In view of the mob violence which is the increasingly prevalent hallmark of modern "democracy", I saw this and thought it'd make a good counterpoint to the default "Democracy at any cost" school.
Books have been written about it, films have been made about it: Rwanda is best known for a genocide that claimed more than half a million lives in 1994.
But in the ensuing years, quiet changes have taken place there. So much so that "The Economist" magazine now asks: is Rwanda "Africa's Singapore?" The World Bank ranks it 45th in the world for ease of doing business, higher than any African country barring South Africa and Mauritius. And Transparency International says it is less corrupt than Greece or Italy.
A (post-Apartheid) Sub-Saharan society with less corruption than two EU members? I wish it was hard to believe, especially considering that Greece and Italy are "democracies", but something else is at work here. In fact, in Paul Kagame we see a pretty good example of that rarest of good governments, the Benevolent Despot.
"Benevolent" does not mean he's a saint, by any stretch. Considering how he came to power there were and remain a lot of heads to be cracked in a notoriously volatile part of the world, so I'm sure Amnesty International won't be giving him a gold star. The scale to measure a Benevolent Despot against the garden variety ones is much like the scale of judgment in the Egyptian underworld; all the bad you do should weigh no more than a feather (although I hear they used a pretty big feather).
There are a lot of places that could use a BD, and historical precedents are any good king, etc. Tito in Yugoslavia is a reasonably contemporary example. All of these occurrences, rare as they are, must be viewed through the lens of their environment, not some armchair human-rights mouthpiece. The world is what it is, most frequently not what you'd like it to be, especially if you get all of your learning from a narrow range of Utopian politically correct sources. The "Arithmetic" of the Frontier that I model this blog on (and as much of my life as I can) is "whatever works is right".
Let's take a situation which is not currently entirely out of control, Tunisia. This is the epicentre of the "Arab Spring" and as Arab countries go, particularly considering the overall state of the world economy, it was in pretty good shape under Zine El Abedine Ben Ali. There was a fairly reasonable level of corruption (real-world assessment), but no freedom of the press. This is a case of "what have you done for me lately", as for the first 20 or so years of his rule he was voted in with massive majorities, and his policies made Tunisia on of the most vibrant economies in the region.
The problem with Tunisia, like all Muslim(ish) countries is that they have too many kids, leading to "youth" unemployment. This is a deliberate plan as it was for the Catholics until recently to out-produce the infidels, but that's an aside. I will lay a significant sum of money against whatever replaces Ben Ali being better overall than what his system managed.
A surprising number of people with nice comfy lives in soft Western countries consider a free press more important than stability, at least in other countries. If the recent foolishness in Montreal was to persist or even better, escalate, being able to blog about it without the secret police (CSIS, I guess?) kicking in your door will likely be a lesser priority than having enough food in the house and/or getting to work to make a living.
Ideally you have stability and freedom of the press, etc. but if you're in a rough neighbourhood which is more important? I personally think that an inability to tolerate criticism is the mark of an insecure leader, and showing weakness in any regard is dangerous when you're on top. If I were despoting somewhere I would let the press say what they want (as long as it's true and they spell my name right) and not waste my scarce secret police resources on hassling journalists. There are plenty of other people who need visits from them, the ones who advocate violence, and secret police are just what is needed for that bunch.
Keep the gears engaged, the lights on and the food rolling in to the distribution centres; that's what keeps people alive and reasonably comfortable, and that's my measure of success. I would indeed make a few bad actors disappear for that, and I have at least some respect for anyone who can hit those benchmarks. Even (especially, to be honest) if some (deserving) heads get cracked for it. Democracy is indeed only one range of options out of many.
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