The habits of democracy

By this time next week, the formal, global news agenda would have narrowed so tightly that even the tiniest gaps will be finding little meaningful space for other things, including matters of urgent importance to the rest of us in these tiny, united states of the Caribbean.

Mass atrocities including ethnic cleansing and genocide in several places are already ill-expressed as skirmishes on the margins of what is really important. The slaughter of children and babies in Palestine some kind of routine, justifiable proportionate response to another form of “terror.”

Mention of last week’s BRICS encounter, the Commonwealth Caribbean case for reparations, the ongoing deadly travails of Sudan, Yemen, and Afghanistan; rising criminality in hitherto unlikely places, and the climate crisis everywhere; all relegated to specialised attention in even more manipulable social media spaces.

In the context of this potential for hijacking of the public space, I had to make the point to hemispheric folks two weeks ago that it might be a mistake to consider the convening and execution of elections (as important as they are) as a solitary indicator of democratic affirmation.

For, had this position not provided guidance of sorts, we would have had to conclude that democracy too often nowadays produces results inimical to the pursuit of peace and people-centred development.

Not only now, but elections have long produced unsavoury characters and effectively destructive political agendas. Perhaps there can, in fact, be a tyranny of the masses through elections and not as an exceptional outcome.

It is however also true that sham elections in so-called one-party states do not fool anybody anymore.

Yet, obsessive preoccupation with this single important(!) element of the democratic process can also have the collateral effect of inferring the supremacy of process over outcome and effect. In the end, I would go with CLR James’s reference to the things that comprise “ancient habits” – or longstanding principles of public behaviour.

The academics probably have another take on this, but I think it is important to employ James’s language to broaden understanding of the instincts that drive us toward inclusivity, a sense of equity, acceptance of justice in its purest manifestations, and informed decision-making even through the fog of multiple crises.

These are things that do not descend on people overnight. It is the stuff of practice and habit. You can tell in the public space nowadays wherever autocratic behaviour is present including the easy resort to edict instead of painstaking reliance on responsible self-regulation.

This holds true in civic spaces as well. Those community-based and non-governmental organisations – some of them captured by partisan, national interests. The sporting associations with highly durable leaders, the cultural groups that know only one way, and general resistance to innovation and change in other quarters.

All these things signal levels of measurable democratic practice, notwithstanding relatively seamless leadership selection processes.

Next year, there will probably be seven national elections in Caricom countries. You never know when (and we have discussed this before) some prime minister or president will withdraw that note from his/her back pocket and declare the intensification of campaigning that never really ended five years ago.

Now that that “other” election is over, listen out for T&T, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and St Kitts and Nevis in 2025. Now think about the things that best characterise their respective observance of democratic principles.

You would probably realise that addressing the clear deficits goes beyond electoral systems – however much reform is required.

We can go state by state and remark about the extent to which, outside of election time, there has been a tendency to orient decision-making and the implementation of changes through wide collaboration and engagement at all levels. Then, add to this the human rights dimension which represents supreme observance of the principles that drive democracies.

For, in observance of the universality and indivisibility of human rights we can assess the quality of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled.

So, no, elections are but one indicator of the existence of a state of democracy but nowhere near everything about it. Look near and far. Are we participant and/or distant observers of true democracy?

I never tire of advising my Latin American colleagues that in the Commonwealth Caribbean there is no “democratic relapse” as is being observed in other places in the Americas. Ours is a far more nuanced reality to be observed and dissected. But we are still not where we ought to be.