Challenges to Democracy

Host = Nicholas CarlieZB = Zanele Baqwa

Host: Hello, my name is Nicholas Carlie. I’m a former journalist for Norwegian Broadcasting and work as a schoolteacher. In this podcast series, we will explore democracy in several English-speaking countries, to try to get a better understanding of how they work and what, if any, threats they face.

Host: Today I will be speaking with Zanele Baqwa, a retired activist and psychiatrist actually from South Africa. Welcome, Zanele. How are you today?

ZB: I’m cool, I’m cool, thank you.

Host: It’s nice to have you here. Tell me a little bit about your background and your experience with South Africa, and politics in South Africa, that is what we will be looking closely at today.

ZB: Yes, where does one start? When you’re born as a black South African child, you’re already into politics, I’m telling you, because they’re going to impact on you the minute your awareness is raised. And then when I was 16, I refused to take a photograph of me. I was doing ‘videregående’ then, matriculation, and that was in Durban, in Marion Hill, where Steve Biko of the Black Consciousness Movement went also. And my husband to be, I didn’t know him then, was also at the same college, Marion Hill. I refused to take a picture for a pass, because we, women then, were supposed to carry identity passes. And then I was, of course, called to the principal’s office and all the staff and the special branch that is the wing of the police for the apartheid government, they were questioning me if I was a communist or not, 16 years old then, that was around ‘64, ‘62, yeah. Anyway, in ‘65, because I had been also in the company of many friends of mine in Soweto – I grew up in Soweto, in Meadowlands – I had friends who were members of the African National Congress, but I wasn’t a member then. I joined the African National Congress in ‘65, when I decided to skip the country, and join the liberation movement.

Host: Okay, but that meant you had to leave your home?

ZB: I had to leave my home, because already the police were coming to my house to look for me.

Host: Hmm. Tell me a little bit about growing up with apartheid and what was it actually physically? Is it as bad as we’ve heard?

ZB: Oh, man! I think I’m still having that feeling from those times, it has layered itself into my body. The pain of seeing black people being maltreated. The difficulty for people to own their homes, because of the 1913 Land Act. It was called the Native Land Act, where 7%, it was 1913, 7% of the population that was white owned, got permission to own, 87% of the land. And that’s why, even today in South Africa, now the land question is a big, big deal.

Host: It’s still a big wound on the soul of South Africa, isn’t this? Land ownership and land rights.

ZB: Right. Because that has to do with economic emancipation, yeah. So, they didn’t own, most of our mothers were working, bringing up white kids in the white suburbs. People had to leave the suburbs at a certain time because they were not allowed to be in town. It was really just like, what you call it in America, the civil rights – the Jim Crow.

Host: Right, the Jim Crow laws.

ZB: Laws yes, but it was more institutionalised.

Host: Yes, and they were official? It wasn’t a street law; it was actually government.

ZB: Yes, in 1948. That is when the apartheid government was formed, in 1948.

Host: And I was going to say, why? Why did they implement apartheid? But already I can hear that there’s obviously an economical incentive here.

ZB: Labor – cheap labor, cheap labour. You know, in 1867, diamonds were discovered in South Africa. And in 1870, was it? Something like that, around that time, gold was discovered. And these two minerals were like, I’m telling you, the incentive for these colonial settlers to really set in the institutions more aggressively and more militarily in a way, to take complete control of South Africa.

Host: And to just steal from South Africa, pretty much?

ZB: They took it by force. Yes, they stole actually. Even now, we are complaining, that’s also why part of the economy is not working, that’s why the economy is not working. The Anglo-American mining companies now are transferring illegally their profits globally out of the country. So, we don’t see any benefits of those profits they make.

Host: Let us fast forward now to the early nineties. The movement doesn’t begin then, but it starts to gain traction, it starts to gain traction internationally as well. What did it feel like for you in the early nineties, looking at South Africa and hearing the news and seeing the changes starting to grow?ZB: I was in Norway then, obviously because I was a refugee in 1965, I came to Norway. So, my connection with South Africa was still organic. I was still a member of the organisations; it was the ANC and the Black Consciousness movement and then I was also in contact with the different comrades. I remember Madiba [Nelson Mandela] was elected president in 1994. By the way, when he was elected president, he promised the people a better life. And, also to deliver the basic demands that the ANC paper of 1955, which was called, the what now, The Freedom Charter. You know; ‘the land shall belong to the people, they shall own this, they shall be free for this and this’. And it’s all in the constitution. He promised a better life, and I remember Tutu singing around, hopping around, pleasing the people, and being glad and hopeful. Talking about Rainbow Nation. There was euphoria. Everybody was looking forward, regardless of the losses incurred by the majority, because of the negotiated settlement which cemented the property relations.

Host: How does South Africa choose a leader, a president? What is the system like? Technically, if we could just be technical for a few minutes here. What is South African democracy?

ZB: Yeah, how do I answer that then? I think I’m going to ...

Host: Could you become president?

ZB: Anybody can be president. But I think you have to belong to the majority party.

Host: Of which there are ... large parties?

ZB: More than 50, man. The most important ones are there also, like, the majority party being the African National Congress. Since 1994, it has been the ruling party, the dominant party. Actually, they call South Africa a one-party dominant state.

Host: Right, and what are they doing that keeps getting them all these votes?

ZB: It’s that emotional connection, the umbilical cord. But right now, it’s changing. Right now, in 2022, they are just getting, like, less than 30% of the votes, when in 1999, they had more than 66%, more than two thirds.

Host: That’s quite dramatic.

ZB: They could have changed the constitution then if they wanted. They should have fixed the land question then, but they didn’t. So, that is the most important party, and then there’s this big one, the Democratic Alliance, which is number, the second one. Which is basically, people feel it represents white monopoly capital still, because it comes from that historical connection. Even though now many, many blacks are leaders of it and they join it. And then there’s this great young, we call them Young Lions, who call themselves the Economic Freedom Fighters, EFF. They are the greatest, or the biggest, let me say, competitors to the ANC government. Because their leaders also come from the Youth League of the ANC.

Host: So, is this the future, maybe, of South African politics coming up here?

ZB: I don’t…The future is the youth, there’s no doubt about it. And most of the youth is invested in the EFF, but also there’s youth invested in both the other two parties. So that’s where democracy now is fun! For the first time, even if it has failed, like my young grandson said, as I asked him what he would say to me about what a young boy of sixteen could say to me, to anybody, when asked about democracy in South Africa, because he said that ‘democracy in South Africa is failing as our government is failing to work with the people to address issues of public concern. For the South African government neglects its citizens’. He’s sixteen years. He was born in 2005. So, this generation, and a few years above them, are becoming smooth, are becoming smarter, they are maturing. Yeah, 28 years into our democracy now, they are maturing. They’re understanding the politics of South Africa. They are the ones who are going to change the way the system functions today, so that the tables are going to be toppled. There’s no doubt about it. ANC is very worried. They are busy looking introspectively to find out why they are losing voters.

Host: Can I also ask you who is policing the government? Is there an independent system to police the government and make sure that ...

ZB: That’s where it’s not working, that’s where it’s not working. The parliament, the National Parliament, comprising 400 members in the legislative assembly based in Cape Town, as it always was. It’s not very functional. I think it comes from the proportional representation that is the electoral system of South Africa today. You don’t choose the people who represent you in the national assembly.

Host: You don’t choose individuals?

ZB: You don’t choose individuals. It’s a listing, a party listing, system. And there are two ballots, according to the parties, one national - during election time - one national ANC, EFF, Democratic Alliance, Freedom Front, all Christian Democratic Party, United Democratic movement bla, bla, bla. They are listed, and then there’s also a provincial listing at the same time. The provincial legislation is a mini copy of the national one. They also have all the rights in the national that they can perform provincially. And then, from the main party that wins the election, comes the president.Host: Chosen internally in the party?

ZB: Chosen internally in the party.

Host: So, it’s not so much a competition of personality then, that we could see in other democratic countries?

ZB: No, I think it is like the British system, isn’t it? It’s not like the American where the president is elected by the people. The British system is just like that, it’s the party that decides who is going to be.

Host: So, whatever party wins, whoever has that job already will kind of get the seat.

ZB: Yes, the leader of the party becomes the leader of the government in the state.

Host: But this frustration with being neglected by the government... This is something that obviously will lead to change because frustration usually does – especially in a country with the history of South Africa has of not accepting injustice forever.

ZB: I mean, in March this year [2022], the World Bank listed South Africa as the most unequal nation in the world.

Host: Wow!

ZB: Despite our Constitution, which was adored by the entire world as a miracle. You know, then you wonder why people, somehow there’s such a game of mirrors, I don’t know. Anyway, it’s terribly unequal. The people are aware of it. Poverty is increasing, crime ... The mother to this little one, the mother of my grandson – when I asked her what she would say about democracy, today, in South Africa today, she said; ‘All it brought us was inequality and crime.’

Host: Right.

ZB: Because there’s unemployment, which is over 70%. 70% of the youth are not working. Imagine between the ages of 15. Oh, my God what is happening to my country? Cry the beloved country, I say. It’s sad. So, there’s going to be change, there’s no doubt about it. It will be by the ballot. But right now, there has been for the last five years or so, demonstrations, riots, insurrections ...Host: How are these received by the government as far as freedom of speech and expression, and all these values that Western democracies claim to hold dear but still struggle with? What is it like now? Could I, as a young South African, have a voice? Could I be critical of my government?

ZB: Yeah, that is the jewel in all this democratic mud, that South Africa has freedom of speech to that level, that the media can just go and wallow in whatever directions they want to. And the people could say whatever they want to, regardless, whether it’s hate-speech or speech that would be denoted as inciting violence and all that. It’s almost like Norway. Here we are looking at SIAN, you know this little Nazi-like group, and they claim freedom of speech. In South Africa, there are young Afrikaner and Nazi-like groups that also claim the same. So, freedom of speech is there, and it’s working well. The government doesn’t do anything to stop that gap.

Host: Which means that a young girl critical of her government, now many years after you were, she does not have to leave South Africa in the way that you did? She could probably stay there. So, we have a young democracy which is imperfect, but hopeful?

ZB: Yes, there have to be, there have to be understandings. Yes, something African must get in. And what is that? You know, I think we have been so distorted as a cultural people, our own culture has sort of disintegrated within all of this. We’re trying to define ourselves at the same time that we are not able to find a path that would carry the soul of the African into these new democracies that Africa is experiencing. Needs philosophers too, you know.

Host: Thank you so much for your time.

Host = Nicholas CarlieKF = Kathinka Frøystad

Host: Hello, my name is Nicholas Carlie. I'm a former journalist for Norwegian Broadcasting and work as a schoolteacher. In this podcast series, we will explore democracy in several English-speaking countries, to try to get a better understanding of how they work and what, if any, threats they face.Today, I'll be speaking to Kathinka Frøystad, a social anthropologist, professor at UiO, and an expert on India. Kathinka Frøystad, so nice to have you here.

KF: Thank you.

Host: Please begin by telling me, I'm so curious, how you have amassed this amazing amount of knowledge about the subcontinent of India, which is today's subject.

KF: Well, it began with my interest in reading. I read, as a 17-year-old, Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, and was fascinated. And I thought ‘one day in my life I’m going to go to India’ – and I did, and it was fantastic. I met not just a country, but a continent with so hospitable people, so nice people, speaking all sorts of different languages. Teaching me that there are so many different ways in which one can live and think in different manners than what I had grown up with. And I became so fascinated that I spent the rest of my career trying to learn more about this fascinating place, this country, this continent, and this culture. I'm still doing it. There's still a lot of things that I do not understand, even though I've been going at it for, now. 30–35 years.

Host: But it has opened your eyes?

KF: Absolutely.

Host: Wow. Amazing. It has a very famous history, and it's, let's say ‘marriage’ with Great Britain is also something that a lot of movies, and history, and cultural references have been reminding us of for a long time. But what has been going on since the end of this ‘marriage’? That's maybe a little more difficult to put a finger on.

KF: Well, first and foremost, this was an enforced marriage, right? This was not a marriage of free will. India was colonised by a company, the British India Company, who came to India in the 17th century, and they wanted to earn money. Then one thing took the other and at the end you had India, which became part of the British Raj, the British Empire. So, it was by no means, you know, a happy marriage. Gradually after some time, India managed to break free and has since then been an independent, sovereign, democratic country which decides its own future. And that's what we see today.Host: So, they gained their independence, then struggled for a while, it got really ugly, but it was really important for them. Who were the key figures now in moving forward and what kind of system are they trying to replace the British with?

KF: Well, they already had the basis of an electoral democracy. The problem was that there was not a lot of people who could vote, and there was not a lot of room for Indian representatives in the parliament. But they did have, already, political deliberations and so on, and they did have quite a few English-educated Indians, elite Indians, who were educated as lawyers, specifically barristers and so on and so forth, who became the leaders of the Indian Freedom Movement. So, what they envisioned was deeply British, but without the British. They wanted the British systems, but they wanted themselves in the lead role and the Indian population.

Host: So, they like the game, but now they want to change out the players?

KF: In in a way I think you could say that, yes.

Host: And how did that work out for them in the beginning?

KF: Well, the first thing they had to do was to sit down and decide on how the legal system should be, because they had to change that. They had to codify a lot of laws. So, one of the first things that happened after independence was that they put together a committee who could draft a constitution, draft an entire new country's constitution. Which for a country with as many people as India and as deep religious cleavages that occurred at the time of independence, it was a formidable task to do this. But they did that, and that new constitution came into place in 1952.

Host: Did they have to do this incredibly big task? It's a huge, formidable job. Do they do all right?

KF: The constitution of India was very, very forward for its time.

Host: Okay. So, modern?

KF: It's very modern, it's a just constitution. It gives the people of India full religious freedom, equal rights, so on and so forth. Even today in political protests, protests can take the shape of people reading aloud from the constitution in order to make sure that their current politicians do not forget the rights that they are set to uphold. So, the constitution was very forward, very modern, very just. And it was a constitution that did a lot to chalk out a direction in which India should go in the coming decades. Now, of course, India hasn't gone as far as one would have hoped, but the direction I think was a good one.

Host: So, now they have independence, they have a constitution. Are they good at using their system, their democracy?

KF: In many ways, I think they are. Especially compared to China, which has been an autocratic state for a long time. Then India has a flourishing democracy. It has an electoral system that works well. Now, there are some autocratic tendencies that are worrisome, but it's still seriously a democracy that a lot of us have been admiring for a long time, I must say.

Host: You used the word autocracy. Tell me, please.

KF: Okay, so it's when you have a state ruler who wants to decide everything for himself, or herself.

Host: We see in a lot of democratic countries that a lot of elections come down to two choices, pretty much, in a lot of cases. In France, and US, and in England, it's like this. What is the case in India?

KF: In India, it's not like this. India has a multi-party system, which means that there are quite a few political parties competing for political power. Now, in order to understand the number of parties and how they operate, it's useful to know that India is a federal state, almost in the same way as in the United States, which has, you know, California, and Missouri, and so on.

Host: So states have some power for themselves, but also, the greater nation.

KF: That's right. So, at state level, there are some parties that are active, and at the national level, which is the federal level, there's a smaller set of parties that are active. But even at the sort of highest at the national, federal level, there are six or eight parties that compete for power, and which means that they must take up issues that are relevant for the entire population regardless of where they live. They also have to communicate with voters who speak in different languages, who represent different ethnic groups, and so on.

Host: Somebody mentioned before we sat down, it was probably going to come up anyway, that it seems that Indian women are also setting a good example of using the democratic system properly.KF: I would say! You could say India has political discourse in all sorts of ways at the moment, which I think any healthy democracy should have. And what we see is that women are strong participants along all shades of the political spectrum. They are Hindu nationalists, they are Congress sympathisers, they are communists, they are... –I mean, they are really represented everywhere, of course not as strongly, traditionally, as the men. So, there are there are things to catch up, but compared to the neighbouring countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, especially, women are strong in India.

Host: The logistics of an election in India is probably worth a television series. Tell me, how does this work? Like physically, how are we going to get that job done?

KF: Some people have compared Indian elections almost with a carnival. It's like a festival. People are very proud to get out to vote, out of their house. So, they dress in the best clothes sometimes, and they line up from early in the morning because that's before it gets too hot. They vote. And when they vote they get a sort of ink dot across one fingernail.

Host: Okay?

KF: And everybody shows up their fingernail to the camera afterwards because they're so proud they have taken part in this. But then the problem, when you have so many people on the streets going out to vote, is that there will be a lot of crowds moving about. So, it's a security question as well, right? Political elections in India, as many other places, are situations where fights can sometimes erupt. There has to be quite strong police security around the ballots where people come to vote, which means that in a country as large as India, you can't have everybody voting at the same time because there's not enough security personnel to man the ballot boxes.

Host: So, you need the same guards a few times.

KF: Exactly. You need the same guards a few times. So, you have voting shifting from constituency to constituency, which means that carrying out the elections can sometimes take as much as six weeks.

Host: But people are voting?

KF: People are voting.

Host: And they're proud that they're votingKF: People are very proud that they're voting. And the voter turnout in India has been – at least compared to a country such as the United States – higher, considerably higher.

Host: We also have a huge amount of religious belief in India. We also have a caste system that we've heard about for years. How are these two very large parts of Indian culture working together with the modern democracy?

KF: Oh, that's a huge question! I can begin with caste, saying that there are a growing number of political parties trying to represent marginalised castes to fight for equality and to fight for growing representations of people who have formerly been more or less excluded from the political system, for instance. So, they participate, and they participate in the election, now finding out that organisational work or merely getting their rights on paper is not enough. They need a strong political voice. So, that's the first thing. Second thing, though, is that sometimes people who are in power, if they represent the political elites who are normally from the upper castes, would not necessarily want the lower cost people to vote in case their voting is believed to go against their wishes.

Host: Right. So, there are a few people who are of lower castes as well?

KF: Of course, there are quite a few. And in such cases, they can try to push them out of the room in which the ballot is supposed to be dropped and so on, which is where you have these small fights that can erupt. That's why security is absolutely necessary in order to ensure as fair elections as possible.

Host: Some people actually need protection when they're voting?

KF: They do.

Host: What about the religion?

KF: I think one can say that one of the problems that we see rising now, is that if the current Hindu nationalist political party is going to remain at power, which is quite likely actually (because they are hugely popular among a majority of the population), then you will see a further decline in the representation of other religious communities. Especially of India's Muslim minority. They are being squeezed out of the parliament. Nobody wants a Muslim to stand election for their party. There are fewer Muslims in the police now, in the army and so on and so forth. So, the question then is that if the state institutions are politically biased and religiously biased, then how can anyone make sure that these people will actually get the rights that they have on paper? That is the problem now.Host: What about, let's say, a very important Norwegian right – the freedom. The freedom of speech, the freedom to believe what we want, and say what we want, obviously without hurting anyone directly. But we can still allow ourselves extreme views and extreme opinions and we cannot be punished for this. What is the history and also the current climate of freedom of speech in India?

KF: Freedom of speech has always been more restricted in India than it has been here. It's still quite free. India has critical journalists, it has critical newspapers, critical TV channels. Not as big as those that are government friendly, that's true, but people can still say quite a lot against the government without being caught for that. The worry now is that the state surveillance is growing, which means that the government watches you. It watches my Facebook page, it watches the Facebook page of all my colleagues, it watches what we write in academic writings and so on. If we are too critical, if my Indian colleagues are too critical, they will restrict their movements in some way or another. They do that.

Host: So, you are actually publishing opinions, whereas someone like me – I might just be updating my status - but when you're saying something, you might be saying it to a lot more people. Have you felt the pressure of that before?

KF: Oh, absolutely. We are not just publishing opinions, but we are writing facts. But if they disagree with the facts that we report or if they think that those facts are not something that anyone should do research on ... They will let us know. They say: ‘this is our country and who are you to interfere in that?’ and ‘we want our critics to keep distance from what we are doing’, because it's more important at this stage in India's history to ensure that India should be such a country that can protect its vulnerable majority, which is the Hindu majority. It's a majority in Indian terms. But across the world, there are hardly any Hindu countries. So, for them that goal is more important than anything else right now. If that means that they must restrict free speech a little bit, they will do that.

Host: When something becomes something of that size and there's so many moving parts involved, where do you think the hope springs from in a piece like this? I like hearing that marginalised people actually are finding safety in democracy and party politics, to have their voices heard. Is that something that could be, maybe, part of a change towards the future?

KF: I think so, and I'm very glad that you ask this question, because what we see is something that we can perhaps call a double movement. Like on the one hand, there are restrictions against people who raise their voice against injustices and so on. On the other hand, there are still people who raise those voices, and a growing number of people do – simply because of the fact that the amount of education that people have now is much more than people had 20 years ago, or 30 years ago, or 50 years ago. So, you have a lot more people fighting for their rights and standing up for what they think is right. And so India has become a cacophony of a lot of voices going back and forth and a lot of disagreements and a lot of quarrels. But in some way, it's also a healthy debate because at least there's no censorship of the kind you can find in the worst dictatorships in the world. India is not there yet, and I hope it will never get there.

Host: Kathinka Frøystad, we could talk for hours. Our time, however, is up. Thank you so much for your insight into this fascinating subject.

KF: Thank you for inviting me.

Host = Nicholas CarlieEB = Eirik Bergesen

Host: Hello. My name is Nicholas Carlie. I'm a former journalist for Norwegian Broadcasting and work as a schoolteacher. In this podcast series, we will explore democracy in several English-speaking countries to try to get a better understanding of how they work and what, if any, threats they face.

Eirik Bergesen, a – what do you say – an ‘America-file’?

EB: I was called an ‘American expert’ and to begin with I said ‘No, I'm just knowledgeable’. But then after I listened to a lot of the people who call themselves experts, I was like; ‘yeah, I'm an expert’.

Host: All right, good. Cool.

EB: Well, in the sense that I grew up in America, so I got to see what American society is all about, not just the political side of it all. And then I worked at the Norwegian Embassy in Washington, I've edited a book about the American Constitution and the Norwegian, compared the two. So, all in all, I'd say that that's parts of the American society and politics I'm more or less an expert in. But it's a big picture.

Host: Thank you for being here. I know this is huge. And we're also going to drag the UK into this, just because we're ‘biting big’ here today. These are mature democracies. They've been around for a while. Especially the Americans have been very conscious about how they're forming their constitution. Everybody who moved there was running away from something. And then they decided: ‘Ok, let’s make a place where nobody can persecute us for being weird, or different, or religious, or wanting to have a gun, or wanting to be a billionaire.’ How's that working out for them?

EB: Well, actually, that’s a good question, because that's the one thing I think that a lot of people living in Norway, however much they follow America in the news, miss out on. A lot of Americans fled from Europe, from Norway, from the type of government we had back in the day, the role of the church, the role of aristocrats and so on, and to sort of live their own lives, make up their own minds and be left alone by a state. I think that's part of the reason that America has become as populist as it is now. And a lot of the reason that they've chosen the different path when it comes to even the COVID 19 and policies. I think that's the first thing that's important to understand, and obviously, that's a continuous challenge towards any government – that people don't want to be ruled that closely by the government.

Host: They've invented a government which they hope will never take over their day-to-day choices again, which as we speak is actually not working with the Roe v. Wade-case and stuff like that. Is this mature and very idealised form of democracy? Is it even actually what it appears to be?

EB: Well, I think the whole reason that I edited the book with comparing American and Norwegian constitutions, is that those are the two oldest functioning constitutions in the world. And I think there's a lot to say about things that should be improved in both constitutions. But the fact that they are, as you say, old, mature political systems means that there's been a lot of hits and misses. So even though the misses still continue, we can look back and say; ‘hey, wait, wait a second, we're about to make the same mistake as we did 5 years ago, 50 years ago’.

Host: You have reference points in history?

EB: Yeah, definitely. And a lot of the troubles with populism we've seen in America before. And again, history repeats itself. But it also means that we're not going to go down some of the paths we see with new democracies that haven't experienced that before. They don't have the forces that remind them what's at stake. And I think that the good thing about the fact that we've had conservative governments, even though they've caused a lot of trouble with populism, is that they also within the system are traditionalists. So, they will tend to not want to change things too much. And they will want to uphold rules, regulations, constitutions that don't function as well anymore, but still have a stability to them that sort of anchors society.

Host: There's a status quo, not rocking the boat, right? Because things are kind of okay. When a country like the United States, when they do this, they tear themselves away from what they see as an oppressive King and monarchy hanging over them. They sit down very consciously, and they write these words extremely carefully, and they go back and forth. Does that automatically make it an improvement on the former system, do you think?

EB: Well, when the Americans wrote their constitution, they talked about, it’s in the constitution: ‘a more perfect union’. That means that they're always striving for something more perfect, which also means that it is not perfect, what they have today. And that's the reason I think it's fascinating to follow American politics, it's sort of like a dinner party and you're sort of allowed to watch people discussing and quarrelling, and they're open about it. They'll agree to disagree, so that's a good thing. I mean, they understand that the world is watching, they understand that the world is a bit overwhelmed and sometimes a bit scared by what's going on. But they've chosen to have that type of system, and all the books that we can read, all the reports that we can read about what's going on, you don't have that in Norway. You don't have that openness. You don't have people speaking out either on background or by name. That's the system they've chosen, and it becomes quite a spectacle. Dictatorships can point to the United States and to a certain degree the UK and say ‘hey, look, this is what democracy gets you. Do we really want this, or do we want stability?’, and so on. It's only now, when you have Putin acting as he does now, that other dictatorships are saying ‘wait a second, Russia, don't do this, you're giving dictatorships a bad name’.

Host: We were talking a little bit about improving democracies and tweaking them and kind of growing and learning ...

EB: There are obvious reasons to improve the electoral system, both in America and in the UK. I think we haven't really met the main challenges in full. I think it's still a huge question if people are actually being represented.

Host: You used the word ‘populists’ earlier. Could you tell me a little more what you mean by that? Because both Johnson and the UK (and let's go back to Trump because Biden's just kind of boring, let's be honest), have been accused of being populist. What does that mean and why is that necessarily a bad thing?

EB: It's a good question, because it's not necessarily a bad thing. It could be a good thing in the sense that it's obviously a symptom of a system not working. If you look back at an American recent history, you had the Iraqi war where the government more or less lied to their people, said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, said that they had something to do with 9/11, which was a national trauma at the time, and invaded on false premises. Media took part in the sense that they were not only spreading some of these lies but were also not challenging as critically as they should have. So, when Donald Trump said to people; ‘the media are against you, the media are lying, government has been lying to you’, in a certain way he was right about that. Then obviously his solution to it all, which was to lie even more, was a bad solution.

Host: Yeah.

EB: He pretty much played on the grievance that people had towards that society that they had been robbed of. But in America, there has never really existed a place in time where everybody was represented fully, rather the opposite. I think a lot has actually changed to the better in America. Either you're part of the black community, or you're a woman, or you're young. I think that America has become less elitist. So that's contradictory to what Trump says. While in Great Britain, part of the problem is that this society is very elitist, and you have ...

Host: ... A long history of class system?

EB: Class definitely remains in Great Britain. There is more to play upon when it comes to populism, and we've seen that Boris Johnson utilised populism as a negative tool in the sense that people are being if not lied to (because he's not as blatant as a Trump), he is still avoiding addressing a lot of the the main challenges. We have to remember that while Donald Trump in many ways was a reality TV-star before he became president and had no political experience whatsoever. Boris Johnson did have political experience, but he also came from the media-side. He was even a part of the ‘Mock the News’ crew, which was political satirists. So, he knows very well how to sort of create a show – and media likes a show. I've been part of a show called ‘Trump's World’, and there's a reason why we call it that, because although we did try to convey a nuanced picture of American politics, we also, as well as many others, use that Trump phenomena to get people to glue in on what we were trying to say.

Host: Do you think that the last few years have, exposed a fragility within democracy, or is it proving to be more robust than we thought? Everything that happened, what's it teaching us?

EB: That's a good question. I think you've seen evidence of both. Churchill once said that democracy was the best of a lot of horrible options. And we've sort of seen the fragility up close. We've seen that not only can a dictator such as Putin get away with lies, but also a democratic president such as Trump can get away with lies.

Host: I won't ask you to, you know, get into conspiracy theories, but can Russia or North Korea actually go online on Facebook and Instagram and change the way people vote in democracies across the ocean?

EB: Yes, I think that there is definitely a lot that dictatorships can do to disrupt democracies. I think that what happened in America was not only that, that Trump wanted to make America great again, whatever that was all about. Putin wanted to make Russia great again. And his main goal is very, very easy, is to just create a little trouble in democracies, to delegitimise them in every which way.

Host: Politics is so not boring, even though it can give that impression sometimes.

EB: Which is actually a bad thing – and a fact.

Host: Maybe it should be boring.

EB: That is a very good point, and I believe that politics should be much more boring than it is. Nerds like me should be the few people who follow it hour by hour. And other people should read up, obviously, before they vote – and they should definitely vote. But we shouldn't be scared shitless around every corner in politics and certainly not in Western democracies. That's the order of the day these days, and that's a bad thing.

Host: There are systems in place. They are designed to make sure that those who do come to power in a democracy actually do what they say and don't steal all the money and run away. Are they working, these systems?

EB: You have the system of checks and balances in America. In many ways you can put forward the argument that even though America voted for and elected a reality star – with no political experience and the most populist agenda ever, and also lying all throughout the post-election, saying that he had won the election and even supported the people who storm Congress – all those things put together, it’s still working. The clock is still ticking, and America is still a functioning democracy. So, you can argue that that means that America is a robust democracy, they withstood this challenge.

Host: I know this is not the last time somebody is going to ask you about American or UK politics, but I will put an end to it for today. Thank you so much for your time.

EB: Thank you.