The road map of the afflicted nation. What democracy are you talking about? (2-5)

Only democracy can build the Union of Free Arab Peoples, only it can accelerate the birth of a people of citizens from the womb of the people of subjects, and only it can build a state of law and institutions that build real political stability, and thus be able to fight corruption and facilitate the work of the economic machine.

But what about the latest scientific studies on the state of this democracy in the world?

According to The Economist Group's 2022 study, according to 60 indicators (credibility of elections, freedoms, nature of power, political participation and political culture), only 8% of humanity lives under full-fledged democracy (Scandinavian countries as a model), 37% in an incomplete democracy (Brazil as a model), 17% under hybrid regimes, i.e. some characteristics of democracy with the constants of dictatorship (Pakistan as a model), and 37.3% living under dictatorial regimes (Afghanistan as a model).

If democracy were the ideal system we claim, it would be the prevailing system in the whole world, and all peoples would adopt it as it adopted without hesitation electricity, compulsory education and the road law.

What about the flaws, gaps and contradictions that have been shown by countless experiences in many countries over nearly two centuries? Shouldn't they be confronted because they will not magically disappear while we are blind to them?

So let's arm ourselves with all our intellectual courage to examine the empty half of the cup in public and contribute to filling the void in it.

Major lessons I have summarized in seven no's that I present to the collective mind for rigorous evaluation and in-depth discussion:

It is an empty slogan, because the "people" was – and still is – just a cover for the rule of the political, media and financial elites who are able to employ the mechanisms of democracy, to serve their interests first, and secondly the public interest, provided that they do not contradict their vital interests in the distribution of wealth, power and consideration.

Let's stop at the magic concept: the people

Democratic theory, not to say democratic demagoguery, did not only use this concept to jump on the religious, ethnic or class pluralism of society, but also used this hollow slogan to jump on the political pluralism of society to make it a single entity, which is in fact 3 components.

Politically, there is always an elite that confiscates by force or trickery, often with a combination of the two, all wealth, power, and prestige. This societal elite is a translation of the oppressive, dark part of human nature that I called "Predators" in my book Reviews and Alternatives.

There is always a peaceful or violent resistance to a fairer distribution of wealth, power and prestige that translates to the enlightened and just-thirsty part of human nature that I have called "knightly man." It is this knight man who moves what I call the "people of citizens."

Finally, there is a third element, the "people of subjects", who are susceptible to oppression and injustice, and who move only during revolutions, and whose drive is the part of human nature that I have called: "man the prey".

How can such a people, whose three political components do not cease to struggle with each other, have a single will on which democracy can base the legitimacy of power?

2. No, it is not true that the people have a will expressed in elections, even if they are free and transparent.

The people are made up of children and the elderly, of the normal and sick, of prisoners and freemen, who participate in the elections and those who boycott them, even those who participate are only part of the electoral lists, that is, those who have the right to vote. How strange it is to say that 51% are the will of the people and 49% have no weight. It is strange that the parliament is called the "People's Assembly", but its true description is "the Council of Victorious Electoral Lists". Currently in Tunisia it represents 8% of the electoral lists, not the people. Aren't we, even in non-caricatural cases such as the Tunisian case, facing a process that refers to reality as a result of magical thinking that confuses different levels?

The concept of the so-called will that emerges from elections must now be examined. There are two levels of concept, namely "the desire and the ability to". What voters express when casting their ballots is the desire for such and such achievements at the economic, political and other levels. But there is a difference between the desire and the fulfillment of this desire entrusted to people who promise everything, versus other people who may themselves have the ability to achieve what they promise or are liars and powerless. All this makes talking about the will of the people expressed in the elections merely a manifestation of magical thinking that is not devoid of ideology, even if it is democracy.

3. No, it is not true that elections are the best and surest way to choose competent and non-corrupt officials

It is becoming increasingly dangerous for old media tools and modern social networks, not to mention election influence companies owned either by a handful of people or authoritarian states, to mislead public opinion and direct it in a direction that rarely serves the public interest. This is how we have seen and will see the arrival of the strangest people, the least competent in managing public affairs and the most dangerous to it.

The reason is that voters are always under the pressure of compelling social circumstances that make them easy prey for all false promises and victims of continuous misinformation, whether from demagogic politicians or from the media, in the service of the illegitimate interests of their owners.

They are also a wide spectrum of human beings with all the advantages and disadvantages of human beings, that is, you find among them intelligent people responsible and also an unknown number of stupid, corrupt and naïve people who are only interested in their immediate and private interests at the expense of the public and long-term interest.

4. No, it is not true that the reluctance of citizens to participate in elections is the result of lack of awareness and lack of interest in political affairs

Rather, it is their growing protest against the political, economic and media elites confiscating the mechanisms of democracy and delegating them to their interests in exchange for selling citizens, a sovereignty that does not enrich or fatten from hunger. It is their discovery, long or short, that the political class laughs at them when it claims that their wishes and desires are heard, obeyed, and affordable, and the opposite is more likely.

5. No, it is not true that dictatorship is the most dangerous enemy of democracy

Rather, the most dangerous of its enemies is the corrupt politician and the corrupt media and their corrupt financier, with their ability to seize the mechanisms and institutions of democracy and employ them in the service of private interests at the expense of the public interest.

6. No, it is not true that dictatorship disappears completely or definitively within the most ancient democracies

It withdraws behind the guise to continue its work – through the power of institutions, businessmen and the media – to control politics, unlike authoritarian regimes where politics continues to control media and business institutions and men.

7. No, it is not true that all democratic countries, mainly Western countries, are interested in supporting democracy.

To this day, Western countries support all authoritarian regimes in our region in search of tactical benefits, such as stability imposed by repression and the prevention of clandestine immigration and the arms trade, while ignoring and ignoring the strategic disasters of such a short-sighted policy, including the weakening of Western democracies themselves. In the past, the European countries that colonized the world were democracies. But this democracy did not prevent it from enslaving entire peoples. Democracy is a political system that enables a society to control only its own internal violence, while violence with "outsiders" is not included in it (Israel as an example).

The problem is that these flaws are very clear, but few dare to say that it is time to examine all theoretical postulates and all institutions and mechanisms, to see what can be preserved and what should be abandoned, especially what are the intellectual and organizational alternatives in order for democracy to win the battle for its existence and ours?

Episode Three: How to Save Democracy with Democracy from Democracy?