Kimmo Huosionmaa
https://crisisofdemocracticstates.blogspot.fi/
About the future of the Europe is a road, what every culture and empire have done. That is the road of the Roman empire and all other empires on the earth. All empires have risen because people needed protection against other people, but after that, the empires have fallen by internal disorders. That is the road for the European Union, if something will not be done soon. The reason why all empires have fallen is very clear. There have been the forces, who thought that all nations must be independent. But those people have another reason for drive independence in their areas, and that is not very altruistic. The reason for those independence movements is actually that those people can be great leaders in the small countries. And those populistic movement leaders might only want good work in the parliament. And that kind of people caused the collapse of the empire. Every empire has met their fate in the situation, where people have bored about the government of their homelands. In the authoritarian state, people lost their trust in authorities.
And that stated the rebel against the central government like in the Russian in 1917. The people were bored for the tsar, and after that, they started to fear the leader of the Russian empire, and that’s why they started the open rebellion against that man, who was the absolute dictator. The authoritarian and strong leadership of the state seem very good way to restore law and order to the state. But there is one little risk in that philosophy. Those leaders will sometimes become very brutal against their people. When we are talking about the restoring the law and the order, normally people think that means riots and violence.
Modern police forces have created the situation where violence is concrete but the violent person wants to save his life. And of course, the weapon what is used in that action is effective only in the short range. Nobody ever thought that somebody will open the fire in the middle of the street with the assault rifle and after that explodes himself. This kind of violence is the new element for police. But when we are talking about strong leadership we must understand that those strong leaders might be first very democratic. Those laws what allows the authoritarian way to use power are made to protecting the state. They were necessary for young states, what was not able to stabilize their governmental power and position for their governmental institutions.
But if those laws will stay, they can give power to undemocratic advantage for that state. And we must realize that no leader lives forever. When the person in the head of the state changes the next owner of that position is not so democratic than his predictor. That is what we have seen in the history. The democracy based need for the strong leadership has changed for the nightmare like in many young states have done. The leaders who were very charismatic leaders for the people were changed as populistic and authoritative leaders, who crush the opposition without mercy. That kind of advantage will cause fear against the government, and the result could be devastating for the empire. That happened in the Roman Empire and the last empire what faced that truth is the Soviet Union what collapsed because people feared to go home after protests.
That caused the snowball effect, where more and more people came to the streets, and then the Soviet government was unable to handle that situation. And the thing what grown that effect was fear, because the history of the Soviet and Russian government showed to the people, that they will go in very big trouble if they have taken part of the riots, what we're all demonstrations, what were focused against the central government of the Soviet Union. And they remember the promises what the Soviet authorities had made, and what they had broken. And that is the problem with strong leaders. They afraid the people, and sometimes the fear is too strong, and people will start to rebel. This is the danger for an authoritative government.