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Opinion | The West defined terror for 20 years. Now China wants to define democracy
- In fighting the ‘war on terror’, the West has seen its democratic rights and freedoms eroded
- With much of the international community fed up with the West’s weaponising of human rights, China is pushing back with its own definition of democracy
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Nine days after the September 11 attacks in the United States, president George W. Bush, addressing a joint session of Congress, said: “They hate our freedoms – our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”
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He unleashed a “war on terror” to protect these freedoms but, 20 years later, one could argue that the freedoms he defined are on life support.
The US has just made a humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan after spending over US$2 trillion and losing more than 2,400 of its soldiers to bring “democracy” to that country.
In January, the thousands of Americans who invaded Capitol building to overturn a disputed election result were labelled rioters; across the world, challengers of the Covid-19 lockdowns or vaccinations are called “conspiracy theorists” or “fake news peddlers”, and their freedom of speech is curtailed.
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On August 25, Australia, America’s staunchest ally in the “war on terror”, passed the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill, giving unprecedented powers to the federal police and Criminal Intelligence Commission to monitor online activity, take over online accounts and disrupt data.
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