80. "Repressive regime"

What does a "repressive regime" repress? Human rights. What does a "progressive regime" promote? Human progress. And what do you call a regime that denies human rights and promotes human progress?

We have no word for such a regime but we do have a wonderful example, the regime of Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore. If by progress you mean movement from the old and benighted to the new and enlightened that state has made it. Its public schools are now up alongside the best in the world, its pension system is a model, its wealth per capita is higher than Britain's, and its corruption is less than that of any state in Asia.

But oh what violations of human rights. Lee imprisoned critics without trial, suspended habeas corpus, arrested union leaders, deregistered unions, and had vandals caned. He also, according to Nicholas Kristof, "banned bubblegum, punished people who did not flush toilets and…forcibly gave haircuts to young men with long hair" (NYT 11-5-00).

Americans have to choose between the put-down word and the build-up word. There is no in-between. So it's case by case. Here's the Shah of Iran, pushing all kinds of social and economic reforms, expropriating large estates for the benefit of small farmers, extending suffrage to women, improving the schools, extending literacy, and raising the national income to record heights. In the New York Times (since 1981, two years after his people threw him out) his regime gets called "repressive" eleven times. Then there's the regime of Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, which tried to do the same and more in Turkey, and succeeded. Not one time is his regime called "repressive." Ataturk had nothing like the Shah's secret police but that word still fit him. He outlawed the fez and tried to cut off beards.

So, no surprise. We use the word "repressive" selectively and we obviously take success into consideration. It's a little like "treason"; if it succeeds who dares name it?

Otto von Bismarck thought success took care of the whole problem. "Our democratic friends," he said, "will pipe in vain when they see princes concerned with their well-being." That was after he set up social insurance for German workers. But America can't stop piping. And its democratic history calls the tune. But alas, the words come from the dictionary. There "repressive" means "inhibiting or restraining the freedom of a person or group of people." And that means that every dictator America supported in the Cold War and every oil autocrat it supports now comes within the word's range of reference. The dictionary shows the world, to which we and Bismarck pipe, how disharmonious our song is.

My guess is that that will never stop us from singing about human rights. After the idealists ask us what we as a nation stand for we won't be able to bear the silence. We've been pretty well taught that there are more important things than harmony.