During these autumn weeks we are witnesses of an unbelievable process: the voted out president of the leading Western Democracy is constantly ignoring the facts and refusing to admit his electoral defeat. On election night, during the ongoing vote counting, he declares himself the winner and demands to stop the further count. He declares the postal votes still to be counted as “illegal” votes, which are mainly predicted in favor of the democratic candidate. He speaks and tweets of a “stolen election”, defames the political opponent as “corrupt” and refuses to accept the democratic candidate’s election victory until today.

In a 2018 published book “How democracies die” the two political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have described exactly the steps, which change a democracy into an authoritarian system without violent revolt: first a society is polarized, then the political opponent is declared as an “enemy of the people” and at last the legitimacy of the democratic process is denied. That is exactly what happens these days. Still more sad and unsettling is the fact that more than 70 million Americans are obviously ready to follow a despiser of democracy.

And Europe? Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on taking office 2019 that Europe has to learn “the language of power”. A strong Europe should play a “more active and responsible leadership role” in the world; inside through defending the rule of law and a new compact for migration, outside through advancing multilateralism, trade and resistance against threat of safety and political stability.

Where does Europe stand today on this path? We are currently experiencing that two countries are blocking the EU multi-year budget of 1.8 billion and the corona emergency aid of 750 million by their veto. Are they not willing to submit the rule of law? Do we see here the first signs of denying democratic principles in Europe or not?

It’s time to stand up for the European Union values as they are declared in article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty: human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law including protection of human rights. Education for democracy is an essential part of it and becomes more and more a key resource. It also includes the reflection on religious roots of human dignity and freedom in order to make sure that education for democracy does not degenerate into technocratic half-education. Value-based education “for good reason” is absolutely necessary – maybe more than ever!

We wish you all a blessed advent season and a Merry Christmas!

Dr. Tania ap Siôn and Prof. Heid Leganger-Krogstad (ICCS)

Michael Jacobs and Piet Jansen (IV)