West has no reason to be smug

If it had been my 10-year-old daughter, it might have been OK. A simple mistake, the duty of parents to correct. But when the error is made by someone who wants to be the next leader of the free world, and when it concerns primary-school levels of general knowledge, it is more troubling.

When Mitt Romney confused the word "Sikh" with "Sheikh" recently, more than once, he demonstrated a humiliating lack of knowledge about, well, just about everything. Were such gaffes by Western politicians once-in-a-blue-moon events, it would be easier to snigger and let them pass. But they are not. Sarah Palin thought she could see Russia from Alaska. Hillary Rodham Clinton, unable to pronounce the Russian prime minster's name, decided that "Medavedeva … whatever" would suffice.

It is not the lack of worldly knowledge that these politicians display that is so troubling. It is that it is combined with a know-it-all smugness and self-righteousness. Despite understanding much less about the world than they should, they seem to think they can tell others what to do. Romney thought it acceptable to tell the British that they had made a hash of organising the Olympics. Clinton thinks she can lecture China on human rights and press freedom.

But it is their hypocrisy that grates the most.

American and European politicians love to bash Chinese, Middle Eastern and African leaders around the ears, lecturing about their lack of democracy. Representative democracy is portrayed as a self-evident truth, despite being viewed by America's founding fathers as a system they wanted to avoid.

Worse still, Western leaders do not practise what they preach. In the US and much of Europe, the democratic choice is often limited to two big parties, which are almost identical. It is as if Western politicians are suggesting that a two-party state is much better that a one-party state.

Moreover, big business has hijacked the legislative process in many countries. Huge corporations fund US electoral campaigns and lobby for favourable legislation in Europe and Washington, corrupting the system. Media organisations keep politicians in their pocket. In Britain, Canada, Australia, and most US elections, the first-past-the-post system means that most votes are practically worthless. The same party wins in most constituencies, most of the time. And, in the US, according to a study by the Pew research group, an ever more complex registration process has effectively disenfranchised 24per cent of the people.