Democracy

I have had Democracy on the brain for several years. It also happens to be one of the big issues of our times. There is something satisfactory in knowing I am being current and topical.

Democracy is not unlike what a judge once said of pornography: I’m not sure what it is, but I know when I see it. Most of us know democracy in much the same way. I also think of Democracy as something akin to driving a car. We can drive a car without necessarily understanding the mechanics involved, or how to maintain it. The same goes for Democracy. We can do it and be it without necessarily knowing or understand how or why it works. I think knowing the full nature of Democracy is on par as difficult as knowing the nature of consciousness.

The other night I was watching a televised discussion on the prospects of democracy in Iraq. I heard something very interesting. One interviewee said, as a way of explaining the difficulties that were being encounter there in establishing it, I don’t think we really understand Democracy, or how it works. On hearing that I immediately understood what he was talking about. We really don’t understand it. Also, I think we generally are pretty naive and delusional about it, especially when it come to implementing it in places that have never practiced it before, like in Haiti or Iraq.

I remember reading about a professor of Democracy who was quite exited about going to Iraq to help establish it. I can imagine how he felt, exhilarated at the prospects of having a chance to create something from scratch and being on the cutting edge. At first be found the endeavour very promising. However, as violence and instability began escalating, he started having second thoughts. What he discovered from the growing instability and violence is perhaps something he unconsciously knew all along, that if you don’t have a stable environment to build it in, Democracy hasn’t a chance. For instant, women who were taking up the cause were been threaten with death. Under such circumstances Democracy will have little chance to take hold and flourish. In Iraq, as soon as its nascent roots were been planted, insecurity was ripping them out.

It’s not that the professor who went to Iraq to help establish Democracy was delusional about its chances but more so that he was naive. He was naive enough to believe that the instigators of the war in Iraq knew what they were doing. He believed, as they did, that their model for democratic nation building would work. Those plans were poorly thought out, if they were at all. Anyway, the establishing of Democracy in Iraq was more like an after thought, as a way to legitimize its occupation.

My feeling is that one of the big flaws about establishing Democracy anywhere is that people don’t understand its exceptional nature. For instance, what is about it or us that supposes and allows it to exist?

One of my catch all phrases is, Democracy is contingent on many things. Our professor friend knew of one of its major components, security. But that alone is not enough. Communism offered its citizens security, but it didn’t naturally bring about Democracy. However, you can say that the security communism did produce prepared the ground work for many ex-communist countries to establish Democracy later, as many are doing now.

To help better understand what I mean when I say Democracy is contingent on many things, I’ve used the human body as an analogy. I think the human body and Democracy are quite similar. They are both organisms and their function and health are contingent on many parts interacting. For instance, take the heart or the brain. Though they are major organs which without the body couldn’t function, both are not only contingent on each other for survival but also on a host of other parts such as kidneys, liver, lungs and so on. Democracy functions and remains healthy in very much the same way. It relies on a host of interwoven contingencies such as the rule of law, pluralism, property rights, equality, freedom of choice and mobility and even the right to be indifferent about it.

The general cursory idea of Democracy we have is government of the people, for the people and by the people. This idea includes one person one vote. But again, the right to vote is just one component like security is. Without either we would not have Democracy. But neither on their own guarantee Democracy. To guarantee it, what we vote for has to be backed up and defended by other things, like some of the things I mention above. If it isn’t, a situation like what happened in Germany in 1933 will occur. Then, Hitler was democratically elected but there weren’t sufficient back-up systems to keep Hitler democratic. In Germany at the time the law and courts were weak, the press was ineffectual in holding government accountable, people weren’t treated equally and in general it was a closed, non-pluralistic society. In such a climate it’s easy to understand why Hitler managed to become a totalitarian.

What happen to Democracy in Germany illustrates an overlooked aspect of it, that it is a very sophisticated enterprise. People point to that incident as a way to highlight Democracy’s vulnerabilities. However, that incident points out to me that Democracy them wasn’t yet fully developed or sophisticated enough for the modern world. It hadn’t sufficiently developed its back-up systems to ensure it wouldn’t in time turn into totalitarianism. And many of those back-up systems are unspoken and tacit.

The ‘tacity’ of Democracy is also something that is overlooked went trying to transplant it in places like Iraq. Much of our Democracy, and what makes it successful, is unspoken. It’s a state of mind, a life style. Ironically, it‘s successful because we can generally take it for granted. It’s there like the air we breath. We sleep and eat it. Its in our bones. We don’t have to openly think about it. It’s naturally there. However, for Democracy to be like that it has take centuries of evolution and being passed down. And here it is, people think that Democracy can be parachuted into a place that has never experienced it before and it will naturally be accepted and take root.

I think culture has a lot to do with the acceptance of Democracy. Societies that are democratic are societies that are constantly in flux, and changing. Non-democratic societies tend to be traditionally based which leaves little room for flux or change. They discourage change. Societies that are democratic are competitive. Uncompetetive societies are for the most part undemocratic. Inflexible, static societies abhor Democracy because it insists on change and sweeping away intransigent traditions, such as those that deny universal suffrage, the separation of church and state, freedom of choice, minority rights and the bifurcation of authority.

One economist said this of Democracy, it is a universal value. He said it’s like Mother Nature and added, it’s hard to argue against Mother Nature. It’s also hard to argue against Democracy.