Mon 3 Mar 2008
Prospect is one of the UK’s leading monthly magazines, with every issue carrying heavy-duty essays on politics, economics and society. This month’s cover story is one of their most interesting to date. It is a lengthy exploration of the Chinese intellectual classes - how a new generation of thinkers and scholars are trying to chart a viable future for the world’s next superpower. The essay is highly recommended for its analysis of many different facets of Chinese intellectual life. Choice quote on the debate over the political system:
Many intellectuals in China are starting to question the utility of elections. Pan Wei, a rising star at Beijing University, castigated me at our first meeting for paying too much attention to the experiments in grassroots democracy…
Chinese thinkers argue that all developed democracies are facing a political crisis: turnout in elections is falling, faith in political leaders has declined, parties are losing members and populism is on the rise. They study the ways that western leaders are going over the heads of political parties and pioneering new techniques to reach the people such as referendums, opinion surveys or “citizens’ juries.” The west still has multi-party elections as a central part of the political process, but has supplemented them with new types of deliberation. China, according to the new political thinkers, will do things the other way around: using elections in the margins but making public consultations, expert meetings and surveys a central part of decision-making. This idea was described pithily by Fang Ning, a political scientist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He compared democracy in the west to a fixed-menu restaurant where customers can select the identity of their chef, but have no say in what dishes he chooses to cook for them. Chinese democracy, on the other hand, always involves the same chef—the Communist party—but the policy dishes which are served up can be chosen “à la carte.”
What with our so-called two-party “democracy” frequently degenerating into an ugly food fight, it certainly gives one pause for thought. Read the whole thing.
March 4th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Just I a minute back I responded to one of mini-blog in other forum on democracy and I’m just pasting that post here as I believe it will be fully relevant.
Thanks.
“Thanks you Min Carter, for your compliment on the question. I’m not a pedant at all and nor a political pundit. I learned from you how the two-party system rooted from Feds and Anti-Feds. I do fully understand that democracy is the best of existing political or state administrative systems and excels monarchy, communism, socialism, military dictatorship and so on. But my humble opinion is that even the democracy, as of now, have utterly failed to realize the dream of political philosophers who first thought about democracy and defined democracy as ” the rule of the people, by the people and for the people.”
Even in the country like the USA, the democracy is not the perfect system and doesn’t ensure the people’s full participation in state administration as has been deemed in the dream of its dreamers. And that’s why once Mayor Bloomberg commented that Washington can’t pass any good bill due to partisanship and also added saying our government is dysfunctional. Once Hillary Clinton opined Bush’s administration is just an Oligarchy, run by himself and his chosen few. Obama is saying, all good ideas die in Washington. All good ideas are bought and dumped by lobbyists and interest groups.
All these statements and facts are a proof democracy is not a ‘State of Art Administrative System’ even in the USA. If such is the state of democracy in the most developed, the most wealthiest and most powerful and the great nation like America, what we can expect of democracy in the least developed countries. When we see the countries of the 3rd world that have been trying democracy in their territories how miserably they are failing leading to perpetual chaos, political anarchy and many a times political killings and mayhems. Look at Kenya, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Algeria, Iraq and so on.
Around the globe people are crazy at adopting all modern technologies or developmental models of America in different fields from education to agriculture, space-research to weaponry and even the fast food model like McDonald. But those countries can’t welcome democracy what America is desperate about to export to them. There are perhaps, two major reasons, firstly, the political elites who are in the power won’t be able to practice their unlimited power through democracy and they can see their dooms-days through democracy. And 2ndly, the common people see democracy of multiparty system is the root cause of division amongst the people leading to conflicts, collisions, rivalry and political instability, the huge hindrance to economic prosperity and peace in the society.
When I posed my question I didn’t just think of democracy of the USA. I meant it for global political system. I’m of the opinion, the current democracy is the century-old un-updated system. The west, especially America should invest more research endeavor to innovate a STATE OF ART DEMOCRACY from which the whole humanity can benefit and world can be a different but surely a better place to live on, through a Super-Duper Democracy. And that democracy will ensure greater and better participation of people in the political process; and for that democracy, I think, multiparty system is not indispensable.”
March 4th, 2008 at 6:12 am
That’s a great quote, Abu. Violent uncompromising winner-takes-all partisan politics (which is the kind we have, NOT the hold hands and sing together kind) - that politics will be the end of Bangladesh. I remember reading in one of the BD-related blogs that the answer to a faulty democracy is “even more democracy”. A naive remark. It all sounds very well in theory, but not all that easy to put together in practice. Especially in light of the bitter divisions Bangladesh suffered in the years prior to 1/11.
This is probably not a popular stance on a site such as this. But the uncritical acceptance of political models imported from abroad, without regard to the nature of the polity, is not a virtue. Fresh thinking is needed, not just for Bangladesh but for many other countries as well. This includes some big Western “democracies” where the political system is now highly unresponsive, existing mainly to provide a figleaf for the hyper-selfish plutocracy/oligarchy. The US itself, tottering on the brink of the biggest economic disaster since the Great Depression, is the number one example of that.
March 4th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Democracy on Bishwa Road
During the last years of Ershad, a tide of road building projects went on throughout Dhaka. Bijoy Sarani, Panthapath and Malibagh Bishwa Road were all built during that time. Those beautifully paved roads were walled out from the neighbourhoods by ceramic brick and grilled walls. There was bougainvillea blossoming on steel-grilled structures in short intervals. They all really looked like parkways and malls rather than a city thoroughfare in a third world country.
Soon after Ershad’s fall, all the beautification vanished. Panthapath pavements and Bishwa Road footpaths turned into slums and fish markets. Those bougainvilleas were all gone in a very short time. The steel frames for bougainvilleas turned into structures holding the shanties. Some urban ‘bhodrolokes’ cited this as an example of how democracy had gone wrong and how we had been better off under Ershad.
Panthapath slums, however, disappeared over the next 15 years. Many people in those shanties moved to better housing farther from the pavements as they could afford a bit better places. This was helped by the construction boom on Panthapath. The construction boom helped those poor people get jobs. Some also got job in garment factories around.
But some shanties on Bishwa Road remained throughout the past 15 years as the inhabitants continued to struggle. Despite bhodroloke resentment of them, they hunkered down on the roadside with their family and children and probably waited for a construction boom around the Malibagh Bishwa road. The elected representatives from this area, the members of parliament and ward commissioners, protected them. Those politicians protecting the slums definitely had a vested interest. These slum dwellers are enthusiastic voters. Hence their voting right brought them the ticket to stay.
To be more precise, it was not the MPs or the ward commissioners who helped them to stay in the roadside slums and struggle for a better life until they move on. It was democracy which protected them from being made homeless. Not going into further discussion about the perceived futility of ‘election-only democracy’ and the ‘functional autocracy’ in between two elections, it can be safely said with all its lapses and weaknesses, democracy at least ensured the basic right of accommodation, however shabby it is, for those street-side slum-dwellers.
The happenings on January 11, 2007 brought a badly needed relief for the people of Bangladesh. People held hostage to protracted political power struggle breathed a sigh of relief on the postponement of confrontational politics for the time being. But as democracy failed; the basic principle of democracy – voice of every single person in society – took a backstage. A select part of society, definitely not representing the slum dwellers and not needing the slum dwellers’ vote, took over the responsibility to run the state. Naturally, one result was thousands of were homeless in the January winter and some more thousands of street vendors robbed of their means of living suddenly.
The unintended consequences of 1/11 include much more.
Few weeks after January 11, 2007, hundreds of thousands of non-resident Bangladeshis suddenly found themselves disconnected as they no longer could make phone calls to the mobile phones of their families at home. Crackdown on illegal VoIP operations started without any pre-planning on how to manage the demand of high volume overseas incoming and outgoing calls.
And in the name of price control, small businesses were being raided and armed forces started guarding the market places and dictating prices to small traders. As a result, the whole business community went into hiding, creating an unprecedented business shutdown. The prices of essentials kept going up.
Despite the overwhelming perception of relief among the bhodroloke, so far, the postponement of democracy has failed to produce any convincing result. Prices of essentials remain high, Dhaka streets are as unsafe as before, and corruption in government offices have not stopped.
It is the time we remind ourselves that, with all its drawbacks, the much loathed democracy of the past fifteen years at least did allow the homeless a shelter, be it on the public pavement or that democracy did not have to resort to using force in the country’s marketplace. Whatever foul smelling rot it was, the democracy we had did at least ensure a free uncensored and undaunted press. Democracy may be blamed for many ills, but it did not destroy VoIP first and then think about what to do next. Rather, the nation observed a communication industry boom in Bangladesh over the past fifteen years. Reasoning is a by-product of democracy. We lose that with demise of democracy.
India generally did not try hiding its street slums by demolishing them. A democratic India cleaned itself inside out and now in many flourishing Indian cities, you won’t see much of a slum. Those which are still there, are also vanishing rapidly – not by bulldozers, but by slow but steady economic democracy.
At this juncture, it won’t be unfair to question ourselves whether we will breathe easier in a dirty but democratic Kolkata than in a picturesque but military-run Islamabad.
In Bangladesh, we need a democracy that will also ensure the right for a shelter of the poor, business for the street hawkers and a reality check in all government actions. Until recently we had this assurance.
March 4th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Doomed Democracy
Let’s start with USA, the icon of democracy. The president of this country was initially elected by a Supreme Court decision, not by publics vote. And although it was face to face election, the person bagging more votes did not get the power. And over the last six years, on the plea of war against terrorism, basic principles of democracy and liberty are trampled one after one.
Then Go to UK, the birth place of this industrialized democratic civilization. The elected prime minister is more influenced by a leader of a different country on the other side of the Atlantic than his own constituency, his own colleagues in the parliament.
In the rest of the democratic Europe, conservative, more authoritative hawkish parties are winning the election one after another.
A man is ruling a continent called Australia and he is also apparently more inclined to appease the king of world than his own people.
Democracy in the rest of the world, Africa, Asia is nothing but a joke. Most cases there are monarchy running in the name of democracy, notable among these dynasty are the Nehru Dynasty of India, Lee dynasty of Singapore, the Chakri dynasty of Thailand, Sukorno dynasty of Indonesia, with here and there some half hearted experiments of democracy ( Japan, Korea, New Zealand, south Africa etc.)
And now zoom in to Bangladesh.
The options people have are either, Hasina and Joy- the daughter and the grandson: Khaleda and Tareque-widow and the son or an ambitious army general.
In the middle ages, ruler used to be decided by palace politics and usually at the cost of some royal blood. Now a days, rulers and ruling family are decided by street politics and at the cost of some subjects’ life.
And at the end of the day, be it Tareque, Joy or Ershad, there is basically no different in the life of people except a handful.
Malaysia and Mahathir is probably the most frequently quoted words in our political tea cup storm. Mahathir himself was never an icon of democracy, he was an authoritarian leader.
In fact there is no moral high ground in supporting a corrupt son or a disconnected grandson than a general or an authoritative ruler.
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But there is definitely a moral high ground in supporting democracy. This democracy is not about selecting the family who will occupy the palace and exploit the subjects. This democracy is about social justice, the freedom of speech. Because we have democracy, I can write this blog without fear, because there is democracy, I can watch what I watch in TV news, because there is democracy, there is finally an agreement about the garments workers minimum wages, because there is democracy 4th largest national Bank, Rupali goes to the real highest bidder, because there is democracy poeple like Anu Muhamamd can speak out loud against Fulbari oppression, becasue there is democracy Golam Rabbani finally comes out victorious in Kansat, because there is democracy, people in Bangladesh have a hope, the hope for better days. People under communist regime in East Europe didn’t even have any hope.
There are many reasons to be hopeful of my friends.
Failure of leadership does not make the system a failure. Islam is in the wrong hands now a days, it does not mean that Islam is all bad. Similarly, there is no reason to denounce democracy because the custodians have failed to perform.
Let’s try to separate democracy from the people who abuse it.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:08 am
The violence we often bring in to showcase a failure of democracy, is more of a perception that is imposed upon us.
e.g. The violence of 28th October is shown as an excuse of 1/11. People tend to forget that there is a gap of almost 2 and half months between 10/28 and 1/11. 10/28 violence stopped the same day, it did not need a martial law to stop it.
The streets of Dhaka or other cities in Bangladesh have seen worse anarchy compared to those pre-1/11 days.
Some of the street agitations are part of our glorious history. The mass upsurge of 69 or March 1971 have seen unprecedented street blockade, closure of business and the government. During anti-ershad movement, we have seen much worse violence that 10/28. we have seen indiscriminate killing of students or even crushing them to death by police truck. I was in the middle of one such violent day, January 24, 1988. Police indiscriminately fired upon the students and activists gathered for a public meeting of Sheikh Hasina in Chittagong Laldighi Maidan. 24 people lost their lives. And even during the 1991-96 BNP government there have been months of blockade, hartal, gherao .
So we have to understand that 1/11 is not all about mindless political violence and deadlock.
Kenya did not need army to stop the violence. And undemocratic China indeed resorted to unprecedented violence to crush Tiananmen protests.
Cotinued atempts to maintain basic democratic norms and give it the time to mature is the best research of democracy. The experiment on democracy must go on on the real ground, not in any US underground labratory. There is absolutely no ground to justify suspending democracy pending further research.
Democracy is a horrible system to govern, no doubt. But show me a better one.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Mustofi, the ‘Chinese democracy’ sounds like an interesting innovation, until one read it carefully. And when one does that, one realises that this is not really that new an innovation. Southeast Asian authoritarian leaders like Lee Kuan Yew, Mahathir Mohammed and Suharto made similar arguments. As had Latin American dictators of both left (Castro) and right (Pinochet), and way too many national liberators, from Nasser to Mugabe.
Philosophically, they are all variations of two republics - one described by Plato in classical Greece, the other one a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. The basic idea of both republics, and the Chinese/African/People’s/Arab democracies is this: some wise men (seldom women) know what’s good for the people, and they’ll make the appropriate consultation and offer the people the right quantum of choice.
There are three problems with these models: one is of fundamental/axiomatic nature, two are more practical/logistical.
Let’s start with the fundamental question: what gives these wise men legitimacy? What gives the Chinese communist party, or Iran’s mullahs, or Robert Mugabe legitimacy? In each case, there is a revolution conferring legitimacy to the government. What is a revolution? Strip away all the glory stories, and revolutions are brutal power struggles where the most organised (and often the most brutal and occassionally the luckiest) faction comes on top. Mao summarised it thus: political power comes from the barrel of a gun.
And what is won by the gun can very easily be lost the same away. Revolutions are often followed by counterrevolutions. And non-democratic republics tend to have violent regime changes.
Now, it could be that there are deep historical reasons such that the wise men are accepted by the society at large - Iran’s mullahs or the Chinese party may very well have wide public appeal. But in Bangladesh, and in many other parts of the world, there are no institutions with that kind of legitimacy. This raises the practical problem number one.
Practical problem number two is that there is no guarantee that wise men will run good governments. Governing requires building coalitions and making difficult choices. Politicians are better at this. Want proof? Look at the bhodrolokes running the show in Bangladesh.
So what happens when wise men make foolish mistakes? In these undemocratic republics masquerading as exotic ‘democracies’, foolish mistakes are typically followed by yet more costly mistakes. I’ve talked about China and India many times before: Indian socialism gave the Hindu rate of growth of 3%, Chinese one killed tens of millions of people because of man-made famines. For every Mahathir, there hase been many more Mugabes. Even today, with rising food prices threatening political stability across the world, I’m willing to make a wager that democracies will come out better than non-democracies.
I doubt that the folks at Spectator are unaware of all this. Why do they then push this? Because, my friend, their (the British Tory’s) intellectual morring holds that it’s only the select Anglo-Saxon Protestant people that are good for democracy. For other, less ‘advanced’ people, some form of wise men’s rule is the best way.
Does this mean that we adopt the ‘western’ system full monty? Not at all. We allow our own democracy to evolve. But that process of evolution takes time. We have had a nasty habbit of allowing democracy less than a generation before saying ‘oh well, this doesn’t work, we need something else’. It’s unfortunate that well-meaning and sincere folks get fooled by that line of logic, which has always led to a worse outcome than what we had under faltering democracy. Lenin had a very harsh term for well meaning folks like this.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Jyoti - quick comment. It’s the Prospect magazine I quoted, not the Spectator and they have a wholly different intellectual leaning compared to the Tory rag.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Mustofi, my bad. Of course you quoted Prospect, not Spectator. My bad. Sorry.
Rest of the comment stands though. Also, here is my unequivocal and unapologetic defence of democracy:
http://www.drishtipat.org/blog/2007/04/26/on-democracy/
I’d also argue that this is too simplistic: turnout in elections is falling. Turnout in national elections fell across the western world during the 1990s. But the 1990s was a time of unusual peace and prosperity. At such times, many people are content with the incumbent and decide not to vote. Voting is costly in terms of time and effort, and not voting is an act of choice in itself. Turnouts are usually higher when there is a sense that a change is needed. And this is also true at a local level. In most western democracies (though perhaps not in Britain), there are elections on everything from local school council to whether a road sign should be light or brighter shade of red. And these elections can have very high turnouts.
You said in #2: But the uncritical acceptance of political models imported from abroad, without regard to the nature of the polity, is not a virtue.
I’d argue that elections and political parties have been around in Bangladesh for at least 3 generations. In a different thread Rumi bhai mentioned the folks at the Jurain bus stand. I can’t speak for them, but their cousins who drives cabs or works as security guards in western cities are lot more familiar with party politics than the exotic ‘democracies’.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
I dont thing a ‘crew’ of sufficient discipline and skill can come up with a Cuban or Chinese style political administrative setup in bangladesh. The people are more prone to revolt and the development dollars and captive mind issue weaken such a collective resolve.
Political and institutional craftsmanship is what i think we’ve lost in the past.. 60 years. We’ve had three regimes and two regime transitions in that time, neither of which has resolved anything.
China, and other countries that dont submit to the alleged universality of western liberal democracy are useful. I’m sure glad they exist for pure ‘a better world is possible’ value. I don’t buy into the whole end of history thesis.
The west’s response is interesting too. shows that they only respect power and economic might. theyl preach their alleged values to you if you are weak of mind or culture. If your condition is really decrepid, youll end up beleiving the hype.
Current political practice (use any D word if that suits you better) in desh lacks *continuity*. As the more parochial political geography exerts its repolarising effect every few years and the rest of the system has to submit. This makes a fool of us with respect to other countries and between eachother. Of course for some its a social mobility ladder.
It would be nice if this were fixed by the election commission, because its really hurting. A second house with staggered elections or longer terms perhaps? Entire villages are vanished from the face of the earth because certain engineering installations arent maintained, or stupid stupid people who profess concern for the ‘environment’ mess things up.
But to be honest i think what the west means by democracy is ‘open your markets and dont have your own foreign policy’. Or as a now deceased Awami leader of Sirajganj told me,’eije, democracy nao, ar shundor shundor meyder shathe ghumao’.
jyoti,
What won by the barrel of a gun, by one-to-one combat, and honestly is fundamentally more real than lying to everybody and making them believe you. This is why the afghanis are in problem, they cant run a government or even resolve the taliban thing.
Looking at how the freedom of india influence the release of colonial occupation in the world. I wonder if the US and UK would still be so invasive with their armies and ideologies if our grandparents generation had beaten them out with sticks.
March 4th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
All very well, but still doesn’t answer the question of what was happening in Bangladesh from 96 to 06 and what the democratistas would have done to fix the top-to-bottom dysfunction.
Practicable ideas then for at least halfway decent governance? And when I say practicable, I mean ideas that would have cut ice with Tarek, Falu and that kind of massively corrupt, utterly ruthless politician. No Kumbaya choruses please - so whatchu got for us?
March 5th, 2008 at 3:18 am
Mustofi,
Thanks for this post. An electoral democracy (where voting can be manipulated by money or coercion, or where mass is not aware of the long-term consequences of their choice, or the choice is limited to only two) may not be the best option for us. I think we should always talk about alternatives and major reforms to the existing system. Also, I find it hard to believe the notion that communism or dictatorship are the only alternatives to democracy. There are different forms of democracy and we should probably evaluate which system best fits us.
Some people often equate democracy with social equality. A big part of social equality is economical equality which is most of of times dependent on the economic model a country adopts. In my understanding, if a democratic government embraces a capitalist model (USA), we can say goodbye to social justice and the slums will continue to grow whether we see them or not. A Nordic model, on the other hand, is more about social justice and economical balance among people. So, social justice and development quite inextricably depends on both the political and economical system. Please do correct me if I am wrong. I am no expert and am learning from everybody’s opinion.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Mustofi, are we discussing ‘fix the top-to-bottom dysfunction’, or ‘practicable ideas then for at least halfway decent governance’? If you want the former than I’ll humbly withdraw from the discussion - anyone with a top-to-bottom solution is a better man than I.
If you want to discuss the latter, then we can have a conversation. Let’s start with a stylised history of the 15 years to 2006.
- AL, surprised to lose the 1991 election, found itself completely shut off from any decisionmaking process in the post-1990 democracy. By 1996, it managed to isolate BNP politically, launch an andolon cycle and a carried out a bureaucratic coup - all helping it to the 1996 win.
- It drew the lesson that doliokoron, alliance building and andolon domon will be the key to winning 2001 election. BNP drew the lesson that coalition is the key to winning election. BNP-JI alliance won in 2001.
- BNP did the same thing AL tried in government, only more ruthlessly. AL also tried the alliance game, but never quite got there.
I won’t debate the details with partisan folks - to each their own. I do however think that this is broadly reasonable description of what happened in our democracy. The governance dysfunction - appointing hacks to EC or universities, high level corruption - are a result of this political rivalry. And the root cause of the rivalry is the winner-takes-all system.
If we want to stop that kind of rivalry from returning, we have to give the losing party in the national election a stake in things. Decentralisation of power to upazillas and pourashavas is a very good way of doing that. Giving parliamentary committees investigative power and vetting power for key appointments is another way of giving opposition MPs a stake. These are practicable solutions that doesn’t require massive experimentation.
Will they cut ice with Falu and Tarek? We have to remember that Falu and Tarek didn’t come from vacuum. In 1991, BNP was sidely perceived to be the cleaner of the two major parties. The reason BNP ended up going the Falu-Tarek way was because that was the logical outcome of the winner-takes-all system. Lock these guys up but leave the system unchanged, and we’ll be back with similar cases in 2025.
Now, left to their own devices, would the politicians have done anything to give the losing side a say? Personally, I think that had AL (and allies) participated in 22 Jan election, they’d have won a landslide - they couldn’t rig an election in Musharraf’s Pakistan, so I don’t buy the BNP-would-have-gotten-away-with-stealing-an-AL-win argument. But would AL leadership have shown the statesmanship necessary to devolve power and bring in national reconciliation? I don’t know.
But I think we can make a reasonable guess of what would have happened in the jatiyotabadi side of politics. I think if BNP had suffered a massive defeat, Tarek and his cronies would have to face the wrath of their party base. I think we’d have seen genuine calls for reforms (institutional, ideological, strategic) in that side of the politics. Both BNP and the country would have been better off for it. And what will happen now? 14 months after 1/11 and Tarek now looks like a victim. This time next year (if he can persevere), there will be a Tarek mukti andolon. In three years time, Tarek will come out of the jail as people’s hero. That, my friend, is what the bhodroloke biplob will have produced.
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Shahed I, you allude to a very important trade off between liberty and equity. Philosophers associated with the French revolution talked about them as the order of ego (liberty, individual freedom) and the order of equity (equality, social justice). Complete liberty is incompatible with complete equality, and every society must find its own balance. Democracies that are relatively diverse tend to put more stock on liberty. If citizens in your country have different values, customs and beliefs, then it’s perhaps better that the government stays out of people’s lives as much as possible. The result is, unfortunately, slums whether we see them or not. Democracies that are relatively more homogenous on the other hand tend to tolerate more government intervention in people’s lives, and achieve better social justice. Nordics are the example of this. Interestingly, as Nordics have opened their border to immigration, a debate has started their about where to draw the line between liberty and equity.