It is just amazing why the Chinese communist leaders are haunted by the specter of public uprising amid historic economic success. No government in history has managed to lift millions of its citizens out of the jaws of poverty in a short period of time as the Chinese communist leaders did. The now affluent countries in Europe and America had to languish for centuries before they achieved today’s economic prowess. The sole China did it mesmerizingly, and the Communist party had to be credited for. If communism has done anything good it is in China. Of course, the Chinese communist party didn’t strictly apply Marxian economic principles in the past. The Chinese economic policy is more of a mix of the two left and right dominant economic theories that advocate for the seizure of the best opportunity available in town to maximize profit, and it paid off. The Communist party’s position is different when it comes to politics. The politics is purely communistic. No inclination to politics of the West. No dissent, no freedom of expression, no freedom of association and no freedom of freedom. That is communism, the dictatorship of the few in the name of the dictatorship of the mass.
There is one most important element that characterizes dictatorship in communism: the abundance of fear. There is huge fear in dictatorship. Dictators fear whatever good thing they do. The Chinese communist rulers fear of public protest despite their economic success. They fear at a time when they should be rewarded for their economic success. What is more than registering robust economic success for a leader to be credited for? What would happen if President Obama lifts the US from recession, create millions of jobs and achieve 5 % growth let alone a 10 % growth as the Chinese Communist leaders did? I bet if Mr. Obama would not be anointed to be a king, at least he would not live in fear of a revolution that topples him down. The paradox is that the Chinese communist leaders do fear that a Jasmine revolution might be possible even if they achieved economic success, but Mr. Obama doesn’t fear the same even if his economic achievement is modest. Why? There comes the mystery of freedom and democracy. Mr. Obama does act in a country where freedom and democracy is not compromised. He knows his term and hands over power when the time comes. So Mr. Obama has nothing to fear of any sort of revolution. But, the Chinese leaders don’t know term limit, as a result they live in fear of losing their grip of power.
One good thing about democracy and freedom is that it relieves both the leaders and the people from fear. The people don’t fear that their leaders wouldn’t subjugate them. Similarly the leaders don’t fear that their people would overthrow them before their term limit.
In China both the leaders and people are afraid of each other which testifies that economic success alone doesn’t guarantee living with no fear. The problem in Chinese style of system is that when both the people and leaders collide to each other, the consequence will be severe. There will be huge losses of souls and distraction of property which is less severe in a democracy. The people know that if they don’t annihilate their leaders completely, they would fear the worst out of retaliation. Leaders also know that if they don’t crack – down the people to the level that they don’t think to repeat the same feat, they know what comes next. This is exactly why the Libyan , Yemen and other Arab uprisings turned ugly and compromise impossible. The big lesson we learnt from Tunisia and Egypt revolutions is the importance of uprooting dictatorship from the root and leaving no room for compromise.
Coming back to the point, freedom not economic success guarantees both the ruler and the ruled to live in peace and without fear. Unfortunately many African dictators in the likes of Zenawi don’t understand this general truth. Meles Zenawi forwards economic success as a premise to show that the specter of the Arab revolution is not haunting him. That is hypocrisy. He also argues that the unveiling of the recent Nile Dam project has increased the people’s support to the regime. This is also hypocrisy. Let alone Ethiopia’s modest economic growth, the Chinese amazing economic success couldn’t protect the Chinese leadership from living in fear. No amount of dam can contain a dictator’s fear.
