Violence is democracy’s worst enemy and we must not submit to it

Date:18/09/03

By Margot Wallström

AND so another politician has fallen victim to brutal and meaningless violence. The dismay and shock over the murder of Sweden's Foreign Minister Anna Lindh echoes that of March 1986, after the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme.

Once more we are forced to face up to the painful fact that we do not live in a rose garden where we can move around freely and unprotected, and enjoy the greenery and life itself. Once more we are brought to realize that we live in a world where violence and brutality can strike when least expected.

Today, however, we are not only talking about Sweden, but about our open society, the role of the politician and about security. Anna was a politician whose ideal was equality, a woman who never let power go to her head. She took the train to work and did the family shopping on the way home. She went shopping for clothes with a friend during her lunch break. With no bodyguards.

Anna's murder is a body blow to those of us who value an open society where elected politicians and citizens can bump into one another on the street after an evening at the cinema, in a supermarket on the way home from work, or in a café.

Many countries have long since shaken off their naïvety and no longer allow politicians to go unprotected in public. Bodyguards protect them wherever they go, for better or for worse. For better in that they at least have some protection against the growing brutality which characterizes our society. For worse in that they risk being cut off from the people they aspire to represent. We have to take violence seriously. The rise in brutality does not just risk the lives of individual politicians as they go about their daily business.

Violence has also become commonplace around international gatherings of politicians. Who could forget the violence in Seattle a few years ago when the World Trade Organization met to try to hammer out a new global trade deal? Or at the EU summits in Nice and Göteberg, and most recently the meeting of foreign ministers in Italy where violence cast its shadow over the political agenda?

Violent crime is more than just a despicable act, which can take a life with no warning at all. Violence is democracy's worst enemy. It threatens the very foundation of a democratic society. We therefore cannot allow ourselves to be frightened by, or submit to, brutality. Instead, we must fight it using all the means at our disposal in an open society.

In the short term, we have to protect our politicians so that they may continue to be free to move around society in future. In the longer term, we have to nurture democracy in all its forms.

We must never forget that democratic discussion forged the basis for the European Union. Democracy, with its often-complicated rules of the game, has replaced war. Patience at the negotiating table has replaced heroism on the battlefield. Compromises between countries have replaced threats of war and dictatorships.

Neither violence against individual politicians nor the intimidation of the street mob can be allowed to control the political agenda. But how are we to nurture current forms of democratic cooperation? Well, through an ongoing discussion about forms of democracy. My dream is to establish an institute of democracy in the EU where discussions can take place, particularly with young people, about new forms of dialogue and decision-making.

It is vitally important for the EU to evolve and anchor the Community in society, to show our citizens that the Union is not just a club for top politicians. Citizens must feel involved in the decisions made in the EU.

It may be naïve of me, but I believe that we have to start by strengthening contacts between people. It is not enough to have a student-exchange programme and free movement between countries. We need to use our structural funds to boost our human, as well as physical, infrastructure in the Union; to foster greater contact and understanding between people.

I am convinced that enhanced contacts between people, perhaps in the form of networks, would improve not just the popular view of our European project and strengthen participation therein. It would be to the benefit of democracy itself.

• Margot Wallström is the European Commissioner for environment.

Article considers the murder of Anna Lindh, Sweden's Foreign Minister, and the rise of violence in our society.