Commentary

DEMOCRACIES OFTEN DIE by a thousand small cuts. The slide from a robust, if unfinished, democracy to an authoritarian government is incremental and uses inherent weaknesses in a country’s institution and culture. In the U.S., racism has been a core weakness debilitating progress toward a vibrant inclusive democracy, exploited by autocrats to maintain power no matter the cost to human dignity and freedom.

Since 2015, the U.S. democracy score has slid from 92 to 83, according to Freedom House’s global index, lower than any democracy in Western Europe. At a point when pro-democracy and anti-racism movements need to be strongest in the U.S., we find them at odds.

I work in many pro-democracy coalitions committed to political and ideological pluralism where it is challenging to identify the role of white supremacy and Christian nationalism in undermining democratic norms. Conservatives see these as “leftist” issues and moderates fear dividing an already fragile coalition. I also work with political progressives who often see police brutality and mass incarceration as aberrations in a functioning democracy rather than direct attacks on democracy itself, as political scientists Vesla M. Weaver and Gwen Prowse have laid out in their analysis of racial authoritarianism and as Black intellectuals and activists have understood for decades.

Authoritarianism is a system that concentrates wealth and power in a relatively small group of unaccountable people. Authoritarian systems are made up of authoritarian leaders and their institutional enablers, including members of political parties, media outlets, businesses, and religious institutions who provide autocrats with critical sources of social, political, economic, and financial power. Authoritarian systems engage in a range of anti-democratic behaviors to consolidate or expand power, such as weaponizing disinformation, gutting institutional checks on power, subverting free and fair elections, undermining civil liberties, and condoning political violence.

Editor's note: As of Jan. 10, 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented at least 79 journalists and media workers killed in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank since Oct. 7. This article will appear in the forthcoming February/March issue of Sojourners.

IN OCTOBER, NEARLY a week after the brutal Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israeli citizens, an Israeli military tank crew at the Israel-Lebanon border fired at a group clearly identified as press. Reuters’ journalist Issam Abdallah was killed, and six others were injured. Israel denied targeting the journalists.

While the Israeli government continues to say that the incident is under review, in December, human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, along with wire services Reuters and Agence France-Presse, released the results of their own investigations into the Oct. 13 missile strike.

The journalists were reporting on skirmishes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants. They were wearing blue helmets and flak jackets, most marked “Press.” One of their vehicles had “TV” on the hood. They had been on a hilltop on the Lebanon side of the border for around an hour before the attack. An Israeli helicopter hovered above them for 40 minutes of that time. Their identity as members of the press —  civilian journalists — should have been clear.

POPE FRANCIS MADE history eight years ago when he became the first pope to publish an encyclical focused on the environment and our collective responsibility to end the poisoning of our planet. Unlike most such documents that stir debates largely confined to theological circles, “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home” sparked a global reaction far beyond the Catholic Church.

In October, the pope again pulled our attention back to a worsening climate crisis and even more dire threats to our common home with the release of “Laudate Deum” (“Praise God”), which comes at a time when mounting evidence of more frequent climate emergencies has been met most often with apathy, not action.

“I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point,” the pope writes. There are good reasons for the pope’s stark assessment. The burning of fossil fuels continues to reap obscene profits for oil executives while the impact of human-induced climate change, especially on impoverished nations, is devastating. Pope Francis laments that “the necessary transition towards clean energy sources such as wind and solar energy, and the abandonment of fossil fuels, is not progressing at the necessary speed.” The publication was timed for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) taking place in November and December.

I’m particularly encouraged by the pope’s support for activists and grassroots organizers who have far outpaced most political leaders when it comes to mobilizing for climate justice. Francis endorses “a multilateralism ‘from below.’” While right-wing demagogues who fancy themselves populists exploit fears of cultural displacement and economic anxiety, the pope’s hopeful populism is rooted in standing in solidarity with the poor, bringing people together across divides, and challenging structures of injustice that prop up immoral syst

DOES IT EVER seem that you’re cultivating your worst self instead of your best? We are still a far cry from what Catholic Worker co-founder Peter Maurin called “a society in which it is easier for people to be good.” Every day we face hard moral choices. Social media and the broader culture foster entitlement, grievances, tit-for-tats, snap judgments, and hurtful words. The global economy entangles our purchases to injustice somewhere. We are constantly in fragile, guilty, fearful, and wounded states that lead to lashing out and reacting badly. So, how do we live principled and faithful lives within sinful systems? Our Christian tradition provides tools to maintain a sense of integrity.

When a person finds it impossible to make decisions according to their conscience, they sustain a “moral injury.” Such injuries result when we are unable to align how we live with who we believe ourselves to be. For most of us, these injuries are small (compared to those in violent situations), but they add up. We may look at injustice in the world and spiral into thoughts such as, “I’m not doing enough,” “I’m part of the problem,” “I’ve got no right to complain,” or even “Why can’t I remember to bring a frickin’ container for leftovers when I go out to eat?” Our inner critic works overtime — and has plenty of material. These self-criticisms can define how you see yourself. Getting a handle on them with mercy — recognizing and assessing them honestly — is key to spiritual resilience.

AMONG TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS today, perhaps none is imbued with more hope—or more hype—than artificial intelligence (AI). Its proponents, such as billionaire technologist Marc Andreessen, claim it will literally “save” the world. Critics (see Kate Crawford’s Atlas of AI ) claim it is, in many ways, built on misunderstanding, exploitation, and deceit. But nearly everyone agrees that AI is a powerful tool that presents us with profound, and profoundly moral, challenges.

While Christianity offers a wealth of wisdom concerning moral and ethical behavior, materialist perspectives (a philosophy in which all facts are reducible to physical processes), which function as “articles of faith” in modern technical circles, have become the acceptable rhetorical scaffolding for “ethical” AI. For many, materialist perspectives deny the existence of God and any idea of eternal consequences but seek to compel people—and their technologies—to behave ethically, nonetheless.

While a strongly worded what is a good start, only a robust why can compel humans to want to be good, and only a robust how can enable them to do so. This is where materialism begins to falter, and Christianity can enter the debate with authority. The Christian faith acknowledges God as the originator, motivator, and sustainer of righteousness, asserting that moral behavior is the fruit, not the root, of a righteous life. It challenges us to look beyond a humanistic idea of ethics and toward a creative and abundant notion of goodness that cannot be accomplished by our own will or power. As AI has grown increasingly powerful and we have seen a proliferation of applications, particularly with large language models achieving nearly “human-level” performance, some tech leaders, perhaps sensing the difficulty of controlling their own creations, have called for “a pause on giant AI experiments.” Academic literature is rife with serious concerns on racism in AI development, theft of creative content, development of autonomous weapons, and more. At least one tech leader, Microsoft’s Brad Smith, perhaps mindful that AI ethics is too heavy a lift for technologists alone, has invited religious voices into the conversation.

IN 2016, our church in San Salvador was preparing to host a group of young adults on a “mission trip” from the United States. Just prior to their travel, the U.S. government suspended the Peace Corps program in El Salvador due to security concerns related to gang violence. As the host church, we decided the mission trip should be canceled too. In 2015, the murder rate in my country peaked at 103 per 100,000, making it the most dangerous country in the world.

Over the last seven years, El Salvador has seen a rapid drop in its murder rate. In early 2023, President Nayib Bukele claimed that the country had accumulated 365 nonconsecutive days with zero homicides since he took office in June 2019. While it’s impossible to independently corroborate Bukele’s claim, it’s undeniable that Salvadorans are experiencing a new sense of safety and “peace.” That sense of peace, however, has come at a grave cost.

As of January 2023, El Salvador had the highest incarceration rate in the world. Approximately 61,000 people, including 1,082 minors, have been swept up in mass arrests since March 2022, when congress allowed Bukele to suspend constitutional rights. Salvadorans no longer have rights to free assembly, due process, access to lawyers, and previously protected freedoms. Nearly two percent of the Salvadoran adult population is in prison in conditions that fail to meet the U.N.’s minimum standards for imprisonment. Cristosal, a civil society human rights organization in El Salvador, has documented the death of 153 prisoners in state custody between March 2022 and March 2023, all detained during the same period. Of those, 29 died violent deaths and 46 “probable violent deaths” or under “suspicions of criminality,” reported Cristosal. More reports continue to roll in of the deaths of incarcerated people who also show signs of torture.

IN THE SUMMER OF 2019, I fulfilled one of my childhood dreams: I cheered from the stands as the U.S. Women’s National Team won the FIFA Women’s World Cup in France.

This summer, I’ll be traveling to New Zealand and Australia to watch the team compete to win a third straight World Cup, a feat never before accomplished. I loved every moment of the 2019 tournament — the clutch penalty kicks and the cheeky goal celebrations — but two of my favorite moments came right after the final whistle blew.

The crowd of 57,900, which had been loud the whole game, got even louder.

The first chant was an easy and obvious way to cheer on the new champs: “USA! USA! USA!” I said it a couple times, but not with much gusto. It felt weird. If I said those letters, I wondered, what exactly was I cheering on? Just the team? Or also the U.S. president (at the time, Donald Trump) and his administration’s policies?

Fortunately, the chant shifted to one I could get behind wholeheartedly. As FIFA president Gianni Infantino, head of the international soccer governing body, walked to center field to begin the trophy ceremony, people around me started chanting: “EQUAL PAY! EQUAL PAY! EQUAL PAY!” Drummers behind the goal line punctuated the sound. Within seconds, the whole stadium had joined in.

At the time, a top-performing player on the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) earned only 38 percent of what was earned by a top-performing player on the U.S. Men’s National Team. But as of 2022, the USWNT signed a collective bargaining agreement with the U.S. Soccer Federation that ensures that the national women’s team will be paid at the same rate for game appearances and tournament victories as the men. With this agreement, the U.S. team is setting a powerful global example.

THE NUMBER OF asylum seekers from Russia arriving at the U.S. southern border has risen dramatically in the past year. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left their homeland since President Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. Some fear increasing economic hardship and that Putin will impose martial law and close the borders, and some are fleeing to follow their conscience.

In September, the Kremlin announced its first military mobilization for soldiers to fight in Ukraine, prompting the departure of tens of thousands of Russian men. A second mobilization may occur this fall. Many of those who have fled hold religious or moral beliefs that tell them that participation in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is wrong. Many young men have come to the United States seeking asylum as conscientious objectors (COs) based on their refusal to be drafted into Russia’s military for reasons of moral conscience.

At the Center on Conscience and War, we began hearing about these cases in fall 2022 — and found very few resources to support them. A handful of immigration attorneys are taking on a few of these cases, but the demand is much greater than the help available. This spring, our center initiated a Freedom of Information Act request to learn exactly how many of the asylum seekers are making claims based on conscientious objection to military conscription.

THERE IS A DISTURBING sense of déjà vu in the Philippines. Thirty-seven years after the nonviolent People Power movement ended the brutal and kleptocratic 20-year reign of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., his only son and namesake sits comfortably in the presidential palace. Following in his father’s footsteps, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is once again cozying up to the United States.

In 2012, the Obama administration began to “rebalance” U.S. military and trade agreements in Asia. Since 2014, the U.S. has had access to five military bases in the Philippines and trains Filipino soldiers under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) — all part of Obama’s “pivot to the Pacific.”

In February this year, Marcos agreed to allow the U.S. military to pre-position troops and weapons at another four bases. This gives the U.S. the largest military footprint it has had in the Philippines in 30 years, when a Filipino-led anti-colonial independence movement led to the removal of all permanent military bases in their country.

In its push to expand EDCA, the Biden administration said it would spend $82 million on projects at the first five bases. In addition, U.S. ambassador MaryKay Carlson announced $100 million in new foreign military financing for the Philippines “to use as it wishes.” The Philippines is already the largest recipient of U.S. military assistance in the region, receiving $1.14 billion in weapons and equipment since 2015. U.S. and Philippines government officials claim that the purpose of this growing U.S. military presence is to help with humanitarian crises and disaster relief, as well as to prepare for a future conflict with China, most likely over Taiwan.