RAMIN MAZAHERI—If, as the last chapter proved, Western voters are herded – or browbeaten – into supporting parties which falsely claim to be progressive but are merely PFAXIst (Popular Fronts Against Xenophobia but for Imperialism) then is Western parliamentarianism a total sham?
The problem is not in the idea of a parliament of course – which would be to say of representative democracy – but the parliamentarianism habitually produced by Western Liberal Democracy, where power is not based on reflecting the popular will but where power comes from an extra-parliamentary base controlled by an elite. English-style parliamentarianism – French revolutionaries realised in 1789 – does not prioritise representativeness but mere governability of the masses on behalf of an oligarchy which has been only extended only a bit further than the royal family.