International: Democracy - aims and means
Source:
Marieme Hélie-Lucas Marieme Hélie-Lucas responds to a recent article by Jehad Aliweiwi & Tarek Fatah published in the Toronto Star, 'The reality of democracy - By respecting the democratic wishes of the people, Ottawa can help Hamas evolve into a mainstream political party.'
Indeed, one hopes that no big power will intervene militarily in Palestine in the name of democracy: the world has seen how much harm this 'bringing democracy' with tanks and bombs can do to a people. It only replaced "a tyrant" as they say, by much worse and destroyed a whole society.
Indeed there may be risks that total economic sanctions applied to a Hamas-led government amount to a war declaration.
But that is where my connection with the views of Jehad Aliweiwi & Tarek Fatah ends.
There is a need to reflect on the concept of democracy and to differentiate between an electoral process which is only a means to achieve social justice - a means that can be perverted - and the aim of democracy, which is to ensure, through a representation of the people, a better and more just society.
The government of the people (democracy) is a system that is supposed to ensure more justice than monarchy ( the discretionary government of one single leader), or oligarchy (the power of a few people , of an elite). However, as we all know, the people may eventually be wrong, the people may elect Hitler and no one would dare say that this system was just: certainly not the homosexuals, gypsies, communists and Jews that disappeared under this regime.
The "reality of democracy" cannot be a blank cheque signed to the new fascists of the time. I am not using this term in a loose way: if one cannot compare two extreme right movements, in different times and contexts, one can say that fundamentalists are like fascists in many ways:
Conservative forces, extreme right movements and fundamentalists are on the rise everywhere in the world, starting with the USA under Bush. in Muslim countries it takes the form of fundamentalism, sometimes in a very extreme form of fascism; no one should mistake fundamentalism for a religious movement, it is a political movement of an extreme right nature, working under the guise of religion: it aims at political power. The fact they have learnt to use democratic means of elections to come to power does not make them more acceptable and certainly does not allow them to pretend that they bring justice, fairness, equity to their people - and even far less to women.
Fundamentalists have mastered the art of hijacking and manipulating human rights values and concepts to their benefit. It is in the name of democracy that they come to power, although the society that they built is anything but democratic. It is in the name of freedom of thought, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech that they spread their heinous calls and fatwas to kill the 'kofr'. It is in the name of respect for difference, for religion, for culture, that they impose norms and values that are totally discriminatory against women.
Yes, we do stand for parliamentary democracy; we do think that elections by the people is, so far, despite its short comings , the best system that has been found to approach social justice; but it is only a means to achieve it, - and it can be perverted and fail.
We need to support democracy with open eyes: when the voices of the people bring more injustice, we need to stand against it. Had the progressive forces had the courage to stand against Hitler in due times, many lives would have been saved.
The example of Algeria that the two authors are taking is factually wrong: it assumes that it is only after the end of the electoral process in 1991 and as a legitimate reaction to it, that fundamentalist violence started in Algeria. This is certainly the version that fundamentalists themselves have spread, but in fact their violence started immediately after independence in 1962 and steadily grew over the next decades.
In the seventies already, they attacked quarries to rob explosives and military barracks to rob armament; underground military groups were constituted: they blew up electricity lines and did various other sabotage of public equipment. They also started attacking women workers on their way to factories, and women students that they forcibly confined into their student hostels after a certain hour in the day. They physically attacked in the streets, even in the capital city, women who were not wearing outfits that were acceptable to them; and this was also the first introduction in Algeria of 'THE' Islamic dress, a costume that was neither traditional, nor even known to Algerian women.
Indeed this process continued in the eighties, and grew tremendously after the ending of the electoral process, but it started much earlier. If it were accelerated by it, it was NOT caused by the end of the electoral process.
The leaders of FIS had for long proclaimed that they will come to power " by the vote or by the sword". Ali Belhadj, number 2 of FIS, publicly stated several months before the first round of the elections that, were FIS to come to power by wining the elections, there will be no more elections in Algeria ever:" if one has the law of God, one does not need the law of the people", said he; and he later ended by calling for murder for those who were against theocracy: "let's kill all these unbelievers".
In the name of democracy, FIS was openly preparing the end of democracy.
Under these conditions,that the end of the electoral process be then equated to the end of democracy is totally surrealistic....
There is no doubt that the corrupt Algerian government stopped the elections for its own reasons. But it is a fact that everyone wants to ignore at international level that unions, women's organizations, progressive parties and many unorganized people were demonstrating massively on the streets, in between the two rounds of the elections, demanding that the government stop the process.
The non fundamentalist people of Algeria clearly saw that these 'democratic' elections will not bring about 'democracy' in Algeria; they clearly saw that they had to stop the elections if they wanted to save democracy. - a paradox indeed. But no one supported them from outside , they were the ones accused of being undemocratic, by short sighted human rights organizations especially: focus was on the government, while were ignored the progressive people that fought alone, in isolation, in total indifference and abandonment from the world, both their corrupt government and the fascist forces of fundamentalist armed groups that slaughtered hundred thousands of people in less than a decade.
While it is good to warn the USA that we will not tolerate another military intrusion in Palestine, Iraq-style, one wishes that Palestinian progressive forces, or what is now left of it, will not face similar abandonment, that "democracy" will not be the pretext used to legitimate or turn a blind eye to their being slaughtered by fascists from Hamas.
Let the progressive forces in Palestine gather their forces. We have to support them, give them visibility. Let us not tolerate that anti imperialism and "democracy" be used, in the last analysis, to bring and maintain fascists in power.
Marieme Hélie-Lucas
But that is where my connection with the views of Jehad Aliweiwi & Tarek Fatah ends.
There is a need to reflect on the concept of democracy and to differentiate between an electoral process which is only a means to achieve social justice - a means that can be perverted - and the aim of democracy, which is to ensure, through a representation of the people, a better and more just society.
The government of the people (democracy) is a system that is supposed to ensure more justice than monarchy ( the discretionary government of one single leader), or oligarchy (the power of a few people , of an elite). However, as we all know, the people may eventually be wrong, the people may elect Hitler and no one would dare say that this system was just: certainly not the homosexuals, gypsies, communists and Jews that disappeared under this regime.
The "reality of democracy" cannot be a blank cheque signed to the new fascists of the time. I am not using this term in a loose way: if one cannot compare two extreme right movements, in different times and contexts, one can say that fundamentalists are like fascists in many ways:
- like fascists they believe in a superior race, or creed, and therefore they qualify certain categories of people as "untermensch"; in the case of Muslim fundamentalists, the infra-humans, the sub-humans are the 'kofr', the unbelievers, i.e. all those who do not condone their version of Islam, including other Muslim believers;
- like fascists, they believe in a mythical past: the Aryans, Ancient Rome or the Golden Age of Islam, that they want the society to return to, in the case of Muslim fundamentalism, it is the Kalifat;
- like fascists, they stand for the physical elimination of their opponents, not just their political elimination;
- like fascists, they are pro capitalists, and social injustice will be dealt with through charity (zakat);
- like fascists, they keep women in their place: at home and under the boot of religion.
Conservative forces, extreme right movements and fundamentalists are on the rise everywhere in the world, starting with the USA under Bush. in Muslim countries it takes the form of fundamentalism, sometimes in a very extreme form of fascism; no one should mistake fundamentalism for a religious movement, it is a political movement of an extreme right nature, working under the guise of religion: it aims at political power. The fact they have learnt to use democratic means of elections to come to power does not make them more acceptable and certainly does not allow them to pretend that they bring justice, fairness, equity to their people - and even far less to women.
Fundamentalists have mastered the art of hijacking and manipulating human rights values and concepts to their benefit. It is in the name of democracy that they come to power, although the society that they built is anything but democratic. It is in the name of freedom of thought, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech that they spread their heinous calls and fatwas to kill the 'kofr'. It is in the name of respect for difference, for religion, for culture, that they impose norms and values that are totally discriminatory against women.
Yes, we do stand for parliamentary democracy; we do think that elections by the people is, so far, despite its short comings , the best system that has been found to approach social justice; but it is only a means to achieve it, - and it can be perverted and fail.
We need to support democracy with open eyes: when the voices of the people bring more injustice, we need to stand against it. Had the progressive forces had the courage to stand against Hitler in due times, many lives would have been saved.
The example of Algeria that the two authors are taking is factually wrong: it assumes that it is only after the end of the electoral process in 1991 and as a legitimate reaction to it, that fundamentalist violence started in Algeria. This is certainly the version that fundamentalists themselves have spread, but in fact their violence started immediately after independence in 1962 and steadily grew over the next decades.
In the seventies already, they attacked quarries to rob explosives and military barracks to rob armament; underground military groups were constituted: they blew up electricity lines and did various other sabotage of public equipment. They also started attacking women workers on their way to factories, and women students that they forcibly confined into their student hostels after a certain hour in the day. They physically attacked in the streets, even in the capital city, women who were not wearing outfits that were acceptable to them; and this was also the first introduction in Algeria of 'THE' Islamic dress, a costume that was neither traditional, nor even known to Algerian women.
Indeed this process continued in the eighties, and grew tremendously after the ending of the electoral process, but it started much earlier. If it were accelerated by it, it was NOT caused by the end of the electoral process.
The leaders of FIS had for long proclaimed that they will come to power " by the vote or by the sword". Ali Belhadj, number 2 of FIS, publicly stated several months before the first round of the elections that, were FIS to come to power by wining the elections, there will be no more elections in Algeria ever:" if one has the law of God, one does not need the law of the people", said he; and he later ended by calling for murder for those who were against theocracy: "let's kill all these unbelievers".
In the name of democracy, FIS was openly preparing the end of democracy.
Under these conditions,that the end of the electoral process be then equated to the end of democracy is totally surrealistic....
There is no doubt that the corrupt Algerian government stopped the elections for its own reasons. But it is a fact that everyone wants to ignore at international level that unions, women's organizations, progressive parties and many unorganized people were demonstrating massively on the streets, in between the two rounds of the elections, demanding that the government stop the process.
The non fundamentalist people of Algeria clearly saw that these 'democratic' elections will not bring about 'democracy' in Algeria; they clearly saw that they had to stop the elections if they wanted to save democracy. - a paradox indeed. But no one supported them from outside , they were the ones accused of being undemocratic, by short sighted human rights organizations especially: focus was on the government, while were ignored the progressive people that fought alone, in isolation, in total indifference and abandonment from the world, both their corrupt government and the fascist forces of fundamentalist armed groups that slaughtered hundred thousands of people in less than a decade.
While it is good to warn the USA that we will not tolerate another military intrusion in Palestine, Iraq-style, one wishes that Palestinian progressive forces, or what is now left of it, will not face similar abandonment, that "democracy" will not be the pretext used to legitimate or turn a blind eye to their being slaughtered by fascists from Hamas.
Let the progressive forces in Palestine gather their forces. We have to support them, give them visibility. Let us not tolerate that anti imperialism and "democracy" be used, in the last analysis, to bring and maintain fascists in power.
Marieme Hélie-Lucas
