Our democracy: A charge to keep

Our democracy is a trust to oversee on behalf of our people. It is also a charge to keep on behalf of many others like ourselves who are watching. For long it has been argued, and not just by Westerners, that liberal democracy is a privilege suited to the colder climes inhabited by Caucasians only. In other words -- this thinking goes -- millions inhabiting the developing world, specially the Muslim part thereof, are better off ruled by diktat or fiat. Most studies, then and now, tend to support the argument. In 2002 the democracy think-tank Freedom House specifically authored a report titled Islam's Democracy Deficit, pointing out the lack of representative governments in the Islamic world. And yet there is Bangladesh.

A fully participatory electoral democracy, Bangladesh's record in the Muslim world is perhaps matched only by the West African nation of Mali. Even that draw of a record is questionable: in large tracts of Mali, gripped by a low level ethnic conflict since the 1980s, 'democracy' is measured by whether the loitering militias of the darker skinned Shongyas or lighter hued Touaregs have more guns on a given day. Beyond Bangladesh and Mali, are the more or less functioning democratic structures in the Muslim lands of Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia. None of them qualify for the 'democratic' appellation in the strictest term since the Turks and Pakistanis have a very involved military that can veto many key policies and the two Southeast Asian neighbours have yet to see a peaceful transition of power through general elections. That leaves Bangladesh standing alone as the closest thing to a participatory, pluralist, liberal democracy in the Muslim world.

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We can count our blessings. After the 1991 changeover, the military has left for the barracks and the politicians are in full charge of politics. Unlike Indonesia and Malaysia we have not witnessed the corrosive effects of a quarter-century long 'democratic dictatorship' where the person in power somehow never lost ostensibly open elections. In contrast to Pakistan and Mali, we do not have a long history of widespread low intensity ethnic or sectarian conflict which has now been basically reduced to armed gangsters roaming the country paths and city streets to kill anyone considered the 'enemy'. In even sharper contrast to all those countries, Bangladesh boasts an overwhelmingly homogenous ethnic makeup.

Yet all those blessings we have seemingly let slide. Intolerance bordering on hatred is the singularly most evident feeling between the two camps that have alternated in democratic power. That intolerance has been exploited by politically sheltered gangsters and criminals who have turned parts of the country into havens of violence and dens of corruption. If the common person on the street is not entirely thrilled by the lofty notions of a pluralist democracy that presides over unchecked criminality, can we blame him or her? This then is the fundamental problem of faith we face. Our faith in our democracy is incredible but politicians should not automatically assume that it is infinite. Their intramural intolerance and the resultant constant aura of violence can bring us perilously close someday to questioning the efficacy of our democratic system.

That day we would have lost more than just our faith. We would have failed to keep the charge of that noble example to the Islamic world that history had entrusted us with in 1991.

Esam Sohail, a banker and a former college lecturer of international affairs, stays in Kansas, USA.