This opinion piece in the N.Y. Times yesterday was a reminder that an absolute hereditary ruler may, at his own discretion, torture any of his subjects to death It suggested that in response to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi that his country restructure itself.
Although a long shot, if King Salman does replace M.B.S., he must transform the absolute Saudi monarchy into a constitutional monarchy with an elected government and parliament, who approve the appointment of future kings and crown princes. That alone will prevent the emergence of a new M.B.S.-like figure who could amass all the power and threaten the interests of the kingdom.
I just confirmed what I thought was true, as shown in this map, that in a short few centuries, from a world where this form of government was ubiquitous -- to a single country, that may be failing due to the monarch’s attempt at consolidating his rule.
While Saudi Arabia is teetering, the last previous country to end their absolute monarchy is Bhutan, which as this WaPo article describes during the few short years of democracy has lost the title of the worlds happiest country. This country, with the population of a congressional district, is a type of natural social science experiment .
But Bhutan’s young democracy, only a decade old, just received a heady dose of the unhappiness that comes with electoral politics. In the months leading up to Thursday’s national elections, the first in five years, politicians traded insults and made extravagant promises. Social media networks lit up with unproved allegations and fearmongering about Bhutan’s role in the world.
It is enough to make some voters express a longing for the previous system — absolute monarchy under a beloved king. “I would love to go back,” said Karma Tenzin, 58, sitting in his apartment in the picturesque capital, Thimphu. “We would be more than happy.”
While there are no hereditary monarchies other than the one led by MbS, there are certainly autocracies, where the leader has all of the power of the archaic form of government, except that of blood lineage — and N.Korea even has that.
President Donald J. Trump, I would argue, in his persona, public communications, --even though probably not conceptualizing as such-- is aspiring to be the leader of such an autocracy. The public, depending on political party, either deplores this, or denies it.
What I have not seen is an objective analysis of the Trump presidency as it has unfolded over the last two years, along with it’s prognosis. The bi-election in November will be consequential, as only if the opposition party gains at least one house of Congress will there be any possibility of altering the path that this country is on.
I throw out this suggestion, simply because the reality of the internecine partisan hatred has already destroyed some of the essential elements of discourse that could end the “United” of the USA. We made the first move in that direction when we changed our national motto from E Pluribus Unum to “In God we Trust” in 1956. Of course the God was tacitly the majority Christian one, dividing us by that most ancient of hatreds, religious.
Contempt of Donald Trump ignores the reality that he reflects something much larger than this intellectually limited individual . His first incarnation was Pat Buchanan, whose Presidential campaign in 1992 went nowhere, as he only had the ideology without the charisma. Now, were Trump to disappear, there are thousand of acolytes to replace him, some who would be more insidiously devious, avoiding his impulsive tweets that display his id to the world.
Perhaps historians in the future will look back on these last two years as a flex point, unlike previous ones when oceans and mountains isolated civilizations, limiting change to a glacial pace. Now, not only does news get around the world instantly, but it’s personalized, and sent directly the magic device now at everyone’s reach.
Could there be something to learn in the experience of Bhutan that challenges the truism that a liberal democracy is the sole way for a society to enhance the well being of its residents. And if so, what is the alternative, or is such a system still waiting to be invented.
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Hopefully, this will spark some thoughts to be continued in the comment section.
