With the free time I have post-prelims, I decided to start on the 110 episode long behemoth Legend of the Galactic Heroes, an old school anime about politics, warfare, history and so on, in a future where space travel and space battles are possible. The premise is simple: the galaxy is divided into two main political camps that are at war with each other – the Free Planets Alliance (representing democracy and rule by people) and the Galactic Empire (representing autocracy and rule by a supreme leader) – and I never thought I’d get here but this series is surprisingly thought provoking. Any viewer who is paying attention will learn something new and to make sure this learning does not go to waste, I will make my first attempt to chew on some of the ideas brought up. In no particular order, the insights that Legend of the Galactic Heroes (henceforth LOTGH) had given to a humanities student (who’d like to think of this as a form of revision):
Politics and Ideology: How would an omniscient narrator tell the story of our decisions?
The novel that is the source material for the anime was published in 1988 and around the same year the adaptation was made. Back then, the context was the Cold War rivalry in ideology which spotted the flags of USA as a champion of democracy and freedom while the USSR was the despotic authoritarian regime. Now, quite unsurprisingly, history is repeating itself with China becoming the new threat to the USA. One of the protagonists – Yang Wenli from the democratic Alliance – draws a lot of his wisdom from History (sadly, if a more intelligent being is observing us, mankind make pretty boring subjects who never learn) and it seems fitting that politics and ideology should be discussed in tandem with History.
Democracy and Autocracy seem like two concepts that cannot coexist and we make them out to be the opposite ends of the spectrum. Real life ideology is much more nuanced than a polarised scale but for the sake of the discussion I’m going to simplify it into these two. LOTGH makes it appear to be so, at least superficially. Politicians in the Alliance shamelessly give speeches defending the idea of Democracy while denouncing the oppressive style of governance in the Empire. In fact, the galaxy started off with only the Empire and after long years of oppression a dude called Henneissen broke free to create a free government almost like an allergic response – democracy seems to be created as an alternative to autocracy.
The world we are first introduced to in LOTGH presents to us a malfunctioning democracy (where populist politicians prioritise votes over the genuine development of the people whilst being weighed down by the inefficiencies of a democracy) and a rotting dynasty (run by maximum governments who abuse their power to protect only the aristocrat’s or the wealthy’s interests). We see the worst of each side and regardless of their ideology and there exist fatal flaws that requires urgent reforms. The stunning thing is, this is an accurate reflection of not only the political landscape at its inception, but also of today’s world. We need to listen to the message this is trying to get across: ideologies are simply different means to the same end – good and effective governance – it’s not about the political systems a country chooses, but rather the way a government implements the system and upholds the spirit of their ideology. Done well, both democracies and autocracies can be viable options. I feel really proud of myself to have come to this realisation myself (I really owe a lot to China Studies lesson) because maximum governments are not bad, it’s about how they are used (there’s a reason why the Asian Tigers and China are able to become economic powerhouses when they take advantage of the benefits their political system provides). Don’t be picky with the methods if it can achieve the best possible results.
In fact, don’t even be hung up on differentiating the methods. The anime reveals later on that perhaps democracy and autocracy are not entirely distinct from each other. Democracy is a representation of the people’s will and hence it seems intuitive that it is in direct contrast to autocracy where only one person can rule over the rest. As our other protagonist – Reinhard von Lohengramm – completed his imperial conquest of the unifying the universe by overthrowing the old dynasty, Yang Wenli muses about how Reinhard, being armed with foresight and genius, is actually more efficient in pushing for reforms in his new empire than the democratic Alliance ever will be. This benefited citizens in the galaxy and the people want Reinhard to rule over them. Herein lies a paradox: democracy exists to represent the people’s will, but when the people’s will is to submit to an autocrat, democracy becomes ironically self-defeating and pretty pointless if it is resisting authoritarianism for the sake of. If the people are happy being ruled in a way, who has any rights to criticise the regime and try to impose their ideas of how to live and be governed?
An interesting dimension LOTGH brings to the discussion is how both political systems should be evaluated by their suitability to the current state of the country. While it does reveal the hypocrisy and fallibility of any ideology (see above), LOTGH suggests that we make up for this imperfection by being flexible in the approach we take: when the country is unstable, it can benefit more with an efficient authoritarian rule (when the Empire went on Operation Ragnarök on the Alliance, the Alliance fell like wet paper towels because they were so inefficient that Yang Wenli remarks that he is more worried about his allies behind him pinning his hands rather than the enemy before him); when a country stabilizes, perhaps democracy is a better option for preventing the corruption that stems from an individual wielding too much power. This rule should be fluid and move according to exigencies of the time. When the global economy is rife with financial crises indicative of corruption and entrenchment of power, authoritarianism can be adopted to empower someone to fix the issues. When the authoritarian regime starts showing signs of decline and face the threat of a crises of legitimacy, a dose of democracy is healthy for restoring some political legitimacy. The question is: why do we refuse to be flexible in this? Why do we have to defend one ideology to the end the moment we choose it?
And here’s where I springboard off the anime. In LOTGH, Yang Wenli and the Alliance is constantly trying to justify to Reinhard why the Empire should adopt constitutionalism and embrace a more democratic government – heck in the end Julian Minci (Yang’s protégé) wraps up the 110 episodes by proposing a vision of collaboration between the two ideologies. Reinhard doesn’t buy it, but he considers it (and is in a position of power to implement it if he wants) and at his deathbed allows his wife (who is his regent) to entertain that suggestion. Throughout, however, regardless of how brilliant Reinhard’s achievement was, the Alliance refused to consider adopting more authoritarian measures in their system, or they aren’t even in a position of power to consider. Why can’t the compromise go both ways? This could be a commentary on the hypocritical nature of democracies (demanding others to change for them when they themselves are unwilling to change) or it could reveal how ideological concessions are impossible. Both camps would cling on to their beliefs because their method yielded results to prove a degree of success, and why change something if the current system is “fine”? Not only does it explain why there has never been a period of political coexistence and the Thucydides trap is common, it is also something to keep in mind on a much smaller scale. Why change the voting age when the current one works just fine? Why push for UN reforms when the Charter works just fine? In any aspect, not just ideological, the unwillingness to compromise or change is a fatal form of complacency.
In the grand scheme of things, ideological struggles are insignificant even though it might appear to dictate our lives right now. As LOTGH frames it, both protagonists see their insignificance by stepping out of their positions: Reinhard looks upon his grand schemes as but a small ephemeral event that the ageless stars in space bear witness to, and Yang Wenli treats everything from the perspective of history because no matter how one desperately justifies one’s action in the moment, historians can always write and discuss the events in the comfortable lounge of hindsight. Democracies can be painted as evil, Autocracies can be painted as evil, so how do we make a choice on our ideology? Do we even need to make a choice? Throughout the anime there is an omniscient narrator who says things like “only in that moment…little did they know…later remembered in history as…” and while we don’t have this voice in our lives spoiling all the endings for us, I think that whatever choice we make (not just restricted to politics and ideology) we are all at the mercy of time and fate.
Updates 
Leave a comment