The cynism of ideology and the democratic process

Marianus Kleden, Nagoya, Japan

Democracy is mushrooming around the world. In Arab countries this scary creature is appearing through occupation and make- believe stories.

The elections in Iraq were defended by, among others, Karim Khutar Almusnawi, a Shiite representative in Washington, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and Sheik Dia al-Shakarehi, a Shiite theologian in Baghdad. They said democracy was possible and compatible with Islam.

It is understandable that the two Shiites took the side of the majority that won an easy, landslide victory. The Sunnis and to some degree the Kurds are upset and revengeful.

Democracy, usually understood as a shift from bullet to ballot, is becoming a mesh of bullet and ballot. The Bush administration is planting the seeds of awareness of an individual's rights by seemingly rewinding the tape of history.

There have been no questions about the success of presidential elections in some of the former Soviet republics where the candidates won 90 percent of the popular vote.

Was it democracy? Or was it democracy when Golkar repeatedly won overwhelming triumphs during the three decades of the New Order?

In 2000,the U.S. showed the world an irony of democratic development: Bush did not win the popular vote but won the presidency thanks to a controversial Supreme Court decision.

In early European democracies, there were instances when the rulers neglected the common good of the people as a whole, and by so doing ignored the people's sovereignty. The desires of the largest faction in the parliament, for example, were often fulfilled by walking out during a debate and returning just in time to reject a decision being agreed upon.

In contrast, the minority factions would gripe and whine just to buy time. The leaders tried to manage these two attitudes, called a majority dictatorship and the tyranny of the minority in Indonesian political terminology.

Indonesia's founding fathers were wise enough to draw up the country's Constitution. According to this document, democracy is to be implemented according to the principle of deliberation and consensus, which has never been adequately understood or sufficiently appreciated.

Younger Indonesians basically views past legislatures as mere rubber stamps for the president's whims, whereas older Indonesians have very rarely seen time-consuming debates concerning a particular issue within the legislature.

The seeds of the current brand of democracy being spread all over the world appear to be engendering a constant struggle between the triumphant majority and the embattled minority.

Indonesia's struggle for independence ironically was inspired, by among other things, Marxist ideas of class conflict between the oppressor and the oppressed. The whole social setting of colonial times perfectly reflected the images of Marxist theory.

The Dutch, the oppressor, were the bourgeois owners of land, capital and industrial machinery, while the local people were the laborers who eventually organized themselves into political parties such as the left-wing Sarekat Islam, which later became the East Indies Communist Union, and labor unions, namely the United Labor Force Movement.

This may have inspired Sukarno's doctrine of Nasakom, exhorting the believers of nationalism, religion and communism to join together to achieve the betterment of humanity. The colonial experience also moved celebrated novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer to paint with vivid colors the spirit of revolt against oppression and racial discrimination. His masterpieces were banned by the New Order, which saw them as containing Marxist overtones.

Here comes the cynicism of the ideology. Communism and other ideologies that successfully push the nation toward independence proved a big failure in Indonesia and elsewhere in the world.

The failure of communism is rooted in its own belief: An ultimately classless society can only be safeguarded by a monolithic power that gradually turns into the bourgeoisie, that is the oppressor.

This is the vicious circle of ideology: Efforts to free people turn out to jeopardize basic human rights.

The same thing is likely to be repeated by democracy. Bush is campaigning throughout the world, telling nations that it is time for them to use their individual rights to determine the polices of their country. But lining up at polling stations does not seem to be the same thing as erecting the pillars of democracy. If democracy means rule by the people, then in its implementation it is nothing more than rule by the majority effected through suffrage.

In this case, minorities, say, Quebecers in Canada or Basques in Spain, cannot be represented through the casting of ballots. The same with the Sunnis in Iraq. This means that in putting democracy into place, the nature and characteristics of a society need to be taken into account, which in the Indonesian context is understood as the principle of deliberation and consensus.

Shah Reza Pahlevi of Iran embarked upon a modernization project, supposedly a forerunner of or a feature concomitant to democracy, but was toppled by the charismatic Ayatollah Khomeini, who gained collective acceptance and acknowledgement. Casting ballots is not everything.

It must go along with other features of democracy, namely justice and equality. Saddam Hussein, the ousted Iraqi leader, has been demonized before being brought to court. He has been illegally detained for over a year, cut off from the outside world and not assisted by lawyers. Equal treatment is also lacking. Having pressed Iraq so much about elections, the U.S. has played down similar urgencies in non-democracies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Algeria, which all happen to be allied of the U.S.

When people, individually or collectively, do not believe in their rights over their country's fate, and we, the believers in democracy, force them to implement their rights through voting, we are repeating the same vicious circle: Freeing them while ripping away their freedom.

The writer, a lecturer at Widya Mandira Catholic University in Indonesia, is currently studying political anthropology at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan. He can be reached at marianuskleden@yahoo.com.