing martial law president Yoon was trying to seize control of the country via the use of the military. To me, this highlights just how fragile our democracies are. Not only this, but it highlights how we’ve been conditioned to accept a certain concept of ‘democracy’ that is in no way a true democracy.
One of the UNs Sustainable Development Goals is to promote peace and inclusive societies for sustainable development (UN, 2024). It aims to provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions. Part of this essentially means promoting democratisation across the world, particularly over authoritarian regimes. However, despite the UNs measures, and efforts from many other international institutions and organizations, they are failing drastically to meet such objectives. It really struck me when I read the Democracy Index Report (2023), suitably titled ‘The Age of Conflict’, and found out that only 7.8% of the world’s population live in what they class as ‘full democracies’. 37.6% of the population live in ‘flawed democracies’, 15.2% in hybrid regimes (a mix of some sort of democracy and authoritarian regime), and a staggering 39.4% live in full-blown authoritarian regimes.
This should make the hairs stand up on your back! What an alarming thing to realise. What a sorry state the human race is in, where 53.4% of countries or 54.6% of the world population live in some sort of authoritarian regime. Or, in other words, and to repeat again, only 7.8% of the world’s population live in full democracies. We all know authoritarian regimes are deadly, but yet this is the world we have created for ourselves. With each country armed to the teeth with weaponry and divided into their own regimes, the eventual conflict is inevitable. Unfortunately, the situation is made worse by the fact there are estimated to be around 12,100 nuclear warheads in circulation; and the fact that globally our military budgets amount to around 2.44 trillion dollars (Statista, 2024).
What is also of concern to me is that what we call democracies are not true democracies. It should be obvious that in a true democracy one individual would not have the power to assert something – especially something as widespread and systemic as martial law – over an entire population of people. We have created systems of complete centralization and we have conditioned ourselves to believe they are decentralized systems, or in other words a reflection of the people’s will. The truth is that we all turn out and put a piece of paper in a ballot box once every four years. Usually there are only two real choices, such as the Labour and Conservative parties in the UK, or the Republican and Democratic parties in the US.
Just like in the case of South Korea two days ago, what more could highlight that a democracy is not a real democracy than the prime minister imposing martial law? The actions of this prime minister could not be any more cut off from the will of the people, and yet this country is labelled a democracy. Although this example is extreme, the same thing is happening in so-called democracies right across the planet. We delude ourselves into thinking that once we’ve ticked a box and dropped a piece of paper in the ballot box that everything will be okay; that it will be taken care of by the experts. But there are laws, regulations, and bills, that are being passed everyday that you have absolutely no idea about. For example, here in the UK you can now be arrested if the government disagrees with the content of your tweets.
It’s like in George Orwell’s 1984, the level of hypocrisy and contradiction contained within the way we are living is off the charts. In his fictional novel George Orwell called the institution responsible for spinning up lies and upholding the government rhetoric the Ministry of Truth; and that responsible for artificially creating a state of perpetual warfare the Ministry of Peace. Our non-fictional equivalent is calling our societies democracies when they are in fact just another form of authoritarian regime. They are regimes in which a certain individual, or cabinet of individuals, can at a moment’s notice, and without a peep from the members of the population, impose their will. These democracies are dictatorships, and as a species we’ve got our heads in the sand.
I suppose the word democracy means whatever you want to believe it means; whatever concept you have created behind the word. But it should be clear that change is required. As human beings we are handing over our power to a system that houses a plethora of social problems in every corner of the world; a system that perpetuates control, warfare, and suffering. As those people in South Korea realised, albeit perhaps temporarily, the people – us human beings – have the power. Our societies are the aggregate of our actions, and nothing else. A true democracy will naturally emerge once all human beings are responsible for their actions. Once we stop merely reacting to the societal conditioning impressed upon our memories and consciously respond to the world.
The data, as shown in the Democracy Index Report, paints a bleak picture of the current state of humanity. It is true, we’ve got ourselves in a mess. But of course, it is not set in stone. Everything in this universe is in constant flux, forever changing and flowing. However unlikely it may be, even the most authoritarian leader you can imagine could in a moments notice become the most loving individual. At the minute we are on a ship headed for the rocks, but we’re asleep in the captains’ quarters after drinking too much rum. If we remain on this course only disaster awaits. We need to wake up and get our hands back on the rudder so that we can charter our way to a more peaceful existence; a world that isn’t dominated by authoritarian systems disguising themselves as systems that will liberate people. The only way to do this is to start with yourself, since it is each of our actions that create the societies we live within. If there is no authority or dependence internally, there will be no such things externally. So start here, with yourself.
I’ve put the references below and also a link to a YouTube video that I used to watch as a kid that sprang to mind as I was writing,
Take care all,
References
Sky News Article on the subject: https://news.sky.com/story/what-is-happening-in-south-korea-and-what-is-martial-law-13266092
UN, 2024: https://sdgs.un.org/goals
Democracy Index Report (2023): https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2023/
The Candlelight 
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