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Ivica Celikovic. Free Press Archive

Shekerinska and the community of democracies

Western liberals talk about the looming danger of war spreading and that everything else must be pushed aside in the name of security policy. There is obviously money for weapons, but not for the basic welfare and daily needs of ordinary people.

Democracy is under threat, but most of us don't realize it. That's probably how we could describe the attitudes and moods present on a broad scale in a good part of the Western world. The forces fighting against democracy are emerging everywhere, they have great power and no scruples. Those who don't see this are naive.

"In this more unstable and dangerous world, democracies must take action," says NATO Deputy Secretary General Radmila Sekerinska. By joining NATO, as was the case with the newest member, Sweden has gone through a complex journey towards membership in the Alliance and "joined the community of values, democracy, freedom and the rule of law," Sekerinska said at a security conference dedicated to NATO's strategic vision under the new leadership, which was held recently in the Swedish winter tourist resort of Selen.

Sweden, and previously its neighbor Finland, brought their developed democracies, often showered with high marks and praise in international research and assessments, into the NATO family, strengthening its democratic corpus. They also brought in the rule of law, as a strong guarantor of freedom and democratic values.

In more than half of European countries, including NATO members, the rule of law has declined over the past year. Perhaps not so much in the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway, which continue to top the table, according to the World Justice Project's 2024 report, but Turkey, NATO's second-largest army, is usually ranked at the very bottom of European countries in such and similar measurements and rankings, along with Russia.

The bottom of the table is regularly reserved for Balkan countries, including, of course, NATO member Macedonia, which has very little to celebrate with its efforts to strengthen the principles of the rule of law and the rule of law, and respect for democratic principles in the functioning of institutions. The two percent trust in the Macedonian judiciary is only part of the devastating balance of perception that is dominant in the wider public.

The question of functional democracy and the rule of law, seen in the context of NATO and its 32 members, is, to say the least, debatable. It cannot be easily swept under the rug like a little dust-gathering to keep it out of sight, no matter how inappropriate and inappropriate it would be to talk about taking sides and showing “understanding” about the threats that European democracies face from Russia and Putin’s authoritarian regime.

As for the community of democracies, as we see and experience, for example, the Scandinavian countries, there has been an almost unanimous condemnation of such use of military force to achieve goals in international relations since the very beginning of the Russian war in Ukraine. But, at the same time, the high achievements of liberal democratic values ​​in Western European societies are also under pressure.

On Swedish television channels, you can no longer hear any other opinion, or at least a slightly different perspective when analyzing the war in Ukraine and its repercussions, except from a dozen or so on-duty reporters and analysts, military experts, and current ministers. No “different” opinions can even accidentally break through, or in some uncontrolled way fly over, the firmly established media wall behind which information is placed to the public. Freedom of expression, the right to information from multiple independent sources, media freedoms, all of this is included in the traditional understanding of the benefits of liberal democracies. But the media picture in Denmark or Sweden is quite different from that in, say, Hungary or Slovakia, which are also NATO members but do not give up their right to think differently.

Should Donald Trump win the US presidential election for a second time to strengthen the knowledge about this? The extreme right and populists already dictate the conditions and principles of governance in several European democracies, and have also recorded great successes in the EU elections. The traditional party-political establishment in France and Germany, and in other countries, is facing great problems in finding solutions for coalition capacity. The consequence of this is a decline in sympathy and trust among their voters. And this, too, cannot be separated and moved aside from the topic of the increasing threats facing democracy globally. But liberals themselves are also having a hard time realigning themselves so that they can respond more effectively to the challenges brought by the changes.

Scared people stop thinking critically. Swedish democracy, in one of its most significant historical moments, did not invoke the highest mechanism, a referendum, before joining NATO. The parties in parliament decided to make that decision themselves, without asking the opinion of the citizens. The argument was that Sweden had to join to ensure its own security.

Now politicians say that the threat image against Sweden has increased, because membership in the Alliance makes it a legitimate target. As some Swedish commentators have noted, this is exactly what “we, the despised and ridiculed opponents of NATO,” said would happen. Was it expected that Trump’s return would increase the doubts and ambiguities around this? And at security conferences, such as the one mentioned in Selen, Sweden, as usual, there is no particular confrontation of different opinions and points of view. The invited participants, in fact, only confirm each other’s analyses, from which the media then extract bombastic headlines. Headlines that instill fear and uncertainty among citizens.

Western liberals talk about the looming danger of war spreading and that everything else must be pushed aside in the name of security policy. There is obviously money for weapons, but not for the basic welfare and daily needs of ordinary people.

Freedom of speech and the media, democracy, inside and outside NATO, are being restricted. This is, by all accounts, just the beginning.

(The author is a journalist)

THE LANGUAGE IN WHICH THEY ARE WRITTEN, AS WELL AS THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THE COLUMNS, DO NOT ALWAYS REFLECT THE EDITORIAL POLICY OF "FREE PRESS"

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