How to Help Democracy Abroad

As I was reading this article, Syrian army defector says he was told to shoot unarmed protesters | World news | The Guardian, one idea occurred to me. That is that one of the ways that we help other societies become free is by giving people who leave other countries space where they can give a detailed account of their grievances against their former government. The Syrian government is telling lies about the opposition to their rule in order to coordinate the armed suppression of that opposition.

There is a reason they are doing this. Lying can be expensive, not least because the government will have to cause its own supporters to have inaccurate opinions about the state of the world. It also carries the risk that the government will be found out. When people find out that they have been deceived, they become angry.

Other countries provide a space for dissidents to express their opinions about the governments that they have left behind. When these dissidents contradict the statements of their former regime, some of the information that they give will make it back to their home country. This will make it more difficult for the government to convince the people that their lies are true. Since these lies were necessary to suppress the opposition, this will make the repression more difficult.