Roadmap for Eritrean Democracy (Part II)

Types and foundation of democracies

Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said: "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch."

Before my readers panic, let me add the wise words of Sir Winston Churchill,

Churchill once famously remarked, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried."

As your average Joe, this is the way I understand democracy,

Democracy means rule by the people -- from the original Greek demos (the people) + kratei (to rule).

Although theoretically there could be different types of democracies, there are only two types of democracies that are used in practice – even then only one type of these democracies is practical.

1. Direct Democracy – allows members of its society to vote directly on laws and issues.  Only Switzerland uses some form of direct democracy.  Although direct democracy is probably the purest form of democracy, in an ever sophisticated world and increasing members of societies, direct democracy is very cumbersome method.  This method was most suited in societies that existed over millennium ago – that is right, democracy (with limited suffrage????) existed over 2,000 years ago – where members of a society were small.

2. Representational Democracy – is a form of democracy whereby members of a society elect their representatives to form their government.  This is the most practical form of democracy.

BUT WAIT A MINUTE!    Most, if not all, societies in Africa and others never had direct nor representational democracy.  Does this mean they had dictatorship or some form of undemocratic governance?   No!

What we should ask ourselves is, ‘what is the purpose of democracy?’  Democracy is only a mechanism to promulgate/enact, modify, change, or rescind common [legislated] laws used to govern members within a society.  Members of any society need laws that allow them to live together.  Thus, the most important concept here is that – democracy is only mechanism, and the objective is to promulgate laws acceptable to the majority within a society.  We can replace this mechanism with any other acceptable mechanisms, but the objective must remain the same – to promulgate laws that are acceptable to the majority of the population.   In many parts of Africa, that mechanism was a clearly defined means of crowing a ruler and election/appointment of council of elders, who had oversight over the ruler to ensure that he didn’t overstep his authority (probably not successful at all times).  The objective remained the same in Africa – promulgating laws that are acceptable within those societies.  One can say that there was rule-of-law but not necessarily ‘representational’ democracy.  Just as a note, the above is highly generalized comment and that certain traditional societies with very limited members did have direct democracies.  The differences between rule-of-law and democracy require its own separate discussion.  

Then, colonizers came to Africa and created countries that consisted of multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies.  In addition, the advent of industrial revolution and information technology meshed together these diverse groups into heterogeneous societies by relocating (through migration) them into urban areas and shortening the travel time between different regions.  Our traditional system of enacting laws and maintaining rule-of-law faced new challenges in multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies.  Can our traditional system transform itself to address new realities?  No it can’t.  Our traditional system worked on consensus basis (or ‘force’ at other times) and dealt in a world when the size of these societies were very small and largely homogeneous, and faced few issues.

In today’s realities, the only workable or practical mechanism is representational democracy. 

Some argue that ‘Western (style) Democracy’ is not appropriate for other parts of the world.  But I have failed to understand what they mean by ‘Western Democracy’ or what alternative types of ‘practical’ democracy exist other than ‘representational democracy’.  It is possible that some may have concerns over ‘Western Democracy’ as being too liberal, meaning high degree of individual rights and freedoms.  This leads us to the crux of the debate,

1.      If the purpose of democratic process is to allow members of a society to ultimately promulgate laws that is acceptable to the majority of them, then the wish of the majority must prevail,

2.      But the problem is that the principle of [as opposed to declarations] of the rights and freedoms of individuals may require that the laws of the majority do not infringe on these individual rights and freedoms,

3.      Thus we have a philosophical dilemma.  The majority may restrict [through legislation] the definition of the rights and freedoms, i.e. by declaring an abridged right and freedom and individuals in a society. The question will shift to an issue of principle of the rights and freedoms of individuals – can any individual engage in any activity that satisfies him/her that doesn’t injure anyone else in that society? 

Thus when people say that some disagree with ‘Western-style Democracy’ they may mean to disagree with a very liberal or very tolerant definition of individual rights and freedoms – and not democracy itself.  Democracy itself is only a mechanism and, by the strictest definition, a society can promulgate any laws that are acceptable to it [through this mechanism].  In other words, by the strictest definition, democracy doesn’t require that societies adopt standardized or international, i.e. such as Western, laws.   Every society can adopt its own unique laws through the democratic process.

The other discomfort with ‘Western-style Democracy’ pertains to the concept of democracy itself. 

1.      The first concept assumes that members of a society are rationale and can make informed decisions in dealing with political issues and in electing their representatives.

2.      The second concept assumes that members of society have limited inclination or capacity to fully engage in political matters and thus delegate political matters to their representatives.  What will ensure that these representatives act in accordance with the wishes of their constituencies are the institutional safeguards and competing interests amongst the elected representatives. 

The first concept conjures up the image of decision-making through consensus among members of a society, which is attractive to all of us.  But is it workable?  ‘Western-style Democracy’ operates on the second concept, which is based on competitive or adversarial relationship among the elected representatives.  For cultures that operated on ‘consensus’ based approach to decision-making must now change their political cultural literally overnight to operate in a ‘competitive’ or ‘adversarial’ political environment.  Some view ‘Western-style Democracy’ as being too confrontational and not suitable for certain societies that value consensus over confrontational political processes. 

In traditional systems, consensus was easier to achieve for the following reasons,

1.      Members of a society were much smaller in size,

2.      Members of a society were composed of largely homogeneous groups,

3.      Socio-economic and political issues were limited,

4.      There were limited interactions among different societies.

Conversely [for clarity], a modern society will have significantly more challenges to achieve consensus among its members for the following reasons,

1.      Members of a society are significantly larger in size,

2.      Members of a society are composed of largely heterogeneous groups – i.e. different cultures, religions, traditions, etc…

3.      In an ever-quickly evolving world, laws must be enacted, modified, changed, and rescinded at much faster pace,

4.      The world has shrunk into global village – with people being exposed to various, and many times clashing, ideas.

The biggest challenge for changing societies is transforming themselves from traditional systems to contemporary systems.  It should be clear that the challenge for democracy isn’t necessarily that it must cater to heterogeneous groups in, possibly, competition-based or confrontational type of democratic process but transitioning from a traditional system to contemporary system requires ‘skillfully managing transition’.  For clarity, democracy can be applied to heterogeneous societies, but its traditional institutions must change to reflect new realities.

This bring us to yet another set of questions,

1.      Democracy means rule by the majority.  How does one protect the rights and freedoms of minorities?

2.      What do we mean by minorities?

a.    In homogenous society, minorities are created because the democratic process itself isn’t achieved through consensus but through simple majority – thus creating these minorities. Unfortunately, as unanimous decisions may not be achieved, in order for society to function, the minority must accept the ‘Will’ of the majority.  It is also presumed that the divide among the majority and minority group may not have any permanence, and with time and with different issues, members of the minority may become part of the majority.

b.    Minorities within heterogeneous societies, however, create a different set of challenges. The divide among the majority and minorities in these heterogeneous societies may have permanence.  The question then becomes if two or more societies with different histories are brought together, should the minority be required (indirectly) to give up its traditional laws and beliefs to accommodate the majority-rule based democratic system.  Or to alleviate the concerns of the minority group that their traditional laws are being compromised, should the majority be required to give up their traditional laws also – and thus leading all of us to adopt laws that are NOT contained in our (both for the majority and minority groups) traditions?

Wait a minute, before one panics that different traditional systems may have difficulty living together and transforming themselves into contemporary systems, we must step back and re-examine the basics … what do all traditional systems attempt to achieve?

1. If we peel off their traditional clothing, food, and dances, all traditional societies attempted to promulgate laws that allowed members of their societies to live together.  To this end, any of the traditional laws have very similar principles and laws,

1. Principles include of fairness, justice and honesty

2. Laws include – thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal [naturally various societies may have exceptions to certain laws when dealing with their enemies, but these laws are enforced when governing their own societies]

2. In other words, traditional systems attempted to preserve their societies through laws and customs.  When examining various societies slightly below the surface one is led to one conclusion – that they are all attempting to achieve the same objective.  Traditional clothing, food and dances are simply the uniforms in a football match, and NOT the art of moving the ball itself.  The ‘uniform’ does help one to identify the members of your society without having to use binoculars to identify them.

If all societies have the same values of fairness, honesty, equality, and punishing those individuals who infringe on the basic rights of others (by killing or stealing – concept of life and property), what are the issues that divide different cultures?

The biggest difference among various societies is the definition of morality, which largely refers to sexual behaviors such as tolerance towards prostitution, adultery and homosexuality.  Other ‘so-called immoral acts’ include getting drunk.  For instance, some societies may have no concept of adultery, while others tolerate it, and still others prohibit it (with severe consequences).  Sexuality (promiscuity) has fallen within a grey area of traditional systems attempting to preserve themselves.  If laws are promulgated to prevent one member of a society from injuring another member within the same society, then we must ask ourselves how is one member injured?  Injury might be defined as one man’s loss of property [tangible] or happiness [intangible] as a result of the direct action of another man.  When one man steals your wife [adultery], has that man taken away your property [tangible], as traditional systems may have believed, or has that man taken away your right to live happily [intangible].  This is probably the most complex topic [morality] that may drive a wedge among different societies. Should and could man control morality to an extent that it can preserve itself?  In a shrinking world of instant communication, can anyone control morality?  Or are we attempting to slow the general decline in morality?  Is morality another form of punishment?  Whereas punishment is meted out after the fact of causing injury, ‘morality’ is a form of restrictions designed to prevent an injury from happening in the first place.  Ancient Greece, Rome and other empires succumbed to ‘declining morality’ … then these highly ‘developed societies’ were later replaced by other societies that had rigid position on morality [through religious or philosophical bridle] … only to evolve and eventually fall into the same pitfalls.

The Lessons

Some openly state that Eritrea isn’t ready for democracy and that Eritrea must develop economically before it can achieve its ultimate aspirations.  Others have hidden concerns that democracy in multiethnic and multi-religious society is difficult and even unworkable.  All these concerns are misplaced.  

The nine nationalities of Eritrea have very similar traditional laws and values.  All these groups believe that members within their societies must be treated equally, fairly, and that the rule-of-law must be respected.  Their traditional laws are similar in defining what ‘injury’ is, although methods of redressing or punishments may differ.  The only challenging issue is how tolerant a society should be towards what one distinct society within a multiethnic and multi-religious society may define as ‘immoral behaviors’.  In other words, should individual rights and freedoms prevail over legislative attempts to control ‘immoral behaviors’?

The level of tolerance towards ‘so-called immoral behaviors’ are similar among the various groups in Eritrea.  In attempting to bring democracy to Eritrea, one is not striving to parachute Western values on Eritrea.   It is too simplistic to argue that democracy will eventually import other societies’ ‘tolerant or, what some may refer as immoral, behaviors’.  As the ultimate aim of any society is to preserve itself, and that ‘immoral behaviors’ are considered to erode that self-preservation, the only way of delaying decadence is by maintaining the well-being of families in societies and by maintaining the strong bond that exists among the members of the societies.  Bonding is only created through [personal] proximity and shared experience.   Today’s Eritrea isn’t on fast-track towards economic growth, but rather short-circuiting itself into moral decadence – and its eventual destruction.  The tragedy might be, i.e. if it does happen, that its society may not have even enjoyed the zenith of wealth before its decline.   

To summarize, the issues for multiethnic and multi-religious societies may be divided as follows,

1. Customary clothing, food, and other outwardly symbols of a certain group or society don’t create any division for such multiethnic societies.  Everyone within this multiethnic society can eat any food they want, or dress any type of clothing they want.  Even government offices may be required to accommodate traditional clothing rather than, say, suit and tie.

2. I can confidently say that 97% of the traditional Eritrean laws, i.e. laws that allow members of society to live together, can be transformed to accept contemporary laws suited for multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies if we follow the objectives and functions of law within any society from the beginning of time to now.

3. The 3% will be left for the debate on how to balance between morality [esp. sexuality] and man’s ‘natural’ rights and freedom that don’t injure anyone else.

4. What I have left out is ‘language’.  Some say it is only a means of communication.  Others say that it is a form of culture.  This is a delicate subject.  It is probably suffice to say that all ethnic groups have the right to receive all services [education, judicial, etc…] that are available to the majority through government services must also be available to the minorities.

The challenge for Eritrean democracy is to create leaders who can understand the challenges of democracy itself and the transition towards democracy at philosophical level and then to sell it to their colleagues and the public in a very simplified language.   These same leaders must be adept at handling the enormous task of managing transition.  It isn’t democracy that is failing us, rather it is our non-existent and inept leaders with illusionary, out-dated, and narrow agendas that have failed us.

The second challenge for Eritrea is that we must accept that ‘representational democracy’ entails a mechanism that will require competing political interests to serve the best interest of its constituents.  Our beliefs in ‘consensus-building’ will be tested.  As ordinary citizens, we must encourage healthy competition among the political elites to ensure our interests are better protected.  This may sound simplistic, but that should be our guiding principle, or we should view it as the invisible hand that will attempt to balance different political forces and interests.

To be continued ….

On Other thoughts

This is actually a suggestion to EDA.  As it prepared to hold an ‘expanded’ meeting towards the end of this year, it is critical that it engages the public in discussions and debates over the next five months.  It will only be a useless show if everything is left to a three-day meeting where certain individuals read out their ‘papers’, then participants are broken into groups [workshops] then told to draw up a list of ideas and then everybody is disbanded to go home.  Instead, EDA should use its website to create a forum and engage the public directly.  This will allow participants to prepare themselves for the meeting.  Meaningful debates can’t be conducted over two or three days.  If no preparation is made, the meeting can only be used for networking and not necessarily for debates.  Five months to the end of the year isn’t too much time to prepare for anything meaningful.  EDA may salvage something if it quickly organizes and begins to engage the public in the next couple of weeks.

I enjoyed the following articles for their observations and thoughts,

1.      Is it proportional representation that is crippling the EDA? (A comment on awate's latest editorial, the Pencil)
By A/Rahman Sayed

http://www.awate.com/artman/publish/article_4512.shtml

2.      Our Region - A Matter of Perspective (II)
By Fessehaye Woldu
Jun 27, 2006, 11:10 PST

http://www.awate.com/artman/publish/article_4523.shtml

3.      Unhappy Masses & The Challenge of Political Islam in The Horn of Africa
By Dr. Said Samatar
Jun 28, 2006, 17:08 PST

http://www.awate.com/artman/publish/article_4526.shtml

We should also encourage and thank Mr. Adhanom Gebremariam for his “Wefri Warsai Yekealo, Slavery Campaign” series of articles, and Mr. Hiruy Tedla’s advocacy for structure of government based on “Adi”.  All written communication of ideas takes us one step closer to solutions.

Berhan Hagos

July 1, 2006