The Struggle For Democracy

One of our most annoying conceits is our glee at dissecting and critiquing democracy in other lands.

To these critics I say, 1215.   Remember that for 1215 is the date our Anglo-Saxon drive for democracy began with King John signing the Magna Carta.  Barely seven centuries later we became so enlightened that "we" actually "gave" women the right to vote.  You're welcome, ladies.

I only wish these armchair critics could be made to watch Patrick Watson's 1989 documentary series, "The Struggle for Democracy."  They would learn that democracy is, at best, a very loosely defined concept that can mean much different things to different peoples and cultures.  And, for whatever democracy is, it is not fixed but a constantly shifting work in progress.  

As I have written many times, democracy is a condition that grows from seed.  It requires well-prepared soil and careful nurturing for it to grow and take hold.  Writer and philosopher Roger Scruton makes the point far more elegantly in a BBC News Magazine op-ed.

...the idea that there is a single, one-size-fits-all solution to social and political conflict around the world, and that democracy is the name of it, is based on a disregard of historical and cultural conditions, and a failure to see that democracy is only made possible by other and more deeply hidden institutions. And while we are willing to accept that democracy goes hand in hand with individual freedom and the protection of human rights, we often fail to realise that these three things are three things, not one, and that it is only under certain conditions that they coincide. 

...By studying the situation in Eastern Europe, I came quickly to see that political freedom depends upon a delicate network of institutions, which my friends were striving to understand and if possible to resuscitate. ...First among them is judicial independence. In every case where the Communist Party had an interest, the judge was under instructions to deliver the verdict that the Party required. It didn't matter that there was no law that the victim had breached. If necessary, a law could be invented at the last moment. If the Party wanted someone to be in prison, then the judge had to put that person in prison. If he refused, then he would end up in prison himself, if he was lucky. In such circumstances the rule of law was a complete fiction: law was simply a mask worn by the Party, as it dictated its decisions to the people.

Then there is the institution of property rights. Normal people in the communist state had virtually nothing to their name - nothing legal, that is. Their houses or flats were owned by the state, their few personal possessions could not be freely traded in the market, and their salary and pension depended on their political conformity and could be removed at any time. In these circumstances the entire economy went underground. No court of law would enforce the contracts that people needed if they were to get on with their lives. You might have a deal with your neighbour to exchange vegetables for maths lessons. But if one of you defected and the other took the dispute to law, the only result would be that both of you went to prison for conducting an illegal business. All transactions therefore depended upon personal trust, in a situation in which trust was in shorter and shorter supply. Hence society was riven by conflicts and suspicions, which neither law nor politics could remedy. And the Communist Party rejoiced in this situation, since it prevented people from combining against it.

Then there is freedom of speech and opinion. The freedom to entertain and express opinions, however offensive to others, has been regarded since Locke in the 17th Century as the pre-condition of a political society. This freedom was enshrined in the US constitution, defended in the face of the Victorian moralists by John Stuart Mill, and upheld in our time by my dissident friends. We take this freedom so much for granted that we regard it as the default position of humanity - the position to which we return, if all oppressive powers are removed from us. But my experience of communist Europe convinced me of the opposite. Orthodoxy, conformity and the hounding of the dissident define the default position of mankind, and there is no reason to think that democracies are any different in this respect from Islamic theocracies or one-party totalitarian states. 

Finally, there is legitimate opposition. This was perhaps the greatest casualty of communism as it afflicted Europe. When Lenin imposed the communist system on Russia it was in the form of a top-down dictatorship, in which orders were passed down to the ranks below. It was a kind of military government, and opposition could no more unite against it than soldiers in the ranks can unite against their commanders. In times of emergency this kind of discipline is perhaps necessary. But it is the opposite of civilised government.

It has been assumed in this country from the time of the Anglo-Saxons that political decisions are taken in council, after hearing all sides to the question, and taking note of the many interests that must be reconciled. Long before the advent of democracy, our parliament divided into government and opposition, and except in stressful periods during the 16th and 17th Centuries it was acknowledged that government without opposition is without any corrective when things go wrong. That is what we saw in the Soviet Union and its empire - a system of government without a reverse gear, which continued headlong towards the brick wall of the future.

We ignore these lessons at our peril.   When Bush-Cheney toppled Hussein they really believed they could simply drop Ahmed Chalabi in place and voila - instant democracy.   The White House believed it could be in and out of Iraq in as little as six months.  Our experiment in transplanting Western democracy into Afghanistan has been an even greater disaster.

We can encourage the spread of democracy and assist that spread from the sidelines but it is the people who have to create the conditions for that seed to germinate and grow and take hold.  Sometimes that happens easily, relatively quickly.  Other times it can take seven centuries.