civil society – Pike & Hurricane

The myth of democracy: Beyond speeches, a muddled reality

Pauline Zaragoza — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 16:25:52 +0000

For a long time, democracy was imagined as a utopia. Today, its nice image is not ideal anymore due to impossible and impracticable promises. Nowadays, democracy has lost its credibility. Its beliefs became a myth. In the context of the rise of populism and restrictions of liberties, its definition and even its existence are questioned.

Democracy: An old and blurred concept

Native from the ancient Athens, the word democracy comes from the Greek words “demos” (the people) and “kratos” (the power) which can be translated as the government of the people. Democracy is universally seen as a sort of ideal founded on a political and philosophical tension between the concepts of liberty and equality. It is also a political regime including institutions and laws. One of the most famous definitions is the one of Abraham Lincoln: “It’s the government of the people by the people for the people.”

Historically, except in Athens, democracy was a synonym of a bad image. Plato considered it a tyrannic model and Rawls judged it not as the best regime to reach justice. Even at the time of Solon and Clisthène, the Greek theorists of this concept, this regime was rooted in a society where slavery was essential. Moreover, foreigners, women and slaves were excluded from the status of citizens which was allowing the rights to practice democracy. The structure of this old Greek society can remind us some similarities regarding the treatment of the migration crisis in 2015 and inequalities and discrimination toward minorities and women. Several centuries later, some things are not changing and it is as if it was set in stone. But this gap between this ideal and reality has consequences.

A gap between words and reality

After the Second World War,the democratic model was set as a universal aspiration, a sign of success. As proof of this international will, the 21st Article of the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights aimed to promote it. However, beyond those beautiful statements there is another reality. In the nineties, the fall of the Berlin Wall reignited the hope of the democratic model’s victory. But some countries, presented as young democracies at that time, such as Russia or China, became arbitrary. As explained by journalist Fareed Zakaria, democracy might lead to authoritarianism. Actually, democracy is not just about holding elections, allowing political participation. It also implies the rule of law, the separation of powers, secularity, and the protections of minorities and individuals’ rights.

Democracy has become a label used for anything at any time which has the terrible consequence of it losing its meaning. During the Soviet period, most of the former Eastern Bloc countries were called Soviet Republics applying Soviet democracy knowing that they were belonging to the champions’ category when it comes to violating human and political rights. Also, this paradox exist in the name of some countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo which is well-known for its corruption case, existence of child soldiers and the common practice of female genital mutilation.

In our time, democracy seems to be a force without finality despite a will of expansion and its conquest of the world. Recalling the famous definition of Clausewitz, democracy can be seen as as tool to continue the fight for hegemony by others means. Indeed, perhaps democratic regimes are not just imperfect but they are guilty of crimes. The United States are the perfect example to illustrate the use of democracy to legitimize actions with the 2003’s invasion of Iraq or the use of torture in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. And in many Western democracies, the rise of terrorism has authorized the restriction of civil liberties and democratic values under the argument of security matters.

In addition, behind the beautiful speeches, the struggle for the right to abortion and other women’s rights, gay rights, rigged election, and minority rights have become our daily reality. The case of Hungary and Poland are symptomatic of this issue. In Hungary, Victor Orban, elected in 2010, set political and financial pressure, regulation, censorship and disinformation towards media. He also decided to weaken the rule of law by targeting judicial institutions, as example of his decisions, he forced the early retirement of judges. In Poland, abortion and LGBTQ rights are under threat and the President Andrzej Duda signed a law meant to pack the country’s judiciary with judges friendly to the party in power. Those various events and manipulations of the concept of democracy led to give it a bad image. However, recent protests remind us that this ideal is not dead yet.

A glimmer of hope: An ideal not dead yet

For researcher Isabelle Ferreras, the issues of democracy are located in our economic model. For her, democracy and capitalism are incompatible. If capitalism has a future, democracy cannot have one. Capitalism, according to her, allows political rights according to the amount of capital owned whereas democracy is based on the equality of rights for everyone. Perhaps, this argument can be related to protests in France with the Gilets jaunes and in Chile where the triggers for protest were rooted in economic inequalities.

Some of the democratic values are still alive in minds all around the world. France, Algeria, Lebanon, Chile and Hong Kong are recent fields of protest using pacific gatherings and social media as tools against a monopolization of power and economic and political inequalities within the population. Those recent events demonstrate a global need to recapture democracy.

Democracy has to be rethought in order to restore its legitimacy after all the disillusions that are associated with it. On one hand, this concept has to avoid what Tocqueville theorized as the tyranny of the majority which might not always have its reasons, can be easily manipulated and does not protect minorities. Also, democracy has to avoid being a nice label used for countries’ interests or a model that reinforces inequalities within populations. Perhaps, the role played by civil society and whistle-blowers is to influence decisions to preserve our rights and liberties, but also to act. Regarding numerous issues the can be our lifeboat and make the myth a reality.

by Pauline Zaragoza

Photo Credits

Crowd, Clker-Free-Vector-Images

Parthenon, timeflies1955

20190818 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protest, Studio Incendo, CC BY 2.0

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Action beyond protest: “A different world is possible”

Merle Emrich — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 15:46:30 +0000

Much like any other polytheistic society, the Ancient Greeks had a god.dess for just about any important aspect of their lives. One of them was Adrestia, the goddess of revolt, just retribution and balance between good and evil. Her name translates to “the inescapable”, and if we look at history social conflict and revolts are indeed a recurring theme – from the French Revolution and Gandhi’s Salt March to the Monday Demonstrations that helped bring down the Berlin Wall. More recent waves of protests, including Occupy Wall Street, the growing environmental movement and social justice movements from Lebanon over France to Chile, demonstrate that revolt and protests are still as inescapable as a means to bring about social and political change as it seemed to be in Ancient Greece.

Cathartic protest

First and foremost, protests are a form of opposition against an actual, planned or feared course of action. As such it can be “an end in itself”, a form of catharsis that resolves social tensions, and citizens’ frustration and discontent. Protest marches, rallies and vigils have a function as sign of objection, they are a means of communicating to the authorities the discontent or wish for change of the population, or at least a part of it. As such they also offer a platform to blow off steam, to voice anger, fear and hope, to start a conversation with people who share the same opinion, or who oppose it. Catharsis in protest can come through songs and shouts, to chance encounters with fellow protesters, or merely the knowledge to have been part of it, to have done something about the issue at hand.

Especially when protest alone does not lead to change, however, it becomes necessary to channel its cathartic energy into the development of new strategies and finding solutions and alternatives to the present condition. As philosopher Auguste Comte put it, “nothing really essential and enduring can be accomplished in the practical fold when its theoretical implications are not clearly worked out, or are at least well on the way to solution.”

“We must be able to […] propose alternatives”

In France, the organisers of the Vrai Débat are trying to capture the energy and ideas of the Gilets jaunes movement. As a reaction to Macron’s grand débat, they collected ideas and comments online on issues people consider important, followed by a series of deliberative assemblies in several cities throughout the country starting in mid-June 2019. “They allow us to combine democracy with social movement”, says participant Anthony Brault. “You prioritise and think together, we will create a political programme that will not replace the Gilets jaunes but can be useful for them.” During the assemblies between 15 and 40 people work on the most popular propositions for two days. They are divided by topic and small working groups analyse them to sum up the most frequent ideas and arguments in a concise document. “We must be able to exchange ideas”, explains another participant, Daniel, “to propose alternatives.”

In a similar manner climate camps aim at providing a platform for discussion, networking and exploring alternatives. One of these climate camps takes place every year in the Rhineland, Germany where there are three coal pits and five power plants that together are responsible for a third of Germany’s carbon dioxide emissions. The Klimacamp im Rheinland combines Ende Gelände’s civil disobedience actions against coal mining with trying out “tomorrow’s society – social, ecological and based on grassroots democracy”. Cultural programmes as well as courses, workshops, panel discussions on topics “from theoretical analysis of climate change to practical stuff like building a windmill” are organised, and the camp is structured based on anti-authoritarian self-organisation.

Climate of change

In the same region the Hambach Forest is located, an ancient forest that was supposed to be cut down to expand a coal mine, and even though the forest is now supposed to remain it’s future is still not guaranteed as water that sustains the trees needs to be pumped out of the ground to prevent the flooding of the coal pits. There, environmental activists are combining protest with the development of alternative ways of living and organising society in a similar, yet more permanent, way as the climate camps. To prevent the destruction of the forest, the activists began to occupy the forest in 2012. They built tree houses to make eviction more difficult, and on a meadow nearby a communal kitchen, a building for assemblies, a library and a museum was set up.

780 kilometres away, the ZAD (zone to defend) of Notre-Dame-des-Landes (ZAD NDDL) that began as an occupation to prevent the destruction of 1650 hector of agricultural land and wetland for the construction of an airport has become a social project of an alternative form of structuring collective life, a vision of what society could look like. This shift of the ZAD as a means of protest and resistance to an end in itself has resulted in the Zadists’ refusal to leave the area even when the airport project was abandoned by the government in 2018. Over the course of its existence since 2000, the ZAD NDDL has become a political space “in which social and ecological experiments take place” within a framework of “self-governance, egalitarian sharing of tasks, hospitality, gratuity, and work without hierarchical subordination”.

“A different world is possible”

In an interview published on mediapart’s participative blog, activist and Gilet jaune Geneviève Legay said: “We must think of utopia as something attainable. Otherwise I would not continue to fight, if I thought it wasn’t possible. And if people hadn’t fought for utopias, we wouldn’t have the rights we have today. […] a different world is possible, it is necessary to build it together.” The same is emphasised by writer, director and environmental activist Cyril Dion. To bring about change we need NGOs and Zadists, civil disobedience and guerilla gardening as well as social entrepreneurs and novelists.

To increase the likelihood that “the inescapable” revolt results in the envisaged change and does not end with its first cathartic infant steps, a common effective strategy is necessary. Thus, in the beginning, according to Dion, is a set of questions that need to be answered: “Can we hope to find solutions within our democracies or not? Must the strategy to stop the destruction and the warming [of the planet] be political, citizen-based or both? Can it be done without using violence?”

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Ende Gelaende 20119, Besetzung nder RWE Strukturen im rheinischen Braunkohlerevier: Der Goldene Finger bricht aus der Fridays for Future Demonstration bei Hochneukirch aus und stürmt über die Kante in den Tagebau Garzweiler. Alle Bagger werden abgeschalte, David Klammer, CC BY-NC 2.0

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