Jay Naidoo: Can civilisational democracy survive the return of bombardment?

Key topics:Global escalation erodes democratic norms and restraintDouble standards fuel distrust in global institutionsWar shocks hit SA via markets, food and fuel costs.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Jay Naidoo.“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”Antonio Gramsci wrote those words to describe moments of historical transition, when established systems weaken and uncertainty breeds distortion. His insight feels uncomfortably relevant today.We are living through accelerating global instability. In recent years, powerful states have taken actions that undermine the very norms they once claimed to defend. Democratically elected leaders have been displaced through kidnapping. Territorial claims are asserted with language that echoes earlier eras of conquest. Military strikes are launched unilaterally, without full legislative oversight, and celebrated as exhibited triumphalism.When the guardians of democratic order appear to exempt themselves from its constraints, something fundamental shifts. It’s civilisational as it was when we stared into the abyss of Nazi fascism .Military escalation is no longer exceptional. It is becoming normalised. Strikes, counter strikes, targeted assassinations and public displays of force unfold with increasing frequency. As tensions rise under leaders such as Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, the question before us is larger than any single conflict.Can civilisational democracy withstand a world in which bombardment becomes routine policy?This is not a partisan inquiry. States have the right to defend themselves. Governments carry the responsibility to protect their citizens. But democracy rests on more than military capability. It rests on restraint. It rests on institutions that discipline power. It rests on multilateralism rather than unilateral assertion. It rests on a civic culture that understands limits..Read more:. The erosion of USA’s global policing: Navigating chaos in a multipolar world – Marc Champion.The twentieth century provides a warning. The Second World War claimed an estimated sixty million lives. Entire cities were reduced to rubble. Infrastructure across continents was destroyed. Economies collapsed. A generation was scarred physically and psychologically. Out of that devastation emerged a fragile consensus that unrestrained militarism must never again be allowed to dominate global affairs. So why is the USA waging a war for a right wing government in Israel without US Congress approval let alone the rest of the world.The post war democratic order was built on that hard lesson. International law. Multilateral institutions like United Nations. Legislative oversight of executive power. The understanding that force must be a last resort, not a first impulse.When that discipline weakens, democracy grows brittle. And it shatters around the world giving courage to violent agendas in our country like we have seen.Across communities in South Africa Afrikaner, English, African and Indian business person or worker, farmer or farmworker, I hear a common concern. Many ordinary citizens face violence daily and struggle to understand why powerful democracies and their leaders appear willing to risk wider war in support of policies that deepen civilian suffering, particularly in Gaza, Syria and the broader Middle East where images of devastation have shaken global conscience. Whatever one’s political alignment, perceptions of double standards erode trust.And democracy cannot survive without trust.Escalation abroad does not remain confined to distant battlefields. It travels through markets, supply chains and political systems. It tightens energy markets. It destabilizes food systems. It strains currencies. For countries in the Global South, including South Africa, the consequences are immediate.We feel it in currency volatility.We feel it in rising food and fuel costs.We feel it in shrinking fiscal space and mounting social pressure.Global violence is never geographically contained.Yet the deeper danger is cultural. When military escalation becomes the default grammar of global politics, fear expands executive authority. Surveillance increases. Dissent narrows. Public debate hardens. Democracies seldom collapse in a single dramatic moment. They thin gradually through polarization, fatigue and normalized emergency.We are living through what Gramsci called an interregnum. The unipolar moment has passed. A multipolar world is emerging. Economic, technological and military power are being redistributed. In such periods, anxiety rises. Leaders may project strength through force. Citizens may embrace certainty over complexity.But civilisational democracy requires moral discipline.Restraint is not weakness.Proportionality is not surrender.Dialogue is not naïveté.They are the foundations of durable stability. For South Africans, this moment carries particular resonance. Our democratic transition was not secured through annihilation. It was achieved through negotiation and restraint. We learned that victory without reconciliation would leave a fractured nation. That history obliges us to speak for de escalation, for international law and for consistent standards rather than selective ones.The question now is not only what leaders will do. It is what citizens will demand.If we reward maximalist rhetoric, we will receive more of it.If we normalise perpetual war, we will inherit perpetual instability.If we surrender multilateralism to political arrogance, we weaken the very architecture that protects smaller nations.History since 1945 is also instructive. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria demonstrate that military intervention without sustainable political settlement leaves fragile states, prolonged instability and generational trauma. Security built solely on force rarely produces lasting peace.True security is broader. It is food stability. Energy transition. Climate resilience. Youth opportunity. Functional institutions. Predictable rules between nations. It is the slow and disciplined work of building trust.Bombs cannot build that architecture..Read more:.Ukraine can survive with the ‘least worst’ peace deal: James Stavridis.Civilizational democracy cannot thrive in an atmosphere of permanent escalation. It requires institutional balance, respect for law and citizens who insist that power remain accountable, even when exercised by their own governments.The bombs may achieve tactical objectives.But only citizens can sustain civilisation.The question is not simply whether democracy can withstand the bombs.It is whether we will insist that civilization itself be stronger than the impulse to destroy innocent life.

Jay Naidoo: Can civilisational democracy survive the return of bombardment?

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