Adonis Diaries

Is Democracy a panacea for every social ill and for change? (December 9, 2008)

Bush Junior and his Administration claimed vociferously that all their pre-emptive wars were meant to enforce democracy in world political systems.  Democracy is a social method to permit the citizens to select representatives to the legislative body; this is a huge step forward since enacting laws confer power to the State to regulate life and think up ways to maintain order. Many political orders do not require democratic elections to reaching the same objective of accumulating power and regulating lives.

When democracy is extended to selecting representatives to the executive and legal institutions then regulated chaos is officially admitted. How could you hire people to run your future and economic stability if the voting electorates are not versed or interested in the multitude of problems that do not concern their immediate and restricted wants and desires? How could we have separation of the branches of the legislative, executive, legal, and control institutions if they emanate from the same voting electorates?

Let us take cases of a few social institutions.  Suppose that you have a political party with strict structure, tight dogma and hierarchy, and coupled with symbolism, sort of a Church-like ideology for homogenizing the people, then how democracy is capable of venting stagnation in this civil caste and transforming it into a reflective body of individuals?  Isn’t democracy then meant to psychologically satisfy the members of the caste, a reminder that they are still considered valuable entities but not necessarily eligible to think freely outside the premises and restrictive laws of the caste?  How many political parties, regardless of their principles (socialism, communism, capitalism, racism and so on), that satisfy the criteria of caste system, have managed to elect a representative body not tightly linked to historical lineage of accumulated myths and aberrations?

Even the political parties in the developed States, with loose conditions to registering and no ex-communication orders for the members who jumps ranks to other parties, election results favor historical lineage.  The rare times when the voters select an “outsider” to the recognized class of preferred representatives are periods of utter disgust of performances or unusual catastrophes.  The voters select an “outsider” because they need a scapegoat to their frustrations and not because they do not like the known figures.

President Obama must have realized that fact; he is enlarging his popular base to include the factions that voted for the other candidates by including them in his administration team.  No, it is not because of the candidates’ expertise or experiences but because they are still liked by many voters, who might be feeling sorry for their rash, uncalled for decisions of the moment.  The power of the US system is not in its brand of democracy, that is terribly flawed, but because the magnitude of loss in dignity, well being, arrogance, and illusory dreams is too irritating to voting for the same class of representatives, even within the same party.  The US could have had any alternative democratic model and the result would not have changed this time around.

            The alternative variations on the democratic method are not that serious fundamentally: any democratic system is as good as any other.  What count is the level of education of the voters (in politics, economy, finance, geopolitics, and internal affairs).   What counts is the free-minded level of the voters, as a society and as philosophical tendencies that encourage individual reflections, free opinions that are not punished once expounded, open discussions and open communication among the groups and associations.  What count is to instituting independent governing bodies for check and balance among the powers of the legislative, executive, legal, and control branches. Then, and only then, do alternative models of democracy become viable to match the demand of the people for more control over their destiny.