The irrepressible demos fights back

For the moment, democracy seems to have squeaked through in the United States. We're still the contradictory mess we've always been, but for the time being, we haven't completely given up on following our better angels.

Meanwhile, the good people of rest of the world have been fighting their own battles for democracy on their own terms. This post is just a short catalogue of struggles and events I might have been caught up in observing and applauding if I hadn't been so busy over the last three months trying to keep the good ship USA afloat.

• In the former Soviet republic of Belarus, last August a longtime autocrat thought he could pull his usual trick of jailing his opponents and stealing a phony election. Who knew that in this deeply patriarchal society, the wives of the jailed leaders would fight back and protesters would fill the streets for weeks, facing down violent repression? Some in Belarus are still marching and much of the world, aside from Putin's Russia, has still not recognized the legitimacy of the dictator's hold on power. Just yesterday, the European Union sanctioned the dictator and his family. 

• Chileans voted in October to replace the constitution they'd inherited from their deposed dictator, the noxious General Pinochet. Nearly eighty percent of voters opted for bold changes including requiring 50 percent of the delegates to a constitutional convention to be women. Wow!

• In Bolivia, it looked as if the indigenous, peasant insurgency against oligarchic rule signaled by the Evo Morales' election in 2006 had run its course. But a new election showed it was just Evo personally who had run his course. Fifty-five percent of the country voted in a free and fair election for Luis Arce, the nominee of Morales's MAS party, opting to continue on the country's egalitarian trajectory.

• Poland is another post-Soviet society which has seemed to be sinking into illiberalism. But as autocracy and a reactionary version of Catholicism strengthened their hold, last week there were massive protests against tightening of laws restricting abortion. The scale of protest is apparently reminiscent of the heady day when Poles rose up against Soviet domination. A younger generation has something to say.

• Nigerians too have had too much of a rogue paramilitary police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). The unit specializes in unchecked torture, extrajudicial killings, extortion and rape. Nigerian lives matter. Perhaps most improbably of all in this deeply homophobic nation, the #EndSARS movement has incorporated LGBT Nigerians!

The struggle for justice and freedom is never definitively won -- but the autocrats sure find the impulse hard to erase.