Is the outcome of the George Zimmerman trial, the blanket U.S. media coverage and the post-trial conduct of Americans, something not only to be celebrated, but studied by people in democracies around the world? For Russia’s Izvestia, columnist Alexander Genis writes that the things contributing to the appearance of strife and division are precisely what enables American democracy to endure.
In a surprising take from Russia’s Izvestia, Alexander Genis, who apparently lived in the U.S. at some point, writes in part:
However the jurors came to their decision, it is entirely and utterly up to their consciences. And this is most important of all, because the highest value in America is the independence of the courts, which is what makes democracy possible. As the final arbiter of endless disputes nearly impossible for such a complex and contradictory country to untangle, the courts act as a bulwark of justice by standing against the dictates of the majority.
It is for precisely this reason that America worships not only Mammon, but Themis. The legal thriller is a favorite genre of bestsellers, the court drama is a Hollywood classic, the lawyer is hero of every second anecdote. And every time the country is shaken by a sensational trial like it is now, television neglects all other news.
Outwardly, this “nomocracy” [rule under law] appears as social corruption and national disease. But Americans, learning from their 19th century civil war and 20th century civil rights movement, see the steadfast authority of the courts as a recipe for unity and a panacea against discord.
While it may appear that national outrage over the Zimmerman case proves the opposite, in actual fact, it strengthens this pattern. Such a trial is like a legal FAQ for everyone who, like me, is in need of one.
READ ON IN ENGLISH OR RUSSIAN, OR READ MORE TRANSLATED and English-language foreign press coverage of the outcome of the Zimmerman trial, at Worldmeets.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.
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