Going Deeper
Quest for democracy
BIAFRAN conflict in Nigeria, failed government in Somalia, war financed by blood diamonds in Liberia, Hutu-Tutsi ethnic conflict in Rwanda and consequent genocide, disputed presidential elections spilling blood in Kenya, and the trial for corruption of the possible successor to Mbeke in South Africa does not speak well of the "Dark Continent" that British explorers had set out to explore and the colonialists decided to conquer.
In the Asian continent the Jewel in the Crown had been India where the battle of Plassey in 1757 established British rule till 1947 -- a rule that produced a stratified society of Ashraf and Atraf salted by the British rule. The British had to create a privileged class because they were few and the Indians were many in number. So the freedom fighters of the 1857 war of independence had to be subjugated by the British and the locals who sided with the British were given titles and money for satisfaction of their greed.
Since a strict code of morals was not meant to be followed to the letter by the local landlords of various statures, the British rulers were satisfied with the revenue received through the contract of permanent settlement. The system was widely practiced in South and South East Asia as in other places where the British ruled.
The British, though no less stratified at home, had Oliver Cromwell to cut off the head of King Charles I and Mary Queen of Scots lost her head in her struggle with Queen Elizabeth I.
The British, though tyrants in the places they had conquered, were fighting for the rights, albeit not democratic in the modern sense, that established the rules of governance between the king and his vassals according to the custom of the feudal law, and in 1215 King John had to give his consent to Magna Carta that over the centuries required the governments in England and in countries influenced by English tradition to follow the rule of law in dealing with their citizens.
Of the important clauses of the Magna Carta were the promise that no one will be denied or delayed the right to justice; and that no free man will be imprisoned or outlawed or destroyed except by lawful judgment of his peers or trial by jury. The importance of the Magna Carta lies in its symbolism, as a precursor of the rule of law, the most basic tenet of democratic system.
It is generally accepted that Jean Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract is a classic defense of the democratic form of government displayed in his implicit trust in the "general will" of a democratic people, as expressed by a vote of the majority, to make all important decisions.
The third wave of democracy, by Samuel Huntington's account, widened the political space for representative democracies where citizens' interests are looked after by the people elected to serve in legislative and executive positions.
The journey to the establishment of a democratic form of government was strewn with thorns. The year 1642 saw the first popular rebellion against monarchy in England and the execution of King Charles I that spread to other European nations largely guided by political philosophers, notably the French philosophers Montesquieu and Rousseau, and the American political leaders like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Before the end of the 19th century, every important Western European monarchy had adopted a constitution limiting the power of the monarch and giving a considerable share of political power to the people.
The quest for democracy sometimes had seen departure from the struggle for equity. Thomas Hobbes' advocacy of a strong central authority, a form of government by which the ruled handed over all authority to the ruler, was due to the so-called English Revolution -- a time of great upheaval and disorder. According to Hobbes, total freedom in the state of nature left each man insecure and frightened at the unrestrained power of other individuals, and life was "nasty, brutish, and short" as individuals are driven by insatiable self-interest.
English philosopher John Locke described his concept of a "civil government" by excluding absolute monarchy from his definition of civil society, because he believed that the people must consent to be ruled. Locke was more optimistic about the nature of human beings. He described a state of nature in which people tend to respect one another's natural rights to life, liberty, and property. The assumption that human beings are inherently good is at the heart of what has come to be called Lockean liberalism.
Bangladesh's quest for democracy took a serpentine course when the bond of a common religion was thought to be paramount, transcending the linguistic and cultural differences between the two wings of Pakistan. The war of liberation threw to the winds the two nation theory that preached that Hindus and Muslims in the Indian sub-continent could not live together.
The dream that liberation of Bangladesh generated in many hearts was rudely disrupted by extra-constitutional interference in the governance of the country. The country had come to the brink of civil war due to the machinations by the alliance government (2001-2006) in Bangladesh, whose unbridled commission of kleptocracy had generated skepticism among the people about the concepts of both Lockean liberalism and that of Immanuel Kant's perpetual peace.
Besides this, the unending violence in Iraq, unilateral interpretation of security by the hyper-power, subordination of international law to the US domestic law, constant threat to Iran, inability to solve the Middle East problem, and tolerance of Israeli militarism in Gaza and Lebanon are contributing to a conviction that the clash of civilisations between Islam and Christianity is not a fiction after all, but a distinct reality.
Before the Muslim youths are further inflamed over continued injustice and exclusion by the West and become recruits of Osama bin Laden and his transnational network of terrorists it is absolutely necessary that socio-political and economic concerns of the developing countries be met through installation of democratic system of governance in as many countries as possible.
It is hoped that in Bangladesh, in the light of repeated assurances given by the people in power, we shall go beyond the bounds of electoral democracy along to the state of accountability of the people chosen to represent the electorate. One also hopes that since elections do not complete the democratic process, supportive institutions including a vibrant civil society would continue to be strengthened to keep watch lest the government were to stray once again.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments