We must not sleep on democracy
Well, the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision finding that the 14th Amendment does not entitle officials within each state to determine who may not appear on a presidential primary ballot, along with the results of Super Tuesday, have all but guaranteed that, barring some lightning bolt, voters inclined to support either of the two major political parties must resign themselves to the die being cast.
All of this compels me to recall a handpainted sign I saw at the exit to Roseslottet (Rose Castle) park, while my wife and I were in Norway on a recent visit to extended family members. The park sits atop a mountain on the northside of Oslo, about an hour’s hike above Holmenkollen — the site of the 1952 Winter Olympics, and numerous other international Nordic ski jumping and cross-country competitions.
The sign itself reads: “Den som sover i et demokrati, vil våkne opp i et diktatur” (translation : “The one who sleeps in a democracy, will wake up in a dictatorship”). It concludes a heart-wrenching and powerful tour through hundreds of detailed, personal accounts of individual Norwegian citizens and partisans, young and old, men and women, as well as certain conscience-bound German soldiers stationed in the area, all of whom bravely resisted efforts by the invading Nazis and Quisling collaborators to subdue the democracy-loving Norwegian population during World War II.
Norway had wished to remain neutral in the early years following Hitler’s rise to power. During those years, the Führer made clear that a day of reckoning would come for the “vermin” that sought to eat away at the at the greatness of the German nation. That the “enemy within” (Jan. 30, 1939, Berlin Sportspalast speech) would be eliminated. That those who were “poisoning the blood” (Mein Kampf) of the German people would be stopped, once and for all. Indeed, that he would be the people’s “retribution” for all the injustices suffered by Germany.
For many reasons, some quite understandable, and others wholly illegitimate, those words found receptive ears. It is sad to hear them used again today in other contexts.
The Norwegians whose lives are featured at Roseslottet park clearly experienced the place to which such rhetoric is capable of leading. And the history books are replete with the costs paid by the world’s population because those with receptive ears insisted on setting their sights on just such a destination.
After 75 years of experiencing the blessings of a free and democratic nation, it pains me deeply to see so many actual and ostensible democracies around the world falling prey to the alluring rhetoric of candidates for public office who seek to channel the anger and resentment of the electorate by promising payback and vengeance. I almost wonder if the lessons of the past are always lost on the young, while the ones old enough to remember them are both too worn down by years, and cast as culturally irrelevant, to have an effective voice.
In less than 10 months, we will have a chance to register our own vote for president. I put it to each of you: Is it at all conceivable we could choose to sleep in a democracy, and perhaps begin the first steps towards eventually waking up in a dictatorship? Time will tell.
Rex J. Zedalis is a Placitas resident and professor of law emeritus, University of Tulsa.