"In this era of the global village, the tide of democracy is running. And it will not cease, not in China, not in South Africa, not in any corner of this earth, where the simple idea of democracy and freedom has taken root"
About this Quote
Tsongas is selling inevitability, and he does it with the calm certainty of someone trying to move history by declaring it already moved. The “global village” is doing a lot of work here: it shrinks distance into intimacy, implying that isolationist authoritarianism is no longer just immoral but impractical. In a village, everyone sees what everyone else is doing. Information, norms, and outrage travel faster than censors and borders can manage. That’s not a neutral description of globalization; it’s a political bet that interconnectedness acts like a solvent on closed regimes.
The tide metaphor is classic democratic triumphalism, but Tsongas sharpens it with a lawyerly cadence: “it will not cease, not in China, not in South Africa, not in any corner…” The repetition isn’t poetry for its own sake. It’s inoculation against the most obvious counterarguments. China names the hard case: a vast, durable state that can modernize without liberalizing (or so critics would argue). South Africa, depending on the moment, evokes either apartheid’s last stand or a liberation struggle on the brink of victory. Pairing them signals a world where the Cold War’s moral scoreboard is being recalculated, with American-style democracy positioned as the end point.
The subtext is persuasion aimed inward as much as outward. Declaring democracy’s spread unstoppable reassures anxious audiences that backing freedom abroad is aligned with “where the world is going,” not a costly crusade. It’s also a subtle warning to autocrats: you can stall, you can punish, but once the “idea” has “taken root,” coercion is gardening with a flamethrower. The rhetorical trick is turning a contested political project into weather.
The tide metaphor is classic democratic triumphalism, but Tsongas sharpens it with a lawyerly cadence: “it will not cease, not in China, not in South Africa, not in any corner…” The repetition isn’t poetry for its own sake. It’s inoculation against the most obvious counterarguments. China names the hard case: a vast, durable state that can modernize without liberalizing (or so critics would argue). South Africa, depending on the moment, evokes either apartheid’s last stand or a liberation struggle on the brink of victory. Pairing them signals a world where the Cold War’s moral scoreboard is being recalculated, with American-style democracy positioned as the end point.
The subtext is persuasion aimed inward as much as outward. Declaring democracy’s spread unstoppable reassures anxious audiences that backing freedom abroad is aligned with “where the world is going,” not a costly crusade. It’s also a subtle warning to autocrats: you can stall, you can punish, but once the “idea” has “taken root,” coercion is gardening with a flamethrower. The rhetorical trick is turning a contested political project into weather.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
|---|
More Quotes by Paul
Add to List
