Year of Democracy, Year of war

They called it ‘the year of democracy’. America’s Time magazine even called it “a make-or-break year for democracy”. Billions of people went out to vote in over 80 countries around the world, representing nearly half of the global population. Despite shock headlines from leading media outlets, we’ve managed to get to the end of the year, and though it’s creaky, democracy still hasn’t quite broken yet.

While we expect democracy to keep stumbling on for quite a few years yet, there is evidence that its legs are looking a little shaky. Voter turnout continued its decline, which has been continually falling since the turn of the century. Perhaps part of the motivation behind the media’s promotion of this ‘year of democracy’ is that less and less people feel that it’s worth turning out to vote for any of the parties. There can’t be many people anymore who believe that casting a ballot will significantly change their lives. If it is just going to be the same old policies wrapped up in a new package, it’s quite understandable why people can’t be bothered to vote.

Those who did turn out to vote went out in increasing numbers to vote against their governments. According to the Financial Times newspaper every single governing part in the developed world lost vote share, the first time that this has happened in the history of universal suffrage. Many countries outside of the developed world saw the same phenomenon. Modi in India still won though he lost five million votes, and fifty parliamentary seats, and the ANC in South Africa lost its overall majority, and will now govern as part of a coalition. Everywhere it seems people have come out to vote against governments which have presided over them getting poorer and costs of living getting higher, or they have simply not bothered at all. As in South Africa, in Japan and Botswana parties that had been in power for decades lost their grip on power, as did fourteen governments across Europe.

The last years have been bad for ordinary working people. The effects of the surge in inflation caused by Covid and the energy crisis brought on by the Ukraine war have not gone away. Although inflation is now falling people are still feeling its effects on their lives. In the UK for example, with the average annual energy bill now at £1738 (4093lv), new Prime Minister Starmer started by attacking state allowances for winter fuel for pensioners. Meanwhile, he was caught in a scandal of accepting free gifts from corporate supporters to the value of £107,000 (252,000lv) made a mockery of his campaign slogan ‘for the many not the few’ with memes appearing all over the internet picturing him with the slogan ‘for the money not the many’. Labour Party supporters replies of ‘it’s not as bad as the last government’ didn’t go down well with the public.

It’s hardly unsurprising then that we have seen a rise in right wing populism across the western world. Workers are suffering under the economy, and all mainstream politicians, of whatever tendency, are seen as not only not helping the victims of the economy but of helping themselves to whatever they can get. It’s unsurprising that in times like these, we have seen a rise in right wing populism. One of the characteristics of these movements is that their politicians present themselves as being something different to the normal political elites. It’s this pseudo antiestablishment talk which is attracting voters. When it’s wrapped up in blaming immigrants for the problems of workers, we see, to continue the UK example, anti immigrate riots in the streets, and the election to parliament for the first time of Nigel Farage and his Reform party. This is a phenomena repeated across Europe with the rise of these sort of far right parties in France and Germany. Here in Bulgaria it has its expression not only in the rise of Vazrazhdane (Revival) but also in the election of the ridiculous Historic Park Party.

Which brings us to what is probably the biggest news story of the year, the reelection of Donald Trump as the 49th President of the United States. Anti immigration rhetoric played a big part in his victory, with him promising to kick out 13 million illegal immigrants. Also his attacks on Democrat Party political elites being out of touch with ordinary people resounded well with those suffering from the ravages of inflation and falling real wages. Trump will of course not fulfill the promises of his manifesto. It’s impossible to expel 13 million immigrants, and the Ukrainian war will not be solved in a day, as he claimed. Nevertheless, we should expect tough times ahead for immigrants in America. Also it’s quite possible that Zelenskyy, not Harris was the biggest loser in the US election, and Putin, not Trump, the biggest winner.

Putin will feel that he’s had a very good year. The Russia army has been slowly, but steadily moving forward in Ukraine. Apart from a brief Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast, the war has been going all Russia’s way. The Kursk adventure seemed more directed at putting pressure on Russia for upcoming peace negotiations than in any real military strategy. It’s now widely regarded as a failure, which lead to thousands of dead Ukrainian soldiers and has failed to improve their negotiating position. With Trump committed to the opening of negotiations, Putin, who incidentally won his election with 88% of the vote will feel that the cards are all in his hands. Just to make the end of the year better for him, the victory of the pro-Russia candidate, an ex-Manchester City football player as President of Georgia in recent elections will also be seen as a victory.

Looking back on the year, it seems like Trump’s victory is the most important story of the last year. We suspect though that when historians of the future look back to 2024, they will see events in the Middle East, as the main story. Politicians come and go, but Israel’s victory over Iran and its allies seems like a real world changing event with repercussions that will reverberate for many years. Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, has been steadily victorious against its enemies in the region, and against what it calls the ‘Great Satan’, the United States. First it managed to hold off an American backed Iraq invasion in an eight year war that left a million and a half dead, and then over the following decades it slowly increased its influence across the Middle East. The US spent over three trillion dollars over its two wars in Iraq, and the end result was to see a pro-Iranian government elected. Similarly, America’s interventions in Lebanon resulted in disaster. US marines landed in Beirut, as a so called peace keeping force, but were eventually forced to leave. The death of 241 US troops, the largest single day death toll of American troops in the post World War Two era, in a suicide bombing of their barracks by pro-Iranian militants, played a large part in this. In Syria despite the attempts of America and its Middle Eastern allies, specifically Turkey, Saudi, and the UAE, the Iranian back government of Bashar al-Assad seemed to be holding on to power. Forty five years after the Iranian Revolution, we saw an Iranian alliance including Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah, and rebels in Yemen, alongside a besieged Hamas in Palestine.

Yet how quickly it all crumbled. Iran had always seen Hezbollah, which had political dominance in Lebanon, and was the strongest non-state military force in the world as its strongest card to play against Israel. Israel’s assault upon Lebanon was an unprecedented wave of terror and horror. From the terrorist bombing of thousands of electronic pagers, to the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, and through the all out assault against southern Lebanon, and the aerial assault on Beirut, Israel basically destroyed Hezbollah within twelve days. In the end Iran had to tell Hezbollah to surrender, as with its leader murdered, and the second and even third level leadership wiped out, they were in complete disarray. The result was Israel victorious, and Netanyahu transformed from an unpopular politician to a victorious war leader. The cost was nearly 3,000 Lebanese dead, mostly civilians, and 1.4 million , around a quarter of the entire population displaced, against only 60 Israeli soldiers killed.

Israel’s victory seemed total. Yet there was more to come. With the onslaught against their country, Hezbollah militants who were propping up the Syria regime, returned to Lebanon. This, coupled with Russian involvement in Ukraine, allowed a minor offensive by Turkish backed rebels in the Homs region to turn into a complete rout of Syrian state forces. After nearly 14 years of war the state, without Hezbollah infantry, and Russian air support collapsed in less than two weeks. The Syrian troops had no will to fight, and basically ran away. From this, we can see another example, after the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan in mere days after American withdrawal, of how quickly governments can fall when they have completely lost the support of their people. Al-Assad, who let us be completely clear, was a butcher, responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, fled to Moscow, and an Islamic militant party took over the government. Although there was massive jubilation amongst Syrian opposition forces, and talk of the return of millions of war refugees, the movement so far seems in the opposite direction, with members of the Christian, Alawite, and Druze minorities, who all had supported al-Assad fleeing across the Lebanese border. Although the new leader of Syria promised a regime tolerant of minorities, attacks upon them have already started. From the burning of Christmas trees in majority Christian towns to the murder of Alawite militia members and civilians, we suspect that the horror in Syria is far from finished.

Israel took advantage of its victory. The genocidal slaughter in Gaza continues. There are no words to express the extent of the horror of the human catastrophe taking place there. Israeli troops occupied the remainder of the Golan heights, an area of Syrian land along the border, and the world said nothing, as it pondered the implications of the victory of the Syrian rebels. As we write, Israel is launching bombing strikes Houthi backed Iranian rebels in Yemen, and Iranian backed militia in Syria and Iraq. In a matter of months, Iran had seen its military alliance, built up over nearly fifty years nearly completely destroyed. The implications of this are enormous, and we will feel them for decades to come.

Continuing of the theme of war, the little talked about war in Sudan continued into its second year. Although barely reported on in western news services, approaching half a million people have died and nearly three million displaced or turned into refugees.

Climate disaster continued unabated. 2024 will replace 2023 as the hottest year on record according to the World Meteorological Organisation, who will release the official figures in February. In fact the top ten hottest years in recorded history have all been in the last decade. The WMO’s report says that climate disasters have killed 3,700 people, the single worst even being Typhoon Yagi in the South China Sea, which killed 844 people. Spain also saw the biggest ‘natural’ disaster in its history when 231 people were killed when a year’s normal rainfall fell in a single day on its eastern coast. In addition to this climate disasters have displaced millions of people. As per usual COP29, the United Nations Climate Change conference, held for the second year running in an oil producing state, failed to provide any solutions to the ongoing catastrophe. In this context, it turns our minds to the phasing out of coal power in Eastern Europe, specifically in Poland, Romania, and here in Bulgaria. While coal power is obviously at an end, this process seems to be undertaken with more concern for the profits of large companies than working people’s lives.

The epidemic of violence against women and girls continues in a terrifying manner. According to a UN report, one woman is killed by either their partner or a close family member every ten minutes. That means 140 women murdered every single day, meaning over 50,000 per year. When we add to that the fact that 370 million women alive today are estimated to have been victims of rape or sexual assault, the full horror of the crisis comes into view. This year the awfulness of this disease of humanity has been exemplified by the revelations in the rape trial of French women Gisèle Pelicot against her husband and 49 other men found guilty of repeatedly raping her over a period of twenty years.

In many ways 2024 has been a thoroughly depressing year, with little cause for optimism. For us at Konflict, it’s indicative of a rotting social system where war has become the norm, the destruction of the environment is less important than the profits made from it, and domestic violence against half of humanity has horrifyingly continued to be routine. In all these ways, it strengthens our convictions that the cause of this is an economic system that must be destroyed.