The End of Democracy?

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 18 Aug 2025

Prof. Antonino Drago – TRANSCEND Media Service

15 Aug 2025 –  “You say: Prophet, do not prophesy! Seer, do not see! Tell us instead pleasant things” (Elia) (LdV: Le quatre Fléaux, Paris. Denoel, 1959, p. 9)

Upset by the non-violent revolutions of 1989, the Western intellectual world repeated like a childish refrain an enchanted phrase: “The fall of the Berlin Wall” and theorized the historical end of all analyses of contemporary society. Instead, in 1959, LdV had described the “fall of the Western hero” (LdV: Le quatre Fléaux, §§. 18-24) due to his immeasurable power, which no one can defeat; but he himself, through “active fatalism,” creates a destiny of decadence and he makes it come himself. And in 2002, Johan Galtung predicted the collapse of the US Empire by 2025.

Perhaps the end of democracy is the political hallmark of this fall? This would be confirmed by the fact that Ukraine, despite receiving military support from all of democratic Europe, is coming to a bad end under attack from Putin’s autocracy. The hardening of Israeli democracy into a genocidal military apparatus would also confirm it.

But if there is an end, in my opinion it is not of democracy, but of only liberal democracy and of only liberal state.

Let me explain by clarifying the international history suggested by the five reference points of Gandhian non-violent movements.

1) Gandhi

He theorized the non-violent liberation of India (which was a tenth of all humanity) from the British Empire by writing the pamphlet Hindi Swaraj (1909), which criticized Western civilization as divorced from ethics and therefore destined for decadence. From this little book, Gandhi’s historic revolution was born, which, with thirty years of non-violent struggle, led India to political independence. This example was enough to usher in the end of colonialism worldwide, which occurred within a generation.

2) 1989

In 1924, presenting the novelty of Gandhi’s struggles, Romain Rolland launched a prophecy: “I saw this wave rising from the depths of the Orient, which will not fall before it wil covered Europe. » (R. Rolland, « Preface » to Gandhi M.K. (1924), Jeune Inde, Stock, Paris). In 1959 Lanza del Vasto (LdV: Le quatre Fléaux, chap. 5, §§ 1-17) predicted the overcoming of the Cold War with a non-violent policy. The influence of Gandhi and of this analysis by LdV inspired the revolutions which in 1989, following the slogan “No to violence!”, overthrew the degenerate socialist societies. 65 years after Rolland’s writing and 30 years after LdV’s book, the victory of Solidarity in Poland and the victory of the peoples of Eastern Europe proved them right. And Pope Wojtyla, in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus annus (no. 23), emphasized that “freedom has been achieved almost everywhere through a peaceful struggle, using only the weapons of truth and justice.” And he extolled “the non-violent commitment of men who, while always refusing to yield to the power of force, were able to find effective ways to bear witness to the truth.”

So now we are in the position to recognize the cause of the events of 1989 (which the childish refrain of the Wall conceals): not the politics of superpowers armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, but the politics of the people; who, fighting non-violently in the streets, have steered the course of the 20th century towards a global policy of peace. Without requiring a world war, the political atlas of the world has changed. In fact, no dictator who has ruled in the name of a deviant or sclerotic ideology has suffered personal harm; while at the cost of relatively few human losses, the peoples have obtained: 1) the end of the dictatorships of Eastern Europe, mystified as necessary to the proletariat, 2) the collapse of one of the two superpowers (the USSR); and therefore 3) the end of the “Cold War” that justified catastrophic weapons like nuclear weapons; and, above all, 4) the end of the division of all the world’s peoples, accomplished in Yalta by just four men. In short, in 1989, history was decided by nonviolence. (Quite the opposite of a concrete wall falling without anyone knowing why! Especially since those same states that before ’89 cursed walls, then shamelessly built their own.) But Western propaganda (which invented the unfaithful slogan “The Wall”) cannot admit the political power of nonviolence.

3) The Pluralism of the Four MODV

Some masters of nonviolence (Capitini 1956, LdV 1959, Galtung 2002) have predicted it. A new civilization will be born, no longer that of a single region of the world (in the past Europe, then America), but a global one. Since nonviolence does not seek to impose itself on the will of others, the new civilization will be politically pluralistic. There will essentially be four new political actors, indicated by LdV (Le quatre Fléaux, 1959, IV, § 60): “There are four types of social bodies that throughout history have attributed sovereignty to themselves, that is, the right to peace, war, and justice: the Family or Tribe, the religious Sect, the Nation, and the Faction or Party.” In 1976, Galtung saw them globally as four models of development (MoDv), the fourth of which is the Gandhian-Green one. The four MoDv have been very well represented in the history of recent centuries (in reverse order to LdV’s previous one). The Blue MoDv was born in Western countries (USA, Great Britain, France, etc.), with the revolutions of 1688 in England, 1787 in North America, and 1789 in France. The socialist-communist Red MoDv emerged with the Russian Revolution of 1917, followed by the Chinese, Cuban, and other revolutions. The Gandhian and Green MoDv emerged with the liberation of India and then in Europe with the non-violent revolutions of 1989, which, along with many others of the 20th century, upended world politics. The Yellow MoDv emerged recently with the non-violent Iranian revolution of 1979 and then with the “Arab Spring” of 2011.

The interactions of the four MoDv demonstrate the relevance of the Gandhian-Green MoDv; if this type of MoDv did not exist, in every conflict the two adversaries would oppose each other antagonistically, until the opponent was destroyed, and then the victor would enshrine social life in an oppressive ideology. The Gandhian-Green MoDv is the only international actor capable of finding non-violent methods to overcome the conflict of other MoDvs and thus lift humanity out of the nightmare of an irreducible conflict between two antagonistic parties. Historically, this is precisely what happened in 1989, when the Cold War between the two opposing MoDvs (Blue and Red) was overcome by the astonishing non-violent revolutions of the peoples of Eastern European countries.

This historical framework helps us understand that today we are not facing a clash of civilizations (which in fact already occurred during Gandhi’s time between Hindus and the British, and which was resolved non-violently thanks to him), but rather a pluralist perspective of four MoDvs coexisting both globally, through the states that represent them, and through the movements that actively build them within each state. In conclusion, we non-violent people are aware of contemporary history because nonviolence easily explains the history (of revolutions) of recent centuries, and further explains the emergence of a new pluralist civilization that will provide the opportunity to build non-violent societies.

4) The State

Currently, there are two MoDvs (Blue, inspired by a more or less decadent liberalism, and Red, inspired by a more or less compromised communism), represented by many states; while the Yellow MoDv has only an approximation of its state, the Iranian hierocratic one; and the Green MoDv is not yet represented by a state, but only by global movements (non-violent movements, the Green movement, etc.).

After 1989, the liberal state, through the USA and Europe, has found itself in a dead end: that of an anti-historical policy. For a generation now, Europe, heir to the glorious Greek and Roman civilizations, the cradle of Western civilization, and the beacon of human culture, has chosen to ignore what happened to it in 1989 and wants to go against history: Europe has chosen to maintain and increase its military and economic power by competing with the last remaining superpower in human history, the United States, which sought to survive the end of the Cold War and gain even more power over the world. It has refused to pay “peace dividends” to those non-violent movements that freed it from the nightmare of the Cold War and a nuclear conflict that could kill 200 million people at first sight; it has not promoted them to positions of national and global political responsibility and has thus maintained the old policy; therefore, it has arrogantly sought, in defiance of the UN, to impose its military might and its capitalist and financial economy on the entire world. In fact, the liberal state already degenerated for the first time after WW1, when it gave birth to Fascism, Nazism, and Francoism. In our time, it has degenerated globally into an arms race toward the absurd goal of a war of total destruction, into a global capitalism that exploits peoples, and that yet allows much of its wealth to be stolen by enormous parasitic finance, into a consumerism unaware of the irreversible ecological damage and the depletion of natural resources. In essence, today the world is ruled by 1% of the world’s population, which owns more than double what 70% of the population owns; while a billion people suffer from hunger. It must be said that the liberal state, with its democracy, has led humanity into a dead end.

(It’s no surprise, then, that Ukraine’s democracy, effectively based on Nazi militarism, has positioned itself as the West’s bridgehead against Russia; nor that Zionism, a Judaism which, to be rational, lacks the Bible, has spawned a policeman who commits monstrous acts on the Middle East.)

On the other hand, 70 years of a socialist-communist state have demonstrated that the alternative born within the West to the Blue MoDv has led to appalling dictatorships; today it survives in China, Cuba, etc., with so many compromises that it is, in fact, more of an experiment than an implementation of the new state od the Red MoDv.

To substantiate the new international pluralist politics, it is necessary to establish states corresponding to the Yellow MDS and the Green MDS. Gandhi gave the inaugural speech in India’s independent Parliament, but then returned to his hut, aware that a type of state was emerging in India that was not what he wanted (which was a federation of villages). After the 1989 revolutions, non-violent activists found themselves unprepared to build their own state, due to numerous political shortcomings. The Gandhian Ark communities of Lanza del Vasto represent the beginning of the non-violent state. But they are few, even when adding to them the communities not motivated by non-violence. Furthermore, all sectors of the state needed to be rebuilt, whereas in pre-1989, non-violent activists had theorized the alternative in only three state sectors: education (Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Don Milani), national energy planning (Lovins), and national defense (Sharp, Galtung, Ebert, etc.). But a state encompasses many more social sectors, first and foremost the economy, currently subservient to capitalism and turbo-finance. Furthermore, we non-violent people advocate a minimal state, reconciliation tribunals, the primacy of agriculture over industry, the valorization of artisanal manual labor, and the eradication of the fetishism of science and technology. Therefore, there are still many social sectors and public institutions to be rebuilt.

Furthermore, there is no political organization of non-violent people (the current Greens?). Nor was there time for a political class to mature after the non-violent revolutions, because in 1991, the wars in Yugoslavia and Iraq reimposed the logic of arms in the most brutal manner. It is not surprising that after 1989, the leaders of the victorious non-violent revolutions (Walesa, Havel, etc.) were unable to build a non-violent state. Therefore, moving from the small number of current communities to a non-violent state and substantiating a new Gandhian development model will take time, commitment, and inventiveness. Thus, today, nonviolence appears to many right-thinking people as devoid of political capacity.

Notice that even the peoples of the Arab Spring and Iran failed to build their own state.

What is the conceptual difficulty behind these failed births of alternative states?

5) Overcoming War: The Central Problem of International Politics Today

But when the world’s policeman, the US superpower, will collapse, who will ultimately manage conflicts? After the unpunished horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humanity found itself united in founding an international organization (the UN) that seeks to “avoid the scourge of war for future generations.” But 80 years of experience have shown that the UN and international courts are not sufficient for this purpose, because international law, on which they depend, is only a rationality (of classical logic), while Gandhi instead teaches that to resolve conflicts, reason alone is not enough; ethics and sacrifice are also needed (M.K. Gandhi (1960), All Men Are Brothers, Paris, Unesco, chap. 4, n. 20).

Western rationality, of which law is its social application and technological progress its concrete expression, is in crisis, because in the past it presented itself as omnipotent, that is, capable of resolving all conflicts; but the State which is only rational continually wages wars (see the USA) and within its own courts is content to establish winners and losers. A rational left-wing alternative to the Western rationality has also emerged: basing rights on justice for all. However, historical experience has shown that even with the addition of justice, reason is not capable of sustaining a humanly livable society. Instead, if Gandhi is right, civil coexistence must be based on the ability to resolve conflicts cooperatively, which requires personal sacrifice and ethics. The lesson of the war in Ukraine and the 70-fold revenge of Lamech-Israel is that reason alone is not enough to resolve wars, and that nonviolence is not the magic wand of some new technology.

The Green MoDv State is obviously based on the non-violent resolution of conflicts and therefore must be based on an ethics capable of resolving conflicts. And here lies the other current crisis, that of ethics, which should be constitutive of the Yellow and Green MDS. The Arab state is also stuck on how to introduce Islamic ethics (Sharija) into a state constitution; but Sharija, created for individuals many centuries ago, does not function as a public ethics in modern times (to attribute the political power to priests (as in Iran) is not the solution). But first and foremost, the ethical crisis is among non-violent people, the majority of whom today are pragmatic, that is, (in order to conform non-violence to Western reasoning) do not base their non-violence on personal ethics.

In fact, the ethical crisis is general: today it is clear that the UN is constitutionally incapable of giving decisive ethical directives on: war resolution, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, ecological pollution, etc. To respond to these urgent needs, it should establish a World Senate, composed of the most authoritative people, not states.

But history cannot be stopped. Meanwhile, in the space of less than a generation, a global pluralism (BRICS) has emerged that has already diminished the US superpower and will force it to make way for a new civilization.

Today, as often happens, history progresses along twisted lines compared to its objectives. But let us not give in to anguish and despair. We have a clear spiritual and political fatherhood: Gandhi and LdV; it can enlighten us. So let us not remain tied to the values of the past (mutual tolerance with a modicum of formal democracy and seemingly unlimited individual freedom) of a purely rational and purely Western civilization; Let us embark on a lifeboat that, even in stormy seas, will lead us, albeit uncertainly, to a new civilization, one without nuclear bombs, without fetishes for science and technology, and with entirely new states. Therefore, let us keep the helm firmly on the right path, as far as we are concerned. Let us remember that the decisive events of history are resolved after decades of accumulated struggle and suffering (both voluntary and imposed). Only when a sufficient volume of suffering has been accumulated can the fruit of a nonviolent solution to this global struggle against those states that pose as superpowers vis-à-vis the emerging states be reaped.

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Prof. Antonino Drago: University “Federico II” of Naples, Italy and a member of the TRANSCEND Network. Allied of Ark Community, he teaches at the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU. Master degree in physics (University of Pisa 1961), a follower of the Community of the Ark of Gandhi’s Italian disciple, Lanza del Vasto, a conscientious objector, a participant in the Italian campaigns for conscientious objection (1964-1972) and the campaign for refusing to pay taxes to finance military expenditure (1983-2000). Owing to his long experience in these activities and his writings on these subjects, he was asked by the University of Pisa to teach Nonviolent Popular Defense in the curriculum of “Science for Peace” (from 2001 to 2012) and also Peacebuilding and Peacekeeping (2009-2013. Then by the University of Florence to teach History and Techniques of Nonviolence in the curriculum of “Operations of Peace” (2004-2010). Drago was the first president of the Italian Ministerial Committee for Promoting Unarmed and Nonviolent Civil Defense (2004-2005). drago@unina.it.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 18 Aug 2025.

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