[liberationtech] What could we at Liberationtech do to help pro-democracy HK activists protest China's new security law?

[Eric FU]

I second Hans, it is essential that we start our thinking by asking the
right question, questions with a critical edge and without presumptions.

Eric

On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 8:22 AM Klein, Hans K <hans at gatech.edu> wrote:

> Well, I would propose a softer version of the posting below.
>
> As currently practiced, liberation technology and its policy partner,
> democracy promotion, build on an implicit and overly-simple model of
> democracy. It involves catalyzing large public protests that destabilize
> governments.
>
> The model supposes that destabilization is followed by "democracy", but in
> fact destabilization is more often followed by chaos, civil war, and
> foreign intervention.
>
> Libya had a brief democratic moment, but now it has a civil war; so far
> the list of interveners includes France, Italy, US, Turkey, and Russia.
> Syria had its moment, but then came foreign intervention in the form of
> various radical mercenaries backed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and even the
> US.  Ukraine had its big demonstrations, but the people in the Maidan were
> then given a government hand-picked by foreign powers  (See: BBC [
> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 ], Consortium News [
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGq_Xvzn_3I ] .)  In every case, the
> people (the "demos") of the country came out as the loser.
>
> What is a more effective model of democracy promotion?  I think it is one
> based on organic growth in the society.  Political development takes time;
> the clock speed may be measured in human generations.  The successful model
> requires patient nurturing and no threatening or attacking. The terrible
> democracy recession that we have seen in the last 10 years is in large part
> a reaction to outsiders seeing democracy as an act of "liberation", i.e. as
> a rapid and kinetic process that can deliver immediate results.
>
> In each case, we can ask what is worse: the problem or the cure?
>   Syria: Assad or the civil war
>   Libya: Ghaddafi or the civil war
>   Ukraine: Yanukovych or the civil war
> (You can pose the same question of Iraq and Afghanistan...)
>
> A useful question would be: given the learning that (hopefully) has taken
> place, what could we at LiberationTech do to *effectively* promote
> democracy?
>
> Hans Klein
> School of Public Policy
> Georgia Tech
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: LT [mailto:lt-bounces at lists.liberationtech.org] On Behalf Of
> grarpamp
> Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2020 6:32 AM
> To: lt at lists.liberationtech.org
> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] What could we at Liberationtech do to help
> pro-democracy HK activists protest China's new security law?
>
> > What could we ... do to help pro-democracy ... activists ...
> > do things that have not been done in the past.
>
> Stop teaching them that they can somehow break free from whatever shithole
> government they're under now by claiming democracy is some magical font of
> freedom worth aspiring to. It's not, at all. It's just another form of same
> slavery, force, murder, trickery, theft, war, false authority...
> Spread out, infused, diluted, harder to see and kill than their average
> dictator, by design... a ruse, a ploy, a trap for confusing the sheeple.
> And it worked.
> "B-ah-ah-ah" they all said, "oh please give us that" they begged, while
> scrambling over each other in queues hundreds deep to cast discard their
> own fates down some worthless memehole in a box... a final act of spiritual
> suicide transformed into one of joy by the programming of the wolves that
> still rule over all of them.
>
> Regarding "government", there is only one thing that hasn't been done in
> the past.
>
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