Alexander Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin"

Eugene Onegin is a remarkable book written by a remarkable author, Alexander Pushkin. He was a Russian who lived during one of Europe’s most significant political upheavals, the French revolution and Napoleon’s subsequent attempt to master all of Europe. It was also a time of rapid cultural change; ideas of the feudalist aristocracy were slowly being replaced with beliefs, unleashed by the French, about the universal rights of man. Pushkin’s personal origins were no less unique. His maternal great grandfather, Ibrahim Gannibal, was an African captured from the Ottomans, Russia’s perennial enemy, and who was brought to Russia to be a servant. Gannibal eventually married into the Russian nobility, and produced many offspring; Alexander Pushkin was one of his descendants. He went on to become a prolific man of letters, and Eugene Onegin is one of his supreme achievements of writing and narration. Unsurprisingly, the book had a significant influence on later Russian geniuses including Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

Eugene Onegin is the main character in the eponymously named book, but it includes his friend, the poet Vladimir Lensky, and two sisters, Tatyana and Olga. The text mainly focuses on Eugene’s relationship with Tatyana, which at various points is impaired, because it is characterized with love and frustration not equally shared. The story is expressed in verse not prose; and, to fully enjoy its expression, reading it out loud is what I chose. Normally, I do not read that way. But for Eugene Onegin I made an exception, and therefore can say: taking that approach was worth it, it enhanced the story’s scintillatingly fervent, lessons and insights on the messiness of life, in the areas of love, loss, aging, and emotional strife.

Eugene is a young member of the nobility who does not have to work to earn his bread; he therefore lives the life of a dilettante, attending balls, seducing many women, gambling, drinking, staying up late and sleeping for most of the day. Early in the text he has an eureka moment and realizes how meaningless most of his activities are. He subsequently falls into a depression of sorts, the kind distinctly associated with the disenchantment of modernity. In Eugene one detected

Modern man himself portrayed

With something of his true complexion

With his immoral soul disclosed

His arid vanity exposed

His endless bent for deep reflection

His cold, embittered mind that seems

To waste itself in empty dreams

Regardless of these defects, the beautiful and virtuous Tatyana falls deeply in love with Eugene. Some of the most riveting and lyrical verses express the intensity of her love. Tatyana:

Fell in love. For thus indeed

Does Spring awake the buried seed

Long since her keen imagination

With tenderness and pain imbued

Had hungered for the fatal food

She had to tell him how she felt, but could not arrange a private meeting. Eugene receives a letter from Tatyana which expresses her longing and yearning, and at that point he must make a decision on whether to continue his playboy existence or surrender to the duties and obligations of married life. Eugene chooses the former because, despite his unhappiness, he does not want to give up his freedom and he fears the monotony of marriage. When Eugene rejects Tatyana’s love, he tells her

However much I loved you, dear

Once used to you…I’d cease, I fear

These lines provide a window into Eugene’s character. He could have had the beautiful Tatyana if he wanted, for she was willing to surrender herself entirely to him. But she wanted a husband, not a fling. He chose to be honest about his unsuitability to that task, rather than, for pleasure’s sake, wear a mask.

Tatyana’s love sickness is profound and oppressive, but this is the result of her youth more than Eugene. Some of the best lines describe early adulthood, that period when emotions, positive and negative, are extremely intense; when, due to the lack of the cynicism that results from experiencing life’s disappointments, the turbulence of emotions is completely exposed:

But flaming youth in all its madness

Keeps nothing of its heart concealed

Its loves and hates, its joys and sadness

Are babbled out and soon revealed.

Meanwhile Eugene’s friend, the poet Vladimir Lensky, is only 18 when he falls in love with Olga, and his soul was:

Aflame with virgin fire. Olga

Gave Lensky intimations

Of youthful ecstasies unknown

This relationship looks promising because Vladimir, unlike his friend Eugene, is fit for marriage:

So Lensky soared as he awaited

His wedding day two weeks ahead

With joy his heart anticipated

The mysteries of the marriage bed

The frigid yawning days to be

He never pictures once, not he

While we…perceive full well what home life means

But one long string of dreary scenes

But my poor Lensky, deep at heart

Was born to play this very part

Tragically, their union is never consummated because of Lensky’s untimely death in a duel with is erstwhile friend Eugene. The cause of their discord is Eugene’s flirtation with Olga at a ball. Lensky is furious and wants to avenge this slight against his honour, and so he challenges Eugene to a duel. The latter accepts because a refusal would have been perceived as cowardly. Lensky loses and dies at the tragically tender age of 18.

Returning to Tatyana, at times, her despair is so intense, the reader gets the impression, that she will be permanently scarred from Eugene’s rejection, but she eventually marries a dashing member of the military elite, and goes on to live what seems like a life contented and complete. Eugene, in contrast, remains disappointed and frustrated. As time passes, he begins to question the value he placed on the freedom of the single dilettante. Years later, his yearning for love appears, just as the winter is ending. The not-coincidental parallels between the beginning of spring, and the burning pangs of desire, will also sound familiar to many readers:

How sad I find your apparition

O spring!...O time of love’s unrest

What sombre echoes of ambition

Then stir my blood and fill my breast

What tender and oppressive yearning

Possess me on spring’s returning

Eugene also recognizes that he is not getting younger, and that the spring holds lessons for the passing of his youth

Do we mark with lamentation

How nature’s lively renovation

Compares with our own fading youth

For which no spring will come, in truth

These existential reflections lead Eugene to regret his decision of rejecting Tatyana’s love, and he blames his youthful naiveté for that choice:

How sad that youth, with all its power

Was given us in vain, to burn

That we betrayed it every hour

And were deceived by it in turn

When he sees Tatyana again, she is married and unavailable, and (perhaps not coincidently) Eugene falls in love with her. At this point, the cynic might say that Tatyana’s marital status is what makes her suddenly so desirable to Eugene, and Pushkin alludes to this possibility when he tells the reader that

We’ve got to have forbidden fruit

Or Eden’s joys for us are moot

A more charitable interpretation is that Eugene discovered that the freedom he so initially desired, and that led him to reject the stability of marriage to Tatyana, was overrated. In classic tragic fashion, by the time he learns this necessary truth, it is too late: Tatyana is unavailable, and his youth is fading. Eugene nonetheless tries to woo her, and, despite her continued feelings for him, she refuses his advances. It was the right move, because one gets the sense that, as soon as Tatyana gave herself to Eugene, he would lose interest in her. Their characters, or aims, are not compatible. Meanwhile, she may not be passionately in love with her husband, but he provides the stability and commitment that she desires. Many readers of Eugene Onegin will find these themes to be very familiar.

Some Thoughts on Reinhold Niebuhr's "Moral Man and Immoral Society"

In April of 2017 it was my turn to select a text for my book club to read and discuss, and I chose Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. It was not my first choice; that would have been Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society. But after suggesting it to others in the group, it appeared that there was little enthusiasm to read a philosophically dense treatise, and so I de-selected it, as it were. I nonetheless decided to read Niebuhr’s book, in part because I have a taste for philosophy but also because one of my students recommended it. The investment of time it took to get through Moral Man and Immoral Society was worth it, for, as often happens after reading great literature, Niebuhr’s analysis forced me to examine my own assumptions and beliefs, and even to re-evaluate them.

Although Moral Man and Immoral Society is a philosophically profound text, the main thesis is rather simple: we need to draw a clear distinction between the moral behaviour of individuals and of groups. Individuals are capable of genuine love, the kind that allows an altruistic transcendence of one’s own interests. Groups, on the other hand—class, race, and national in particular—are intrinsically selfish in the sense that they are incapable of being truly altruistic. The relations between groups, therefore, must always be primarily political rather than ethical and will be determined by the relative power that each group possesses. The significance of this thesis should not be underestimated; it poses an existential challenge to belief systems, including Christianity, liberalism, Marxism, and humanitarianism, that assert the existence of a universal morality that can transcend the moral defects at the heart of all inter-group behaviour.

If Niebuhr’s purpose is to dismantle the universalist pretensions of those camps, one may suspect that he concludes we are left only with an amoral political realism based on the inevitability of the naked struggle for power. But that would be a misreading of the book; as this blogpost will show, no philosophy, not even realism, is spared from the light of Niebuhr’s immense intellectual acuity. The defects of realism will be addressed at the end of this post, but first it is essential to elaborate on Niebuhr’s main thesis.

Tragedy and Inequality

A tragedy of life is the existence of various forms of inequality, especially in our political and economic relations. Justice, then, entails moves towards equality, and not coincidently, most theories of justice, whether secular or religious, aim to achieve more equitable social relations. Reaching that objective depends on social action but it also requires a change in human consciousness, subjectivity, and feeling so that love and altruism replace interest and egoism. Given the right circumstances, this change is possible among individuals in the interpersonal realm of life, mainly because humans are capable of genuinely loving those close to them. We can clearly identify their needs, weaknesses, and wants, and can relate to them without any calculation of personal loss or gain. Complete mutuality, understood as the entanglement and enmeshment of interests, is possible in the interpersonal realm and, therefore, so is complete equality and justice. Relationships between groups—class, race, national—do not share these properties and potentialities. Groups are abstractions that can inspire loyalty but not genuine love. This becomes the basis of group power in relation to other groups, transmuting in-group devotion into out-group competition. Therefore, whenever humans organize themselves into groups that depend on loyalty, inter-group behaviour will be based on interests, egoism, and relations of power. The implications for the unjust inequalities between groups are significant. If purely ethical behaviour between them is not possible, inter-group injustice can only be addressed via struggle and strife that helps to equalize these relations in some way. However, although these struggles may be successful in the sense that they may strengthen the weaker group and weaken the stronger, perfect equality between groups will never be fully obtained or durable. The persistent inequalities between groups sow the seeds, or set the stage, for the next round of struggle and strife ad infinitum.

 But Liberals are so nice!

 Enlightenment thinkers, and those inspired by them, would disagree. One of the key planks of this intellectual movement was that universal justice is possible. To achieve it, religion, superstition, and hereditary privilege would need to be replaced with commerce, democracy, secularism, and the rights of man. The primacy of reason, imparted through universal education, would inexorably help man discard his ancient delusions and guide him towards the utopia of an order based on relationships of liberty and equality among all persons.

Niebuhr shows how implausible this is. He demonstrates that liberal society contains much hierarchy, inequality, and coercion that produces an unequal distribution of power and privilege among myriad groups living in the same political unit.  One example he cites is universal publicly provided education, which is one of the main mechanisms today’s descendants of the Enlightenment (progressive liberals) believe will produce the change in consciousness that leads to universal justice. It depends on the coercive apparatus of the state, and the state is hardly impartial. Rather it is dominated by privileged groups who, with their political and economic resources, arrogate themselves the power to decide what should be taught, and how. The immense privilege this confers is mainly recognized by those who are excluded from these structures of power. In contrast, the privileged classes are largely oblivious to their power mainly because of the tendency of powerful groups to equate their interests and values with everyone else’s. Inequality is reproduced, in part, by the acquiescence of the weaker party to this state of affairs even though they recognize that inequality and coercion lies at the heart of it. But this consent is not durable; when the weaker and excluded group begins to increase its relative power (either in numbers or economic resources), it will challenge the stronger and privileged class. The logic of this analysis is applicable to other areas of inter-group life, especially race relations. Niebuhr vividly illustrates how whites,  not only are they often oblivious to their power over blacks, but they also equate their values with those of the community. As the dominant group, they have an outsized influence on the coercive apparatus of the state, ensuring that institutions are never really impartial. Rather, institutions rely on coercion that reproduces inequality, political and economic. It is the oppressed races that see the state of affairs clearly, Niebuhr argues, for they do not suffer from the ideological delusions that afflict the powerful.

 In the international sphere, the main collective unit is the nation, which perhaps suffers most from the moral defects that affect all groups. Scoundrels use this political unit to vicariously enhance their own sense of prestige. Their belongingness to the nation provides a sense of equality and dignity that are unattainable in other realms of life, inspiring a degree of loyalty that makes them willing tools of the powerful members who execute all the abusive policies associated with powerful nations, in particular imperialism in its various guises. Meanwhile, the powerful always cloak the expansionary or imperial policy of the nation in the language of universal values, confirming the pattern that can be observed in the domestic realm whereby economically and politically dominant groups conflate their interests with the community’s. Powerful states are expansionary because the preservation of their power depends on continued increases in strength in relation to their rivals, highlighting the very thin, perhaps non-existent, line between defensive and offensive capabilities.

 Niebuhr wrote this text in 1934, when, among other things, the British Empire still commanded large swaths of the world. He is therefore unforgiving in his dismantling of the pretentions of British imperialists who conflated their colonization with universal values. Niebuhr does not spare his home country, America, either. It too engaged in imperial policy when it defeated the Spanish and took their territories in Cuba and the Philippines. And it, too, defended this naked imperial policy with the language of universal values and civilization. Niebuhr says this pattern occurs because statesmen are trying to resolve the unbridgeable gap between the ethical categories that influence their interpersonal relations with the naked struggle for power that exists at the inter-group level. Rather than honestly interrogating this gap, they engage in self-deception and hypocrisy.

 The worst kind of self-deception and hypocrisy is observable among so called “humanitarians.” During the Spanish American war, it was the humanitarians who, in Niebuhr’s colorful phrase, went into a frenzy of “ecstasy” in support of the war in order to “liberate” oppressed Cubans and Filipinos. The moral defects which afflict all groups perhaps reach their climax among humanitarians because their sense of righteousness impedes the capacity for critical thought. It is not hard to imagine what Niebuhr would have thought of today’s “humanitarians” (known as neocons and liberal interventionists). He would have seen their attempt to frame political ambitions in the language of universal justice and morality for what it is: a combination of righteousness, hypocrisy, and self-deception.

 The humanitarian disaster in Syria is a case study that reveals the continued utility of Niebuhr’s thesis more than 80 years after it was published. Especially in the West, there are loud and influential voices calling for American intervention to destroy the government of Bashir Al-Assad. Almost invariably, this policy is framed in the language of universal values—for example, the need to promote human rights and democracy. Niebuhr’s thesis encourages us to look beneath the language of universal values used by the powerful; what might we find? First, we would notice that the attempt to frame the conflict in terms of some clear moral dichotomy, with the evil fascist dictator on one side and a group of innocent, democratic, and oppressed rebels on the other, as meretricious and tendentious. Rather, there are different groups which are struggling for power, and each is trying to gain an advantage relative to their rivals. The dictator, for example, is Allawi and is supported by secularists, Christians, Druze, Kurds, and other minorities. The rebels, meanwhile, are almost exclusively Sunni Muslim and largely Islamist. Geopolitical associations matter greatly too; the Islamist rebels are supported mainly by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, America, Israel, Britain and France, while Assad is supported by Iran, Egypt, and Russia. These inter-group struggles lie at the heart of the conflict, and all the parties are motivated by power; it follows that intervention must favour one or the other groups in their egotistical struggle for domination. Thus, channeling the spirit of Niebuhr, we’d say that the attempt to frame this inter-group struggle in the language of universal values is a best naïve and at worst dishonest.

 Faith in Marxism?

 Marxism is not spared from Niebuhr’s analysis. When Moral Man and Immoral Society was published, the Cold War was not yet in full force but Marxism had prevailed in Russia and had gained many adherents in the West. Communist intellectuals, as children of the Enlightenment, believed that the universal morality of communism would produce universal peace and justice. First, however, capitalism had to be dismantled, because it was the economic inequality produced by capitalism that was responsible for myriad social and political ills. Once private property was eliminated, there would be a transition phase, and then the eventual achievement of a society, and a world, organized around the principle of “to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities”. Presumably, the pathologies that characterize inter-group behaviour, including imperialism and colonization, would be abolished too. Niebuhr begins his critique of Marxism by pointing out the obvious, namely, that imperialism existed long before capitalism and will exist after it. He adds that the application of Marxism, although inspired by good intentions, creates a new inequality on the ashes of the old one. Political class replaces economic class as the primary determinant of power and privilege, and powerful groups inevitably become egocentric, reproducing the inequality between themselves and the excluded.  Politically dominant groups in Marxist societies, unsurprisingly, also frame their power and privilege in the language of universal values and justice, confirming the pattern of self-deception and hypocrisy seen among other groups.

 We now turn to another religion, specifically Christianity. Building on the observations of Nietzsche, Niebuhr accurately observes that Christianity was a “slave revolt” because, in contrast to the ethics of antiquity which  celebrated strength and superiority, this new religion claimed that the meek, not the strong, would inherit the earth. Marxism’s vision is not that different: it too claims that the weak (i.e. the working class) are destined to prevail. Whereas Christians believe that the Holy Spirit will ultimately lead to the promised land, Marxists believe in the mythical power of “historical materialism” to actualize the inevitable utopia. And once utopia is reached, universal justice will be achieved, and humanity will transcend the moral defects of all groups, and especially the powerful.

 Niebuhr is unforgiving in his critique of Christianity even though he was a devout believer and a theologian by training. He points out what every student of history knows, namely, that once Christianity obtained power, it displayed the tendencies of other powerful groups, including the desire for political expansion and the framing of this action in the language of universal values and justice. He critiques the faith on other grounds. Contra Christianity, violence is not intrinsically immoral, and can be justified if the purpose is to fight oppression. To support his case, Niebuhr cites three instances of oppressed groups which took a purely Christian approach to fighting oppression: (pre-civil rights era) blacks in America, peasants in Russia fighting Czarist autocracy, and socialists in Italy who attempted to fight the Fascists in their country. In all three cases, efforts to fight the oppressor with love and non-violence ended in failure. Only struggle and strife could help to successfully challenge the powerful.

 The hole in the heart of realism

 This leaves us with political realism. The need for order requires power, and the establishment of power always entails economically and politically dominant groups using coercion to impose their vision on others. This entails inequality of some kind—economic or political, which becomes the basis of future struggle, as soon as the weaker group possesses sufficient power to challenge the more powerful group. Genuine equality between groups is therefore never durable, and hence neither is universal justice. We are therefore left with eternal struggle and strife, which would be a very bleak conclusion.

 But Niebuhr shows that it is not so simple. Although political realism is the most rational political theory in the sense that it is devoid of illusions and ideals, pure rationality can be just as dangerous as idealistic moralism. Niebuhr shows how rationality is never really impartial, and in fact it most often expresses the interests of the group in which one belongs. Members of powerful groups are therefore apt to use their reason for the perpetuation of privilege, and hence their ideas cannot be taken at face value, especially by members of weaker groups who see through the ideological justifications of their masters.

 Idealism may be necessary even if it is based on illusion, and herein lies the paradox of progressive social action. According to Niebuhr, the vision of perfect justice is impossible but it can only be approximated by those who do not regard it as impossible. In Niebuhr’s poignant words, “the most important illusion is that perfect justice is achievable, for it cannot be approximated if the hope of its perfect realization does not generate a sublime madness of the soul”. The absolutist and fanatic, although dangerous, is necessary because society is inclined to inertia. Religious madness is particularly suited to the task of approximating justice because it is often “purer” than the secular kind, and this purity is essential to its efficacy. Again, in Niebuhr’s own words:

 The highest mutuality is achieved where mutual advantages are not constantly sought as the fruit of love. For love is purest when it desires no returns. Mutuality is therefore most perfectly realized where it is not intended; that is how the madness of religious morality becomes the wisdom which achieves wholesome social consequences.

 Within the group, the madness of religion may approximate justice, but not it cannot overcome the egoism that lies at the heart of all inter-group behaviour. Relationships between groups will always display some form of inequality, political or economic, and this ensures that competition, struggle and strife will eternally characterize inter-group relationships. Moralists, activists, and ideologues will not take kindly to Niebuhr’s conclusions, but if they are intellectually honest they may recognize that he encourages them, especially if they are members of dominate nations, to shed the language of universal justice and reveal the egotistical political ambitions that lie at the heart of group activity. Members of weaker groups will find much that is inspiring in Niebuhr’s work, for it helps to unmask the universalist pretentions of stronger groups. On the other hand, he reminds weaker groups that they cannot escape the moral dilemmas he recognizes as intrinsic to all collective units, whether class, race, or nation. They may, via struggles against stronger groups, reduce inter-group inequality, and they may even become more powerful than their erstwhile foes. When that occurs, their intrinsic egoism will be deployed to preserve the privilege and power they have accrued, at the expense of groups who have less power and who will eventually challenge them, leading to another round of struggle and strife ad infinitum.

Donald Trump: A Symptom of Imperial Decline

                                         

 Thirty-six years ago the political scientist Robert Gilpin wrote Hegemonic War and International Change, a seminal piece that is still required reading for many undergraduates (including my own). He identifies discernable patterns throughout the history of global politics, namely, power transitions from the established but declining great power to the rising one. The characteristics of the declining state’s politics include anger about the loss of status, disputes about the reasons for its occurrence, increased political polarization, insularity, and pessimism—a mix of conditions that are ripe for the rise of a strong man who promises to make things right. In this blog post I will suggest that this pattern fits the current global order characterized with America’s relative decline and Chinese ascendency, and that Donald Trump’s triumph is not unrelated to this historical power transition.

The main contenders

Gilpin shows that as the leading state declines, more and more believe that its international commitments are too costly to sustain, mainly because of the needs of domestic constituents.  There are several ways of responding to this challenge: scale back the commitments, demand that the recipients pay more for the costs of protection, or increase domestic productivity so that more resources are available for funding international obligations. Generally, the last is hardest because the established power’s population is aging and lacks the dynamism for the necessary increase in growth, or it has lost the desire to bear the burden of leadership. The first two, therefore, are typically pursued.

Another aspect of power transitions is a “closing of space”: the established and rising powers repeatedly “bump” into each other, leading to minor skirmishes. Alliance formations are a major reason for these disputes, as a distinguishing feature of the established power is defense and economic ties to countries that feel threatened by the rising one (sometimes called “encirclement”). These ties help balance the rising power, but only up to a point. When allies begin to feel that the hegemon’s commitments to their security are not secure, they either beef up their own defense capabilities, consider developing new security arrangements or defect to the rising power.

Lastly, Gilpin shows that the society of the declining power is characterized with an increased rights-based mentality that emphasizes individual (and hence domestic) needs and wants over international ones. There are also major domestic disputes about which rights should be satisfied, leading to fierce political conflict that becomes difficult to bridge. As polarization increases, a blame game ensues as each side of the political divide blames the other for the general decline in economic well-being. Conversely, in the rising state a sense of duty to contribute to the nation’s destiny prevails. There is a relatively accepted consensus that it will soon assume leadership of the international system and that citizens, in both public and private sectors, should contribute to the attainment of that goal. Confidence is high in this society because it is growing fast and rapidly increasing investments in the military, while the established power is divided, insular and increasingly prioritizing domestic needs over international ones.

This picture more or less characterizes the relationship between the US and China over the last fifteen years, and Trump’s victory needs to be placed in that context. Not coincidently, his rise coincides with some significant inflection points: China’s economy is now roughly equal in size to America’s, it is the world’s largest manufacturer, and its military expenditure is growing at double-digit rates. Current trends suggest that China will soon overtake America as the world’s leading state, and Americans are fiercely divided about how to manage the domestic and international challenges posed by this power transition.

Thus it is no coincidence that Trump’s major target is China or that his main campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again” is an implicit recognition of a sense of American decline. Other patterns fit the mold; as Gilpin might have predicted, China and the US are increasingly “bumping into each other”, as China makes territorial claims against America’s allies in the region. The domestic and psychological changes identified by Gilpin can also be observed. While the US is polarized, pessimistic, and prioritizing domestic needs, China is increasingly confident and becoming bolder in challenging the US-led order. Philippino President Rodrigo Duterte’s surprising defection to China despite his country’s long alliance with the US may be a sign of more to come.

Gilpin’s analysis of power transitions over 2500 years show that more often than not they result in war. In all the international power transitions he analyzes (Peloponnesian War, Punic wars, the Crusades, 30 years’ war, Napoleonic wars, World War 1), war was preceded by structural shifts in the distribution of power, an unwillingness of the established power to accept decline, the rising power’s increasing assertiveness and claim to rightful leadership, leading to disequilibrium, tensions, skirmishes, and conflict. This does not bode well for the Trump administration. Soon enough Trump may face a crisis in South East Asia that will test his resolve to defend a status quo characterized by waning American leadership. The alternative is to accept the structural shifts taking place and accede to China’s effective control of the region. If he refuses to bow to China’s claim of regional leadership, a high-stakes war is very likely. Gilpin shows that, during these types of “hegemonic” wars, at stake is not only or mainly military dominance, but also whose societal model gains prestige, radiates outwards and becomes the norm. A victory for China in any standoff with the US would also mean a triumph of China’s model of authoritarian state-capitalism, giving liberal democracy another major blow.