PARIS (AP) – As the world watched as American institutions were shaken to the core by an angry mob, officials and ordinary citizens wondered: How fragile is democracy and how much stress could their own political system withstand?
“If it can happen in the US, it can happen anywhere,” said Gunjan Chhibber, a 39-year-old who works for a US technology company in India, the world’s largest democracy. She stayed up all night watching and worrying in her Delhi home as the chaos unfolded many time zones beyond.
In Germany, whose modern system of governance was fueled by successive U.S. governments, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday was unusually blunt, drawing a direct line from President Donald Trump’s refusal to admit his election defeat to the atmosphere that caused the U.S. Capitol to pass through. supporters are possible.
“A fundamental rule of democracy is that there are winners and losers after elections. Both must play their roles with decency and responsibility so that democracy itself remains the winner, ”Merkel said.
Eva Sakschewska, a German who followed the news closely, said the events in Washington were almost unimaginable.
“You just have to worry about how far this can go if populists come to power and do such things,” she said. “You know that democracy in the US has a long history and it comes to something like this – yes, people are afraid.”
Even the United Nations put forward the kind of statement usually reserved for fragile democracies, expressing grief and calling on unidentified political leaders to promote respect for “democratic processes and the rule of law.”
In Iraq, where Saddam Hussein’s violent US-led overthrow in 2003 led to years of sectarian conflict and a deeply flawed democracy, many watched the scenes unfold in Congress.
Iraqis have for years suffered from power-sharing arrangements between competing elites divided along sectarian lines. Backroom deals are common to avoid political paralysis, and democratic ideals have been compromised by a deep-rooted system of patronage that distributes state jobs in exchange for support. Political parties also have affiliated militias wielding significant power in the streets. From afar, the violence in Washington was despicably known.
Iraq calls on the US regime to respect the principles of democracy, otherwise it will intervene militarily to overthrow the dictator, Mustafa Habib, a well-known Iraqi analyst and researcher, said in a tweet mocking the actions. from Washington abroad.
Venezuela, which is under US sanctions, said the events have shown that the US is “suffering from what it has generated in other countries with its policies of aggression.”
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has survived the US-backed attempts by the opposition to oust him, despite allegations of human rights violations, civil unrest and a humanitarian crisis that has forced millions to flee the oil-rich country.
“We have exported so much democracy that we have nothing left on it,” American-Palestinian scholar Yousef Monayyer wrote on Twitter, the social network Trump favored until he was shut out of it late Wednesday.
His comment joined the growing tension of sarcasm bordering on gloating from those who have long disliked the alleged American tendency to chastise other countries for failing to adhere perfectly to democratic ideals.
This time, however, it was an attempt by Americans to stop a peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden following a democratic election in a country many around the world have seen as a model for democratic rule.
In China, which has had constant friction with Washington over trade, as well as military and political issues, people have been devastating in their criticisms of Trump and his supporters, citing both the coronavirus pandemic and the mob action.
Communist-ruled China has long accused the US of hypocrisy in its efforts to promote democracy and advocate for human rights abroad.
The Communist Youth League posted a photo montage of the violence in the Capitol on its Twitter-like microblog Weibo with the caption, “On the sixth, the US Congress, a beautiful site to behold.” That seemed to deride House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her comments in June 2019 in honor of the sometimes violent protests against the government in Hong Kong.
“The US isn’t as safe as China, is it? I think Trump is a self-righteous and selfish person, ”said financial adviser Yang Ming.
Faced with routine US criticism of human rights and democratic values violations, Iran leaped on the chaos as evidence of US hypocrisy.
The semi-official Fars news agency called the United States a “fragmented democracy,” while Iran’s pro-government Twitter accounts gloated, spreading photos of the mobs with hashtags featuring #DownfalloftheUS.
The events have eroded America’s insistence that it is a bulwark of democracy for countries that have only abandoned, in some cases, autocratic or military-controlled forms of government in recent decades.
“The beauty of democracy?” with a shrug emoji was the response from Bashir Ahmad, a personal assistant to the President of Nigeria, who has witnessed several coups d’état since independence – including one led decades ago by President Muhammadu Buhari, who was elected in 2015.
Some lawmakers in Asia – South Korea and Taiwan, for example – have at times been marred by fights and screaming matches, but democracies across the region are normally austere versions of European and American legislative models.
This is shocking. I hope this will give Americans an opportunity to rethink their democracy, ”said Na HyunPil of the Korean House for International Solidarity, a Seoul NGO. Trump is fully responsible for this incident. After his four-year rule, Americans find it difficult to tell other countries that their country is a good model for democracy. “
Several countries, both US allies and antagonists, have issued travel warnings to their citizens, although with coronavirus infections in the United States, the number of arrivals from abroad has accelerated.
Ally after ally was shocked, followed by affirmations that American democratic institutions would withstand the turmoil.
“All my life America has stood for some very important things: an idea of freedom and an idea of democracy,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “To the extent that he encouraged people to storm the Capitol, and to the extent that the president has consistently expressed doubt about the outcome of free and fair elections, I think that was completely wrong.”
But some, such as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, warned that the attempt to halt a peaceful transition in what many say is the world’s oldest democracy showed that no place is immune and that relapse is only effort can be reversed.
“Democracy can never be taken for granted. It needs to be worked on every day. It has to be won every day. And that applies to all democracies, ”she told German news outlets. And that’s why we know it starts as a very small thing. “
To others, less friendly, it was portrayed as a last gasp and one that belonged only to the Americans themselves.
“American democracy is clearly on both feet,” said Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Russian House of Lords Foreign Affairs Committee. ‘I say this without a shred of gloating. America is no longer charting a course and has therefore lost all rights to chart it – and even more so to impose it on others. “
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Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed.