A "summit for democracy", what for?

Audio 02:44

US President Joe Biden speaks in Maryland, United States, December 2, 2021. (Photo illustration) REUTERS - KEVIN LAMARQUE

By: Bruno Daroux Follow

3 min

This week, we are interested in the "world summit for democracy" which, on the initiative of US President Joe Biden, is to take place on December 9 and 10 by videoconference.

Can this summit for democracy strengthen democratic states in a more than volatile context? 

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This world summit for democracy was wanted by Joe Biden.

It was even one of his campaign commitments.

The idea for the American president is to discuss ways to strengthen the foundations of democracy at a time when they are regularly attacked by certain groups and small groups on social networks, and by certain States which advocate a model. different or move away from their democratic base, selecting, in a way, what can remain democratic and what must be more supervised, more supervised, even repressed.

The idea may sound noble.

But it is also at the heart of Joe Biden's strategy, whether internally or vis-à-vis other powers abroad.

Internally, the four years of Trump's presidency have severely damaged the American democratic ideal.

By his persistent desire to denigrate the electoral process by constantly speaking of fraud and deception, Donald Trump has seriously damaged the credit given to the election, which is one of the credos of the democratic system.

Worse, he encouraged his supporters to march on Capitol Hill, creating a situation that for a few hours last January rocked American democracy.

Almost a year later, despite the election of Joe Biden, this democracy is still fragile, contested and criticized.

That is why the American president considers it important to reiterate the total support of the United States in this political system.

Vis-à-vis the outside world, Joe Biden wants to present himself at this summit as the leader of democratic states.

A leader in himself, but also - and this is where it gets complicated - a leader to lead the cultural and ideological fight against states that question or prevent democratic functioning at home - by reducing or eliminating the rule of law , individual freedoms, freedom of conscience and expression, the right to demonstrate and to oppose the power in place, not to mention massively rigged elections.

Suddenly, the question arose of knowing who to invite to this summit and on what criteria?

Finally, 110 countries were invited and some invitations are surprising.

For example, why invite Poland, but not Hungary?

Pakistan or Brazil, but not Turkey? 

Above all, two states were not invited: China and Russia.

Washington's message is clear: there is no question of inviting two countries which, on a daily basis, trample on democratic ideals.

In doing so, Biden takes the assumed risk of being accused of instrumentalizing this summit to make it the reunion of the countries of "good" against those who embody "evil", and thereby relaunching a form of cold war. .

Beijing and Moscow protested against this exclusion.

But in Washington, that is exactly what we are looking for: to disqualify these states and to reaffirm with force that as Churchill said, " 

 ." 

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