Parties in democratic, western countries have a short sell-by date. Their members sometimes switch to another party or grouping so quickly that the attentive observer of one or the other political scene in the so-called Western world is easily confused as to whom he should actually entrust his future (and present?). As a voter, you buy into a plot, a product, and shortly afterwards you experience a disappointment, an intestinal spasm, sometimes an inner poisoning. Does the majority of humanity (China+India+Russia+most of the “emerging countries”) even know this problem which, here in the so-called West, this television and these media are constantly hammering home: Which politician might not be corrupt, which guy is okay, which one is not anymore and which party is passé because of him? Do you still vote? Really?
Parties in authoritarian-ruled countries stay in power for so long that they can only envy their Western counterparts. Putin has stayed in power for over 4 terms of a US president. While we cannot remember the name of once-important politicians after a few years, time passes more slowly in the “second” world. Yes, time is an overlooked and crucial factor. Time is money. In the West, money is made fast (e.g. printed out of thin air by a central bank), in the poor South, from where migrants have been smuggled on an industrial scale since 2014, the same money thrives on drought-stricken plantations kept afloat with aid money from Western societies.
Please think about it and stick to your first impression: Which seems safer to you – Chinese 5-year and 10-year plans or the current administrative chaos of the EU? The plans forged under the influence of the voter polls in every European party and bold announcements by its members that should not be realised for another 3 years, or the GDPs of Eastern, Central European and other “emerging economies”? Think for a moment and imagine: Groko in China? Two speeds in China’s development? Ha, ha, ha! And there, in the Middle Kingdom, almost all the parts for your brand new German Volkswagen are produced. Germany is only responsible for the final assembly and the made-in… sticker.
Sometimes even a South American or African dictator has managed to break records of time in office (and Putin should realise that at his age he will not create a new reality, a new world order) like Omar Bongo in Gabon or Pinochet in Chile. The fall of such a president always brings chaos in the country and unforeseeable consequences for other countries in the region. The interference of “democratic” countries with dictatorships and long-ruling dynasties or clans always ended with blood in the streets and led to upheavals that also threatened the Western world. Think of Afghanistan and the fall of Gaddafi, which started the wave of immigration to Europe.
The success of a democracy or a dictatorship, as can be inferred merely from the few examples given above is thus by and large dependent neither on geographical location, nor on the political system, nor on social circumstances. Emerging economies such as China or India quickly climbed the ladder of economic and military progress. Whether by their own hand or by robbery (knockoffs) – it does not seem to matter to world affairs, in contrast to the Western propaganda. To the propaganda that has been so deeply imprinted in the heads of those of us living in the West for decades – through films, music, daily media reports – that we regard it as something normal and can no longer think out of the box. Or can we?
After all, it is a mixture of all factors that makes up the final effect. We can only try to observe all facets of reality (politics, finance, social, military, culture, tradition, history) closely and draw conclusions for ourselves. It cannot be the case that one or a few parties that govern one of our countries here in the West and, moreover, try to act supranationally, want to force their opinion on us and sell it as the only valid one. After all, we don’t want to have 5-year and 10-year plans for expropriation, digital spying and impoverishment by green, red or rainbow (or any other oh-so-sublime) change in our paradise West. Do we?
