Tweet
Democracy not a 'one size fits all' proposition
KEEBLE MACFARLANE
Saturday, January 05, 2008
One of the things our little country can beat its chest about is its robust and active democracy. Elections come and elections go - some conducted amid the most frightening and nauseating violence and murder - but the results are always accepted and life lurches on.
When I was born at the outset of the Second World War, Jamaica was not a democracy in the commonly accepted meaning of the word. Only people who owned property could vote, and that meant overwhelmingly the thin top crust of white and brown-skinned people. But the climate allowed discussion, debate and demonstrations, and a generation that became active after the First World War laid the foundations for our modern political life. When the universal vote came in 1949, the population was generally ready to embrace it.
In the past half-century we have seen democracy grow and spread around the world as the smoke and ashes of the second global conflict cleared away and many countries had fresh beginnings.
The main losers - the Germans, Italians and Japanese - were fairly quick learners, largely forsaking the authoritarian tendencies which had become entrenched. And although the British were the most successful colonial masters the world had ever seen, they did implant among their subjects the mechanisms and, more important, the concepts and attitudes of democracy. So important was that legacy that all the former colonies continued to work together with the old colonial power in a new, dynamic body known as the Commonwealth.
Beyond that, we now see healthy and active democracies in such widely different places as South Korea, Brazil, Turkey and Tanzania. Former members of the old Soviet bloc now regularly throw out governments and replace them with people of different philosophies without any serious disruption. Even Russia now conducts regular, nominally democratic polls, while retaining the old boss-control habits.
Towards the end of the last century, democracy appears to have clawed itself a firm grip in Latin America and parts of Africa. The hoary, ultra-conservative old monarchies in Spain and Portugal threw off the shackles and morphed themselves into thriving democracies open for all to see. As a lifelong democrat myself I applaud this trend and look forward to the day when it is the order of business everywhere.
It is fashionable for leaders of the big industrial democracies to preach at every opportunity, the need to sell this form of governance to all and sundry. The Americans who occupy the first country in history to will itself into existence and to design the way it should be run, assume that this experience can be transplanted at will to all comers. But as human bodies reject organs transplanted from other bodies, so do nations and communities which for generations have lived according to their own arrangements. They have to understand that implanting democracy is a process which requires intelligence, sensitivity and finesse.
Years of propagandising have failed to implant democracy in the Middle East - in fact, the only functioning democracy in the region is Israel - and a sturdy, boisterous and prosperous one at that, growing out of the best traditions of European democracy.
Most of the countries there are Muslim, of course, but Islam is not the problem - Turkey has been a functioning democracy for well over half a century. True, the military has a habit of intervening when it feels the politicians are abandoning the secular nature of the regime as laid out by the country's modern founder, Mustafa Kemal. Recently, the generals have stayed on their bases, nervously watching as a government of believers takes over while continuing the practice of separating mosque and state. Indonesia and Malaysia are also Muslim nations, but are run by democratically elected, albeit heavy-handed, governments.
Pakistan, the second largest Muslim country, is also nominally a democracy which has been run by the military about half the time since it became independent from Britain 60 years ago. The country has been in disarray since the assassination of the foremost figure of the ruling Bhutto clan. An election which was to take place next week has been postponed for five weeks, and the unrest appears to be subsiding, but the underlying anti-democratic problems remain unresolved.
In Africa, democracy has had a hard slog, although there are some bright spots, such as South Africa and the former Portuguese colony, Mozambique. Kenya has long been looked upon as a beacon of democracy - until last week, that is. That's when they held a vote and charges flew that Mwai Kibaki stole the presidency. The succeeding unrest has claimed hundreds of lives in clashes that began as political and then unleashed suppressed tribal animosities.
The US is the loudest proponent of democracy above all, but while keeping up the ritual rant and the punitive, unrealistic and unproductive legislation against Cuba, remains curiously silent about two stalwart allies - the backward, Stone Age regime that runs Saudi Arabia and the iron-fisted rule of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Saudi Arabia, despite the veneer of futuristic buildings and all the modern conveniences money can buy, is one of the most uncivilised places on the face of the earth. It is the only country named after the ruling family, which runs the place in league with the mullahs and imams of the Wahabi sect of Islam.
The Afrikaans language has the best description of the Wahabi creed - verkrampte, or totally restricted. It is a vengeful, vicious and distorted interpretation of Islam, and its heaviest burden is on women, who can't function as they would in a normal country. It's what lies beneath their feet that determines the way the big Western countries relate to them, and as long as they keep the oil flowing, the West will keep backing off.
That great anti-democrat, Mao Zedong once said, "Let a thousand flowers bloom." Flowers bloom in the most unlikely places - now in the small kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas above eastern India. Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, a 27-year-old Oxford graduate who succeeded his father less than two years ago, has decreed that his subjects have to become democrats, whether they like it or not. He has launched a process to create a new legislative apparatus and the process of choosing the component bodies began last Monday with an election for members of a new upper house. Many of the candidates were in their 20s, in part because the rules require all candidates to be university graduates. Voters will return to the polls next month and in March to choose the lower house. The Bhutanese monarchy is more than a century old, and is extremely popular. Many citizens are nervous, and we can only cheer and wish them well in their new venture.
KEEBLE MACFARLANE
Saturday, January 05, 2008
One of the things our little country can beat its chest about is its robust and active democracy. Elections come and elections go - some conducted amid the most frightening and nauseating violence and murder - but the results are always accepted and life lurches on.
When I was born at the outset of the Second World War, Jamaica was not a democracy in the commonly accepted meaning of the word. Only people who owned property could vote, and that meant overwhelmingly the thin top crust of white and brown-skinned people. But the climate allowed discussion, debate and demonstrations, and a generation that became active after the First World War laid the foundations for our modern political life. When the universal vote came in 1949, the population was generally ready to embrace it.
In the past half-century we have seen democracy grow and spread around the world as the smoke and ashes of the second global conflict cleared away and many countries had fresh beginnings.
The main losers - the Germans, Italians and Japanese - were fairly quick learners, largely forsaking the authoritarian tendencies which had become entrenched. And although the British were the most successful colonial masters the world had ever seen, they did implant among their subjects the mechanisms and, more important, the concepts and attitudes of democracy. So important was that legacy that all the former colonies continued to work together with the old colonial power in a new, dynamic body known as the Commonwealth.
Beyond that, we now see healthy and active democracies in such widely different places as South Korea, Brazil, Turkey and Tanzania. Former members of the old Soviet bloc now regularly throw out governments and replace them with people of different philosophies without any serious disruption. Even Russia now conducts regular, nominally democratic polls, while retaining the old boss-control habits.
Towards the end of the last century, democracy appears to have clawed itself a firm grip in Latin America and parts of Africa. The hoary, ultra-conservative old monarchies in Spain and Portugal threw off the shackles and morphed themselves into thriving democracies open for all to see. As a lifelong democrat myself I applaud this trend and look forward to the day when it is the order of business everywhere.
It is fashionable for leaders of the big industrial democracies to preach at every opportunity, the need to sell this form of governance to all and sundry. The Americans who occupy the first country in history to will itself into existence and to design the way it should be run, assume that this experience can be transplanted at will to all comers. But as human bodies reject organs transplanted from other bodies, so do nations and communities which for generations have lived according to their own arrangements. They have to understand that implanting democracy is a process which requires intelligence, sensitivity and finesse.
Years of propagandising have failed to implant democracy in the Middle East - in fact, the only functioning democracy in the region is Israel - and a sturdy, boisterous and prosperous one at that, growing out of the best traditions of European democracy.
Most of the countries there are Muslim, of course, but Islam is not the problem - Turkey has been a functioning democracy for well over half a century. True, the military has a habit of intervening when it feels the politicians are abandoning the secular nature of the regime as laid out by the country's modern founder, Mustafa Kemal. Recently, the generals have stayed on their bases, nervously watching as a government of believers takes over while continuing the practice of separating mosque and state. Indonesia and Malaysia are also Muslim nations, but are run by democratically elected, albeit heavy-handed, governments.
Pakistan, the second largest Muslim country, is also nominally a democracy which has been run by the military about half the time since it became independent from Britain 60 years ago. The country has been in disarray since the assassination of the foremost figure of the ruling Bhutto clan. An election which was to take place next week has been postponed for five weeks, and the unrest appears to be subsiding, but the underlying anti-democratic problems remain unresolved.
In Africa, democracy has had a hard slog, although there are some bright spots, such as South Africa and the former Portuguese colony, Mozambique. Kenya has long been looked upon as a beacon of democracy - until last week, that is. That's when they held a vote and charges flew that Mwai Kibaki stole the presidency. The succeeding unrest has claimed hundreds of lives in clashes that began as political and then unleashed suppressed tribal animosities.
The US is the loudest proponent of democracy above all, but while keeping up the ritual rant and the punitive, unrealistic and unproductive legislation against Cuba, remains curiously silent about two stalwart allies - the backward, Stone Age regime that runs Saudi Arabia and the iron-fisted rule of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Saudi Arabia, despite the veneer of futuristic buildings and all the modern conveniences money can buy, is one of the most uncivilised places on the face of the earth. It is the only country named after the ruling family, which runs the place in league with the mullahs and imams of the Wahabi sect of Islam.
The Afrikaans language has the best description of the Wahabi creed - verkrampte, or totally restricted. It is a vengeful, vicious and distorted interpretation of Islam, and its heaviest burden is on women, who can't function as they would in a normal country. It's what lies beneath their feet that determines the way the big Western countries relate to them, and as long as they keep the oil flowing, the West will keep backing off.
That great anti-democrat, Mao Zedong once said, "Let a thousand flowers bloom." Flowers bloom in the most unlikely places - now in the small kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas above eastern India. Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, a 27-year-old Oxford graduate who succeeded his father less than two years ago, has decreed that his subjects have to become democrats, whether they like it or not. He has launched a process to create a new legislative apparatus and the process of choosing the component bodies began last Monday with an election for members of a new upper house. Many of the candidates were in their 20s, in part because the rules require all candidates to be university graduates. Voters will return to the polls next month and in March to choose the lower house. The Bhutanese monarchy is more than a century old, and is extremely popular. Many citizens are nervous, and we can only cheer and wish them well in their new venture.