IS DEMOCRACY A MIRAGE?

For more than 2000 years since the citizens of Athens in 507 BCE, led by Cleisthenes undertook the first experiments with the creation of a democratic form of government, the world has been struggling to create the ideal democratic state, and as is the nature of all mirages, each new experiment has failed to achieve its promises only to be replaced by a new set of promises. Abraham Lincoln, in his famous Gettysburg address, described the ideal democratic state as “government of the people, by the people for the people” and prophesied that it “shall not perish”. Carried away by the hubris of victory and his personal feeling of achievement at the future of a united America without a slave class, Lincoln’s oratory was pleasing and comforting to many Americans, but not all. The democracy that Lincoln boasted about did not emerge out of the civil war, neither has it been realised since, even though America likes to claim to be the “greatest democracy on Earth”.

But if Lincoln were alive today and like me, googled ‘American Democracy Mirage’, he would find among the 1,475,000 results many articles by Americans who question this claim.

The unfortunate truth is that from the beginning, Greek democracy was discriminatory. It was never intended to be ‘government by the people. “[O]nly male citizens who were older than 18 were a part of the demos, meaning only about 40,000 people” (13% of an estimated population of 300,000) “could participate in the democratic process.” Women and slaves were excluded. Greece was a slave-owning society. Women in Greece the fabled cradle of Democracy only won the right to vote and to be elected to parliament in1952 AD. In effect, it was a case of ‘government of the people’, by a few adult male people. And so, after about 200 years under the stress of economic and societal changes, improvements in technology and the ambitions of new leaders, the Athenian experiment faltered.

But 2000 years on the dream continues to inspire changes and adaptations. During this time feudal monarchies and dictatorships have been converted, wars, revolutions and election battles fought, all in the name of a mirage called democracy. And the world, including Trinidad and Tobago, is a much better place to live, even though the ideal is yet to be achieved.

If 2000 years ago a simple small city-state of a few hundred thousand citizens could not find a way to make the democratic ideal work, think of how much more difficult it must be in the 21st century of mega, sophisticated, hyper-technical interconnected states.

The answers may lie in accepting four simple realities.

1.  That the people (singular) of the modern state whom politicians love to claim they represent is not an integrated whole. But is rather a smorgasbord of groups, sub-groups and sub-groups of sub-groups, separated not only by wealth but by geography, philosophy, ethnicity, religion, education, skills, needs, self-interest and culture.

2.  S-elected politicians primarily represent political parties, splinter groups of political parties, geographical constituencies, classes, ethnicities, religions, financial interests and their political survival.

3.  Even with the best of intentions, a continuous struggle for dominance and resistance is usually played out in the all too familiar parliamentary debates (kicksin), compromises, party accommodations and mergers. And differences are sometimes resolved by use of force; revolutions, counter-revolutions, civil wars, and the power of state security services, police, military and legal.

4.  The growth of the all-powerful professional political class. To whom ‘we the people’ continue to outsource our rights and responsibilities as citizens. Elected or seeking office, politicians do not represent nor seek to represent ‘the people’. They seek and win our votes in order to govern. Govern is a polite acronym for rule. In between election cycles, we surrender to politicos. Some of us spend most o the time complaining, while a few enjoy all the trappings of POWER.

-       The Power of the Purse; the treasury.

-       the Power of Patronage; we then go cap-in-hand seeking services, while they

share favours to friends and financiers

-       the Power of Privilege; they become all-powerful, even monarchial.

-       The Power of Persuasion; they exert influence over state information services

-       the Power of Violence; all states reserve the sole right to the use of force; legal, police and military.

ALL THIS WITH NO POWER OF RECALL except the election cycle.

This is not a peculiar Trinidad and Tobago problem. Spin the globe and put your finger on almost any country in our connected world, and you will find some form of struggle for winning, saving or recovering democratic rights for citizens. Many of these struggles are violent. This could mean one of three emerging scenarios.

One, that the 2000-year-old Greek democratic ideal is unachievable. We should, however, be reminded of Winston Churchill's observation. "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Two, that one or more ways of involving the majority of the people in the management of their civilisations will evolve. For the last 200 plus years, what is popularly known as Western or American Styled Democracy was held up as the preferred model. But that is under strain and facing rejection by many states.

Three, the struggle to create and maintain the Abe Lincoln democratic ideal of a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is an urgent mission of our time.

While you consider this imperative think on the words of the Greek general Pericles from his famous funeral oration for the Athenian dead at the end of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC.

“Athens' constitution is called a democracy because it respects the interests not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty.”

A noble idea indeed. The weary desert traveller after a few mirage experiences learns how to face reality and press on. So too must WE THE PEOPLE accept the reality as expressed by Churchill; stop pretending that democracy is "perfect or all-wise", and that 'it is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

In a following article, I will attempt to present an old man’s suggestion for a Trinbago path to make our democracy work a little better.