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.
