When Azmin speaks of democracy

By MT Webmaster Last updated Aug 26, 2014

As I said, the Westminster system of government is not 100% perfect but it can be improved if we restore Malaysia’s system of government to what it should be. We must restore the four branches and three levels of government and we must have the senate and local government an elected body (not appointed like now).

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Today, Azmin Ali said that democracy is under attack. He was addressing the PKR youth movement at the party convention this morning. And Azmin was referring to Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy trial when he said that democracy is under attack. In other words, Anwar’s sodomy trial is proof that democracy is under attack.

It is a shame that political leaders make such vague and sweeping statements. Most Malaysians consider their leaders as smart people so whatever these leaders say Malaysians would believe it.

However, Malaysians do not really understand the concept of democracy or how it works and they think that democracy means holding elections once every five years. Even the ex-Minister of Information, Zainuddin Maidin, thinks so when in 2007 he said that Malaysia is a democratic country because it holds elections every five years.

That is like saying I am a smart person because I speak English. I have met professors in China who do not speak a word of English but are faculty deans of universities that conduct research in grain technology that is far advanced than any English-speaking university.

How do you think China can feed 20% of the world and still have enough food to export?

By the way, just to digress a bit (as usual) I made ten trips to China in the 1990s even as Pudong was still being built and I remember telling my wife that by or before 2020 China is going to overtake the US as the number one economy in the world. (I am very proud of this prediction, of course, and forgive me if I keep repeating this).

In fact, I wrote about this in the mid-1990s (before the days of the Reformasi movement). I even wrote about praying in the oldest mosque in China, which is in Canton (that looks like a Chinese temple), which was built in the 700s and I mentioned how funny it is that Malays call Chinese Muslims mualaf when the Chinese were Muslims 700 years before the Malays discovered Islam. It is the Malays who are actually the mualaf.

Anyhow, back to the subject of the day.

Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens are meant to participate equally — either directly (such as in a referendum) or indirectly through elected representatives — to formulate, develop and implement the laws by which their society is run.

The term democracy originates from the Greek word dēmokratía or rule of the people. Dêmos means people and kratos means power or rule. This concept of government started in the 5th century BC to denote the political systems existing in the Greek city-states at that time, notably Athens.

I call democracy the tyranny of the majority (this is what you will learn if you take a course in Political Philosophy). John Adams introduced this phrase in 1788 and it gained prominence in 1835 in the book Democracy in America written by Alexis de Tocqueville.

John Stuart Mill further popularised this phrase in 1859 when he quoted Tocqueville in On Liberty. The phrase was widely employed in the mid-1800s in relation to a series of moral questions that gave rise to organised minority groups in American politics.

Lord Acton also used this phrase in 1877 in The History of Freedom in Antiquity when he said, “The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.”

In 1965, Herbert Marcuse referred to the tyranny of the majority in his essay Repressive Tolerance regarding tolerance in advanced industrial societies. Marcuse said that tolerance is extended to policies, conditions, and modes of behaviour which should not be tolerated because they are impeding, if not destroying, the chances of creating an existence without fear and misery and that this sort of tolerance strengthens the tyranny of the majority against which authentic liberals protested.

So you see, while Malaysian politicians and political activists advocate the virtues of democracy, some of the best brains over the last 2,500 years do not think much of democracy. Democracy is flawed at best and unjust at worse. Democracy is not really the ‘cure all’ for a sick society. It actually raises more problems than it solves.

What, then, is the best system of government or what then is a better system than democracy?

Actually, there is no better or best system. Democracy is merely the least of the many evils such as absolute monarchies, dictatorships, autocracies, and whatnot. Humankind has not yet discovered anything better than the democratic system that we have adopted for Malaysia and many other countries all over the world.

The Islamists will say that democracy, being man-made, is flawed. Speak to any PAS activist, privately and off-the-record, of course, and he or she will tell you that the only perfect system is God’s system, meaning the Islamic State. Publicly they will never say this because that will mean PAS would lose the support of the majority of Malaysians, liberal Malays included.

Hence PAS has to pretend it upholds ‘western’ democracy, for the meantime, until it has enough political power to fulfil its dream of the Malaysian Islamic State.

Not only PAS but Anwar Ibrahim also said that at the moment Malaysia is not ready to implement Islamic laws such as Hudud (although Malaysia already has Sharia laws). Malaysians must first be educated regarding the Islamic State and Islamic laws and once they understand how it works and can accept this new system can we introduce it.

You cannot fault Muslims for thinking that the Qur’an and Allah’s system is the most perfect and surpasses any form of man-made system by far, especially since the Westminster system of government was created by non-Muslims who destroyed the Caliph system of the Ottoman Empire.

Even Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Father of Modern Turkey, is considered an apostate by people such as PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang (I have attended his sermons where he said so). Hence the Westminster system of government is a no-go as far as Islamists are concerned but they will tolerate it for the meantime until the system can be changed.

Nevertheless, seeing what IS (ISIS, ISIL) is currently doing while giving us an impression that that is what the Islamic State means, even Muslims themselves will prefer the Westminster system above ‘Allah’s system’. Hence these Islamists are doing a great disservice to Islam and the damage they have caused is going to make people reject the Islamic State for a long time to come.

In the absence of a better system, the Westminster system of government can work. After all, it is all we have. But the system can work only if we implement it correctly. Any good system will turn bad if not implemented correctly (Islamic State included).

First, we have four branches of government. We have the Executive, the Legislature (Parliament and Senate), the Judiciary, and the Monarchy. Each of the four branches must be independent of one other (in other words, one must not interfere in the other) but at the same time all four must work in tandem (complement one other).

Second, we have three levels of government. We have the Federal Government, the State Government, and the Local Government. And, again, each of the three levels must be independent of one other (in other words, one must not interfere in the other) but at the same time all three must work in tandem (complement one other).

That would be how a good government should work (not 100% perfect but as close to perfect as possible). And I say not 100% perfect because 51% and above decide this while the 49% and below have no say in the matter. Worst of all, it is not 51% and above of the voters but those who win 51% and above of the seats — which does not necessarily mean 51% of the voters voted for them (the 2013 general election a case in point).

Most times voters would vote for the party and not for the candidate. Hence the elected representative (called wakil rakyat in Malay, or peoples’ representative) is not really the peoples’ representative but the party’s representative. Hence they serve their party rather than the people who voted for them.

This is one problem.

The next problem is only the parliamentarians and state assemblypersons are elected into office. The local government councillors are not. They are appointed, like the Senators.

Now, the senate is supposed to be the auditor or watchdog of parliament. When parliament passes laws it goes to the senate for debate and if the senate feels that that particular law is unjust, ambiguous, contradictory, violates the Constitution, etc., it sends the bill back to parliament.

However, since the senators are also appointed nominees of their respective parties, most times (or all times) the senate does not contradict parliament. Hence what we get is a rubber-stamp senate that might as well be abolished.

The monarchy too, since Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s time, has had its wings clipped so even if the Agong (or state ruler) does not sign any bill into law it still gets automatically passed into law. So the monarchy, too, has in a way been reduced to a rubber-stamp monarchy.

Most importantly, though, democracy means, as how the Greeks intended it to be 2,500 years ago, a dēmokratía or rule of the people. Hence the people must rule themselves. Currently, the people transfer the mandate to rule to political parties to do what they like.

And it is up to you, the voters, to decide whether you want people’s power or party’s power as your government. And once you go to the polls and mandate the political parties to represent you in government, there is very little you can do until the next polls.

There are actually good people and bad people on both sides of the political divide. Alas, election after election the voters will vote along party lines. That means good people will get kicked out because they belong to the ‘wrong’ party while bad people will get voted in because they belong to the ‘right’ party.

And ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ is interpreted as the party you belong to. And that is why democracy does not quite work the way it should, especially when less than 50% of the voters can decide what government you are going to have.

Anyway, don’t feel too bad about it. Hitler democratically got into power with only 30% support and tens of millions were killed in WWII after that. That, unfortunately, is how democracy works.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK