Jafar Shaikh Idris
Democracy has not found in its entire history the popularity it now enjoys. Most Western thinkers since the Greek period have criticized, and even refuted the idea. The criticism reached the extent that one modern British philosopher declared that if we were to cast a democratic judgement on democracy itself, based on the number of thinkers who voted in its favour, versus those who did not, it would be defeated.(1)
During our modern era, the extensive promotion for democracy has blinded many people, especially in our Muslim countries, from seeing its defects which Western intellectuals are familiar with. Those who are fascinated by democracy promote it as a cure for all the problems of society, political and non-political. It is for this reason that I wanted to contribute to the correction of this false image, beginning with this article, which I hope will form the introduction to an entire book on the problems of democracy and its Islamic alternatives.
The first argument against democracy is it being a term that is groundless. If one described to you a political system that is dictatorial or religious, for instance, you would be able to visualize what is meant by that description. Your vision would match the reality of the description. But, it is not so for democracy. Democracy - as its name implies, and as its theorists and politicians know it - is the rule of the people. However, the actual facade to what is called democracy, regardless of its positives or negatives, is not the rule of the people:
Firstly, the definition of “people” itself is an ambiguous one, as noted by some of the senior democratic thinkers. Read the words of Professor Robert Dahl, who may have written the most comprehensive American research paper on democracy. He was described on the cover of his award-winning book, cited here as one of the most prominent political scientists of our time:
“Those who call for democracy, including political philosophers, are distinguished by their presumption of the existence of a populace. They consider its existence a reality created by history. But this reality is suspect, just as it was in the United States in 1861, when matters were concluded through violence in place of consensus or majority rule. The assumption that a populace exists, and what this entails, becomes a part of the imaginary democratic theory.”(2)
Secondly: Because the populace never has and never will govern. It is an unattainable matter. The ideal democracy is what is referred to as direct democracy. It is said to have been practiced in Athens, the first democratic nation, during the fifth century B.C. It was called direct democracy because the “populace” met forty times annually to discuss all of the important political issues and made decisions concerning them. Nevertheless, it was not the rule of the people:
Because those who founded the democratic system were a minority of the population that decided who has the right to be included in the definition of the ruling populace. They excluded women, slaves, and all those who were of non-Athenian origins no matter how long they resided there. As a result, only a small portion of citizens had the right to political participation.(3)
A meeting could be held when 6,000 of 36,000 approximate total members were in attendance. Thereby, the decisions made at its conclusion were not the decisions of the entire group that was given the right to govern.
The duration of the meeting did not exceed ten hours. So it was not possible for everyone to participate in the discussions; rather, some leaders emerged as orators while the rest were followers.
When democracy was revived again in the 18th century in Europe, it was burdensome to conduct it in the same fashion as the democracy of Athens, due to the large increase in the population and the difficulty of conducting proportionate meetings. Instead of declaring that democracy in the form of the rule of people was no longer possible, another governing system was sought to accommodate the reality at hand. Some manoeuvred around that by naming the Athenian democracy as “direct democracy”, and suggested that modern democracy is “indirect” or “representative democracy” - whereas the populace would choose a small group within itself to represent it and govern in its name. This scheming was necessary because there was a crisis of dominance: Who deserved to be the supreme ruler? This dominance traditionally belonged to kings and was considered a divine right, given to them. People at that time were religious, and believed that a supremacy of this nature only belonged to God, or to whomever God entrusted it to. However, they no longer believed in this after the 18th century’s major intellectual revolution. It called, among other things, for removing religion from all aspects of life. There was no alternative to the rule of God, or to the Kings’ divine right to govern, other than to declare that the entire population would govern itself. But “representative democracy” was inherently further than “direct democracy” from attaining the rule of the people. This was due to the following:
Since governing has two sides - legislative and executive - by which side would the people govern? It is not feasible for the people to govern through the second side, because the entire population cannot take the role of the head of state, council of ministers, or the army leader. French philosopher Rousseau was the first to ridicule democracy in the form of executive government:
“If we were to take the term ‘democracy’ in its precise meaning, there would not be a true democracy in existence; and there will never be one. It is not natural for the majority to govern and for the minority to be governed. It is inconceivable for the populace to be meeting continuously and spending its time in conducting general affairs. Clearly, it is impractical to form committees for that purpose without changing the administrative system.” (4)
What remains then is legislative governing, but the populace does not legislate in a “representative democracy”; rather, it elects those who legislate. Once again, let us have a look at Rousseau ridiculing this concept:
“The English people consider themselves to be free, but they are sadly mistaken. They are free during the parliamentary membership elections. As soon as the members are elected, servitude prevails, and the people are rendered to non-beings. How the English utilize the short moments of freedom enjoyed is indicative that they truly deserve to lose it.”(5)
This is due to the fact that the representatives of the people are not the population itself, even if they were elected by consensus. This may be realistic, were they to meet to decide on one issue where all of them know the opinions of their constituents on it. However, as the issues are diverse and complicated, requiring information not readily available to the general population, governing does not become the rule of the people. It is true that each representative avoids participating in legislation that he knows most of the people in his district do not agree with, as he might lose his seat in the following elections if he took part in it; but this is insignificant, by comparison.
The elected officials are not truly elected by consensus, as the term ‘rule of the people’ dictates; instead, the majority elects them. The majority is not everyone. An individual whom the majority accepts in one area may not be acceptable in other areas. Similarly, the majority of the population may not accept him in the event of direct voting. Regardless, he is considered to be a representative of the people and a ruler in their name.
In addition, the “majority” at the inception of democracy was not the majority of the entire population. Women and some underprivileged people were excluded. The Americans excluded slaves. Women did not take part in the ‘rule of the people’ concept and vote until 1918, in England, and 1920, in the United States. Blacks were only given this right by amending the American constitution in 1886. However, even after the term ‘rule of the people’ became inclusive to all citizens (except for children), certain segments were still deprived from the right to participate in elections. Read what this American author has to say in his book about democracy:
Millions of people remain lacking the right to vote either completely or partially: Hundreds of thousands of citizens who reside in Washington D.C., a million and a half who committed a felony were punished for it, but their states deprived them, in spite of that, of the right to vote, millions who live in Puerto Rico and other federal districts, and the unidentified millions whose ballots are misplaced, counted incorrectly, or destroyed in each election (6)
Since the elections in the U.S. require registration prior to them taking place, and since many people do not register, the majority therefore consists of the majority of voters who registered and entitled to vote. This percentage in the 2000 elections according to official government records was:
Among 203 million who are 18 years of age or older, 186 million are citizens. Of those, 130 million registered to vote and 111 million voted. Consequently, the percentage of the voting population over 18 years old is 55% of the total population, 60% of citizens, and 86% of registered voters.(7)
Liberal Democracy
There is an issue which most people fail to give due attention to. It is that the democracy in the West is not an absolute and pure democracy; rather, it is a democracy cumbered by liberalism. What does this mean? Liberalism is a political ideology whose basis is that society consists of individuals, not of classes, families, or any other assemblies. Since the individual is the basis of society, and because the individual has certain rights (most importantly liberty), it is not permissible for the government, a segment of society, or even the majority of the population, to meddle with his liberty. That is why they promote what is called minimum government intervention. In other words, individuals are left alone to choose what they want fundamentally. The government can only intervene when necessary to preserve the rights of individuals that have been meddled with. Such unwanted intervention is described as the dictatorship of the majority. I wanted to refer to the writings of a number of politicians and Western intellectuals, especially Americans, but what saved me from doing so was a statement, attributed to one amongst them whose name is Leibman. Those who prefaced the book that contained several of his articles described him as, “perhaps the most distinguished American political thinker in the 20th century.” (8) Here is some of what he said:
We must refuse, in my opinion, to declare that the principles of liberty, justice, and sound government are characterized by the rule of the majority. Here lurks the source of the matter. Washington believed that the populace must rule, but he did not think that liberty, justice, and sound government would be attained through the rule of the people. He believed that a populace with sovereignty cannot be trusted with absolute authority, just as the preceding sovereign king could not be trusted with the same. He did not deceive himself. He did not believe in what has now become the prevailing democratic ideology: that whatever the people want must be accepted as fact. He knew that there were no guarantees against the rule of the people becoming oppressive, tyrannical, corrupt, unjust, and unwise. The populace must also restrain itself. It must, like any other body of government, be held accountable, be informed, and raise its behavioural standards. (9)
A staunch democrat might say, “But by this account you are assigning an authority to oversee the people’s sovereignty, which contradicts the democratic principle that the people must rule. Therefore, neither you, Leibman, nor Washington before you are democrats. Leibman would respond that you are arguing for pure democracy that has an absolute faith in the people’s sovereignty. But the democracy I am speaking of, and calling for, is the liberal democracy that limits this authority.
Some liberals who came after Washington would venture beyond where he went and emphasize that liberalism is the foundation, and that democracy must be sacrificed if it conflicted with it. Here is the liberal thinker, Hayek declaring this, after strongly defending democracy, and after demonstrating its need for liberalism in a well-known book fifty years ago:
I do not want to render democracy to an idol, as our generation may truly be talking and thinking about democracy more than it should, and less about the principles it serves. Democracy is essentially a tool. It is a practical instrument to ensure internal security and individual liberty. It is neither beyond criticism nor foolproof. We should also not forget that more often than not a certain measure of cultural and spiritual freedom was attained under absolute authority than under some democracies.(10)
Our Position Vis-a-vis So-called Democratic Systems
The political systems that are called democracies are therefore not democratic in the sense that sovereignty belongs to the people. They are instead various political systems, even if they share important similarities. It is wrong, therefore, to identify democracy as the establishment in the United States, United Kingdom, France, or other Western countries. Consequently, if these countries have the right to improvise and choose the particulars for their institutions and political values as they see fit (even though they are all called democracies), isn’t it our right also to choose amongst the principles and political values that we consider appropriate for our identity and reality, and a better way to realize our goals - whether or not it includes similarities with democracy? Surely! This is the natural approach for any nation that thinks logically, respects itself, and prides itself on its identity and history.
Based on that, should one of our countries choose for itself a system it considers to be representative of its identity and appropriate for its era, then it must begin to establish the principle and values it wishes the country to abide by. It then must look for the appropriate agencies for its era and circumstances that can carry-out and represent these values. It might wish, for instance, that the country is distinguished by certain characteristics; including choosing its ruler, prevalence of the rule of law, freedom of expression, and for all of that to be within the context of what it believes in as a way of life that is not compelled to be similar to the Western way of life. So if this were a Muslim nation, it would make all of that in the context of the Book of Allah and the Sunnah. It would also add certain matters, such as enjoining virtue and forbidding misconduct, protecting and defending religion, and so forth. If one were to agree with Western liberal democracy in certain areas, he is not compelled to accept all of it, to adopt its philosophy, or to take on its name. The benefits found in democracy are neither exclusive to, nor bound by, it. On the contrary, it might be lacking them, just as they might be present elsewhere. As a matter of fact, much of these benefits could be found even among the pre-Islamic (Jahili) Arabs! But, now is not the time to expand on this issue.
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Footnote:
(1) Ross Harrison, Democracy, Routledge, London and New York, 1995, p. 3.
(2) Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and its Critics, Yale University Press, 1989, pp. 3-4.
(3) Ibid p. 17.
(4) The Social Contract, third book, fourth chapter, p. 239.
(5) Ibid chapter 15, p. 266.
(6) James B. Raskin, Overruling Democracy, Routledge, 2003, p. 9.
(7) Source: U.S. Census Bureau.
(8) Clinton Rossiter & James Lane, editors, The Essential Lippman: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy, Harvard University Press, 1982, p. xi.
(9) Ibid pp. 4-5.
(10) F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, University of Chicago Press, 1994, p. 78.
Courtsey of al-Bayan Magazine , Kindly translated by: Abu Omar
source: islamic awakening
