PARTY TIME IN DAVOS AS DEMOCRACY WANES
In this first month of the 12th year of democracy’s global retreat, against a backdrop of shuddering and implosion in the key institutions of the liberal world order, it isn’t easy to discern anything auspiciously encouraging, exactly, in the 48th annual gathering of the rich, the famous and the powerful at the World Economic Forum in the snowbound resort village of Davos, in Switzerland’s alpine canton of Graubünden, this week.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has just wrapped up meetings in Santiago, Chile, with 31 Latin American and Caribbean countries, four regional, multilateral institutions and the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Syrian massmurderer Bashar Assad appears to be gassing civilians again with impunity and Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan has just launched an all-out war on Syria’s Kurdish resistance, sending tanks and troops across the border into Syria’s Afrin enclave.
But all eyes are on Davos, where a security force of 5,000 Swiss military and police personnel has been mustered to protect 3,000 conference-goers from 90 countries, among them roughly 70 heads of state and 40 major corporate bosses. First up on the agenda: British pop legend Sir Elton John, Bollywood idol Shah Rukh Khan and Hollywood A-lister Cate Blanchett were the recipients of this year’s Crystal awards, for artists who make positive impacts on society.
The Davos gathering is a weeklong exercise in lavish eggheadedness with salons, workshops, speeches and panel discussions on artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, climate change, the future of work and a variety of more esoteric and highbrow concerns. The Forum of China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States gathering in Santiago, meanwhile, is a function of China’s “Belt and Road” strategy, which aims to pull smaller countries out of the orbit of developed-world democracies and curb the influence of Europe and the United States.
The Davos proceedings’ opening keynote was delivered by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who didn’t dwell on the findings in a report the international charity Oxfam released Monday showing that the richest one per cent of India’s 1.3 billion people hoovered up 73 per cent of the total wealth generated in the country in 2017. Instead, Modi addressed himself to the virtues of globalized trade and the vices of protectionism.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a favourite of the Davos set, stuck to his usual themes: gender parity and “progressive” trade. He riffed off the celebrity mobilized #MeToo phenomenon that came straight out of Hollywood to shine an unwelcome spotlight on sexual harassment. “When we receive those complaints, we must take them seriously. As women speak up, it is our responsibility to listen and, more importantly, to believe,” Trudeau said. As for trade liberalization: “We must ensure that the benefits are shared by all of our citizens and not just the few.”
Trudeau used the opportunity of his speech at Davos to announce that Canada had concluded negotiations with 10 other countries in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Canadian auto-parts manufacturers, dairy farmers and labour leaders say will cost Canadians jobs and place Canadian products at a disadvantage against lowwage countries such as Malaysia and Vietnam. “Despite a new name, there is nothing remotely progressive” about the deal formerly known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, says Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union. “Unifor remains opposed to this bad trade.”
Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the White Helmets civil defence force and the local health directorate in Douma, in the country’s Eastern Ghouta, reported on Monday that at least 13 people were suffering from chlorine gas suffocation following shelling by Assad regime forces. Roughly 400,000 people have been besieged by Assad’s troops in Douma since 2012. At least 200 people, including 50 children, have been killed by regime bombs over the past two weeks. “It is shameful that nearly seven years into the conflict, a war on children continues while the world watches,” a UNICEF spokesman said on Monday.
This week, the world was watching from Davos while on Tuesday delegates from 30 countries met in Paris to endorse something called the International Partnership
Democracy is on the run: 71 countries suffered net declines in political rights and civil liberties.
against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons. It’s all about “naming and shaming” the individuals and entities involved in violating international covenants banning chemical weapons, Jean-Yves Le Drian, France’s minister for Europe and foreign affairs, explained. Le Drian was on hand in Paris on Tuesday to unveil the partnership’s website. As if a French website is going to stop Assad. Over the past two years, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has found the Syrian government guilty of using the nerve agent sarin and chlorine gas to kill civilians on several occasions since the uprising against Assad began in 2011.
Meanwhile, as the Davos festivities proceeded, Turkish tanks and troop carriers were rumbling across the Syrian border into the Kurdish enclave of Afrin. The UN Security Council considered the matter briefly and decided not to do anything and NATO is quiet, too, owing to embarrassment. Turkey is nominally a NATO member, but it is waging war against Kurdish guerrillas backed by the United States and several other NATO members. Turkey remains a NATO “ally” all the same.
On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to address the delegates at Davos. His appearance at the resort is not expected to be an uplifting event. Last week, the Gallup organization released the results of a global survey showing that world approval of the United States’ international leadership had fallen to 30 per cent — four points lower than the darkest days of the administration of George W. Bush and neck and neck with China’s leadership at 31 per cent.
Also last week, the democracy tracking agency Freedom House released its annual report. Its main finding? For the 12th year in a row, democracy is on the run: 71 countries suffered net declines in political rights and civil liberties with only 35 countries registering gains. And Turkey is no longer a free country.
“Liberal democracies have less legitimacy than at any time since World War II, and most of their structural problems don’t appear fixable,” the global risk-analysis firm Eurasia Group concluded in a study released Jan. 2. “Today’s strongest leaders show little interest in civil society or common values ... if we had to pick one year for a big unexpected crisis — the geopolitical equivalent of the 2008 financial meltdown — it feels like 2018. Sorry.”
And for why that is so, look no further than Davos.