Stories of Senduro Flower: When the People Speak Up (6)

"A pair of barbershops were facing each other and were in red-hot competition. One put up a sign advertising, 'HAIRCUTS FOR FIVE DOLLAR'. His competitor put up one that read, 'WE REPAIR FIVE-DOLLAR HAIRCUTS'."

"George Orwell says that the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy," Senduro went on while looking at a portrait of a man with a small, toothbrush-style mustache: a 'Toothbrush moustache'.

"It's not surprising indeed, the noun ‘democracy’ works miracles, to the point that its four syllables, ‘de–mo-cra-cy’, when loudly uttered in public, easily disarm any of its adversaries and dismiss all of its critics, says Tomislav Sunic. This word, especially when inscribed on the banner of the modern liberal system, can also become the ideal cover for the most despicable political crimes. In recent history, it came in handy as an alibi for carrying out serial killings against custom-designed non-democratic political actors. Or, for that matter, its loftier expression, such as ‘fighting for democracy’, can serve beautifully as a safe venue for firebombing entire ‘non-democratic’ nations into submission. The surreal beauty that this generic noun implies, based on the specific time and place of its user, can mean everything and nothing at the same time. This noun and its democratic qualifiers have become part and parcel of every politician’s lexical arsenal.

When discussing a political system, its intrinsic 'goodness' cannot be proven. No political system exists that is preferable in all historical epochs, circumstances, and places. To argue that the best form of government is that which best meets the interests of the people is simply to sidetrack the issue, for various and mutually contradictory ways of defining collective ‘interest’ exist (such as prosperity, happiness, power, and destiny).

If we take the case of democracy, a question that soon presents itself is whether this system of government may be applicable throughout the world. Democracy has been made the object of two sorts of criticism. The first is directed against the principle of democracy itself and is generally of anti-democratic inspiration. The second, in contrast, consists of deploring the fact that democratic practice rarely conforms to the ideal or theory of democracy, and in suggesting possible solutions to remedy the situation.

Classic critique of democracy from well-known authors, democracy is the reign of division, instability, and incompetence par excellence—the dictatorship of numbers and mediocrity. The party system, it is argued, threatens national unity by engendering a state of ‘endemic civil war’. Through electioneering and parliamentarianism, the most mediocre people come into power. As the number of those taking part in the political process is higher in democracies, the game of politics becomes a mere clash between particular opposing interests. This in turn nourishes demagogy, making people lose sight of the general interest. As they must be re-elected, leaders are incapable of developing long-term projects and of taking necessary but unpopular steps. What they do, then, is encourage a range of groups to make claims that go against the common good; they speak the ‘language of the masses’ and, in order to satisfy the largest number of people, appeal to the lowest instincts. Democracy thus inevitably leads to anarchy, mass hedonism, and egalitarian materialism. The common good degenerates into the commonplace. The ‘reign of freedom’ reveals itself to be nothing but the reign of quantity. Democracy consumes what previous ages have produced. The power of one man gives way to the dictatorship of all and to the tyranny of public opinion. The promotion of the ‘average’ individual causes a general leveling down.

If we flashback to the era of Greeks democracy, the Greeks primarily defined democracy in contrast to two other systems: tyranny and aristocracy. Democracy presupposed three conditions: isonomy (equality before the law), isotimy (equal rights to access all public offices), and isegory (freedom of expression). This was direct democracy, also known as ‘face to face’ democracy, since all citizens could take part in the ekklesia, or assembly. Deliberations were prepared by the boule (council), but it was the popular assembly that was the real decision-making body. The assembly appointed ambassadors, decided over the issue of war and peace, launched and brought an end to military expeditions, investigated magistrates’ performance, issued decrees, ratified laws, bestowed citizenship rights, and deliberated on matters of public security. In short, ‘the people ruled, instead of being ruled by elected individuals’.

The notions of citizenship, liberty, and equality of political rights, as well as popular sovereignty, were closely interrelated in the Greek era. Citizenship as a function thus derived from the notion of citizenship a status which was the exclusive prerogative of birth. To be a citizen meant, in the fullest sense of the word, to belong to a homeland—that is, to a homeland and a past. One is born an Athenian—one does not become it (rare exceptions notwithstanding).

In Greek, liberty stems from one’s origin. Freeman, eleutheros, is primarily he who belongs to a certain ‘stock’ (Latin word liberi, ‘children’). ‘To be born of good stock is to be free’. The original meaning of the word ‘liberty’ in no way suggests the idea of ‘liberation’ as emancipation from a given community. Rather, it implies a form of belonging—and it is this which confers liberty. Hence, when the Greeks spoke of liberty, it is not the right to escape the tutelage of the city that they had in mind or the right to rid themselves of the constraints to which each citizen was bound. Rather, what they had in mind was the right—and political capability—guaranteed by law of participating in the life of the city, voting in the assembly, electing magistrates, etc. Liberty did not legitimise secession, but sanctioned its very opposite: the bond which tied each person to his city. This was not liberty as autonomy, but liberty as participation. It was not meant to extend beyond the community, but was practised solely within the framework of the polis. Liberty implied belonging.

When Aristotle defines man as a ‘political animal’ and a social being, he is suggesting that man should not be detached from his role as a citizen—as a person living in an organized community, a polis, or civitas. This view stands in contrast to the concept of modern liberalism, which assumes that the individual precedes society and that man, qua individual, is at once something more than just a citizen. Among the Greeks, equality was only a means to democracy, not its cause. Political equality derived from citizenship—from one’s belonging to a given people.

Liberalism and democracy are not synonyms. Democracy is a ‘-cracy’, which is to say a form of political power, whereas liberalism is an ideology for the limitation of all political power. Democracy is based on popular sovereignty; liberalism, on the rights of the individual. Liberal representative democracy implies the delegation of sovereignty, which strictly speaking, is tantamount to abdication by the people. In a representative system, the people elect representatives who govern by themselves: the electorate legitimizes a genuine power that lies exclusively in the hands of representatives. In a genuine system of popular sovereignty, elected candidates are only entrusted with expressing the will of the people and the nation; they do not embody it.

Experience shows—and this is a commonplace assertion, but it needs to be taken into account—that democratic regimes can also be regimes of oppression, colonialism, and terror at times. We should face the facts: no democratic procedure can serve as an absolute guarantee against autocracy and despotism. A popular government may become tyrannical. Authoritarian is not typical of monarchies or oligarchies, rather, it represents a corruption that is always possible and which threatens—in different ways—all political systems.

The underlying principle of democracy, according to Alain de Benoist, is rather a ‘holistic’ one, namely: acknowledgment of the fact that the people, as such, hold political prerogatives. The equality of rights does not reflect any natural equality; rather, it is a right deriving from citizenship, the exercise of which is what enables individual participation.

In a democratic system, citizens all hold equal political rights not by any alleged inalienable rights possessed by the ‘human person’, but because they all belong to the same national and folk community —which is to say, under their citizenship. At the basis of democracy lies not the idea of ‘society’, but of a community of citizens who are all heirs to the same history and/or wish to carry this history on towards a common destiny. The fundamental principle behind democracy is not ‘one man, one vote’, but ‘one citizen, one vote’.

The key notion for democracy is not numbers, suffrage, elections, or representation, but participation. Democracy is a folk’s participation in its destiny. It is that form of government that acknowledges each citizen’s right to take part in public affairs, particularly by appointing the government and lending or denying his consent to it. So it is not institutions that make democracy, but rather the people’s participation in institutions. The maximum of democracy coincides not with the ‘maximum of liberty’ or the ‘maximum of equality’, but with the maximum of participation.

In Indonesia, and for Indonesians, this participation idea, has existed since ancient times, in culture, in the struggle for independence, then summarized in every paragraph of the Preamble to the 1945 Constitution, as shared values and principles, which unite and guide them to the truth, until the end of the world.

There are so many things related to democracy we can talk about, such as human rights or hate speech, but allow me to take a break for a moment. By the way, Ramadan is coming, so, in the next episode, my bestie Jasmine, will talk about Ramadan.

I think we'll finish our discussion for now, we'll meet again, insha Allah. And Allah knows best."

Then Senduro sang a song,

Yo, listen up, here's a story

About a little guy

that lives in a blue world

And all day and all night

and everything he sees is just blue

like him, inside and outside *)

Citations & References:

- Alain de Benoist, The Problem of Democracy, 2011, Arktos Media

- James S. Fishkin, When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation, 2009, Oxford University Press

*) "A Decade in Blue (Da Ba Dee)" written by Maurizio Lobina, Jeffrey Jey & Gabry Ponte

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