Change regime

Regime

• noun 1 a government, especially an authoritarian one. 2 a systematic or ordered way of doing something. 3 the conditions under which a scientific or industrial process occurs.

— ORIGIN originally in the sense regimen: from French, from Latin regimen ‘rule’.

(From the Concise Oxford English Dictionary)

The word “regime,” as used in news reports, has bothered me for some time. It seems to be used as a term of disapproval, tagging a government as repressive and illegitimate without having the guts to actually say so. I recently decided to use the Google News search engine to see how this noun gets thrown against the wall in contemporary journalism. “Regime” by itself offered up 17,200 hits. I did a number of “name + regime” searches, but in certain cases the countries were only loosely connected to the offending noun in the stories. What follows is a mix of actual numbers and my qualitative impressions.

Top running dogs in the regime contest are Iran, Hussein’s Iraq, Syria, and North Korea. A search for “Iran regime” came up with 7,800 hits and “Iranian regime” netted 5,630. Probably some overlap there, but you get the idea. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq came in second at 6,320. Syria popped up with 1,950 hits. North Korea trailed the four horsemen with 1,460.

There were a group of countries that came up many times, but nowhere near the gang of four. They are, in order of precedence:

Burma/Myanmar 654
Zimbabwe 395
U.S. (under Bush) 256
Belarus 133
Israel (“Zionist regime”) 129
Phillippines (“Arroyo regime”) 111
Afghanistan (under present government and Taliban) (Hard to determine an exact number, but significant legitimate mentions)
Uzbekistan (“Karimov regime”) 36
Venezuela (“Chavez regime”) 32

There were a dozen or so regime mentions each for the Palestinian Authority, East Timor, and Iraq under the present government.

Quite a number of governments received just a few tips of the gold-braided hat, namely:

Mauritania
Egypt
Russia (“Putin regime”) 8
Saudi Arabia (“Saudi regime”) 9
Rwanda
India
United Kingdom (“Blair regime”) 6
Nepal
Pakistan
Armenia
Turkmenistan (under Niyazov)
Sri Lanka

If you have any familiarity with a number of these governments, you are probably saying, “Wait a minute…” Sure, Hussein’s Iraq, Iran, Syria, and North Korea are eligible for the Amnesty International Seal of Disapproval. But Venezuela and Uzbekistan neck and neck? You may agree or disagree with Chavez’s economic policies, but he was democratically elected and spends a lot of money on poor people. Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov is a classic iron-fisted thug who actually boiled two political opponents alive.

The Palestinian Authority recently had internationally approved elections, however badly they came out for the U.S. and Israel, but it beats out the politically repressive and unelected royal family of Saudi Arabia by a mile on the regime front.

The United Kingdom under Blair is in the pack with Rwanda and Pakistan, just behind the Saudis. Ok, so he’s Bush’s lapdog and kind of obnoxious, but he’s an elected Member of Parliament.

When I look at the relative number of mentions vs. the actual state of democracy and human rights in any countries below the top six, it confirms my suspicion that “regime” is more an insult than a descriptive term. Witness the incidence of “Zionist regime.” Love Israel or hate it, you have to admit that this is meant as an emotionally charged religious slur.

Note to news writers: Expunge this term from your vocabulary. The word regime is a stealth term, so common in news items that it doesn’t grab our attention. Still, it leaves an emotional bruise on our interpretation of events. Repeated often enough, it taints the names associated with it. Just use the word “government.”

If a country lacks fair elections, spies on its citizens, initiates aggressive military actions against other countries, and denies fair trials to certain religious minorities, then come right out and call it “repressive” “undemocratic” “militaristic”, or “authoritarian.” As in: “The undemocratic and militaristic government of George W. Bush.” Ok, you saw that one coming, but I did express my opinion directly. I didn’t resort to an insult sent in under the radar. Those who use the title “journalist” or “reporter” should be so forthright.