Democracy for the 2st Century | Before talking about the future

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An African proverb says, "You won't know where you're going if you don't know where you're coming from," meaning there's no way of knowing where the democratic system is going if we don't know its history.

There are 3 key facts to draw inspiration from the most important stages of this history.

To examine the lessons of the distant past, read the book by British anthropologists and archaeology David Fingerro and David Kriber, whose exciting title The Dawn of Everything is.

Their most important conclusions:

• Majlis systems (based on the rejection of autocracy and thus may be considered the first sprout of a democratic system) were very common in all human societies.
• Athens in the fifth century BC was not the first city to know the rule of the councils, as that rule was the system in force in the cities of Mesopotamia 3,<> years before the Greek experiment.
• When the Spaniards invaded Mexico in the 16th century, they were stunned – they came from the ancient European monarchies – to discover peoples living under political systems that can only be described as republican and democratic systems.
• When the French invaded Canada in the 17th century, they were stunned by "savages" who revere individualism, freedom and equality and submit only to those they chose for positions of leadership.
• The authors narrate the astonishment of French monks at these actions, especially the astonishment of the "savages" in front of these whites who resign themselves to the rule of a person and do not know freedom, equality and fraternity.

Democracy has no organic or special relationship with Western centralism. It is just that Western democracy is a historical stage in the development of the council system.

What the authors prove based on solid historical documents is that the slogans of the French Revolution "freedom, equality, fraternity" were largely inspired by the indigenous people of North America.

Such a historic revelation of universality and the search for good governance of human societies would also refute the absurd accusations that some have pursued us about the existence of nations whose culture – not to say their genes – is compatible with democracy and others that have no choice but dictatorship or running after the mirage of a just autocrat.

How strange it is that we Arabs, who have taken so much of the democratic ideas of the Westerners, are about to discover that they took them from the peoples of the Great Lakes forests of North America!

Fact One: Democracy has no organic or special relationship with Western centralism. Western democracy is just a historical stage in the development of the council system.

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From the recent past

If we consider that equality before the law and the right to vote are conditions without which there is no complete democracy, we can say that:

• Britain only became an "acceptable" democracy when it gave half of its population the right to vote, which was only in 1928.
• America, which gave women their political rights in 1919, is arguably a modern democracy, as its democracy improved only in 1964 when it recognized African Americans with their political rights.
• France, which did not give men the right to vote without distinction until 1851, did not advance in its democracy until 1944 when it gave women the right to vote.
• All these states, which we think are bastions of democratic values and institutions, are those that deny foreigners living in their territory equality and justice (continuing the same approach adopted by fifth-century Athens in excluding outsiders from deciding on the public life of the city), which shows that they still have an important way to go before they complete their democratic maturity.

The second fact: even what we consider to be the oldest democracies is still in fact new to democracy, and its democracy is still incomplete and needs to be developed.

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And from the past decades

There are the lessons of the past that we count in decades, not centuries.

How can we forget that the greatest European peoples lived under the most terrible dictatorships of the twentieth century in history: the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, fascism in Italy, the dictatorship of Franco in Spain, Salazar in Portugal and the colonels in Greece, the so-called cradle of democracy!

It should also be recalled that between 1941 and 1944, the French people, long in democracy, suffered from the dictatorial regime imposed on them by Marshal Pétain. Those who resisted the regime were few. One of the anecdotes told by French historians is that the masses, who greeted General de Gaulle after liberation and gathered heavily, applauded Marshal Pétain in the same square in Paris.

Now look at what is happening in India, which Nehru made the first and largest secular democracy in what was called the Third World, is now drifting toward an Israel-like religious authoritarianism, and the Jewish Taliban has become the driving force toward an authoritarian state.

The third fact: democracy as the final station to which all political systems go is a myth, the kind of myth of the inevitable orientation of socialism that progressives at the beginning of the last century were propagating. Indeed, democracy can decline even in its oldest strongholds, just as nothing prevents it from emerging and holding where we least expect.

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What now about the present?

According to The Economist's 2017 ranking, of the 167 countries studied (out of 193 UN member states), only 19 are mainly democratic in Europe and North America, 52 are mainly dictatorships in Africa, Asia and the Arab world, and the remaining 96 oscillate between incomplete democracies or "watered" dictatorships.

When you look at the population of these countries, you find that human beings who enjoy the minimum individual and collective freedoms, for whom the periodic transfer of power does not pose any danger, and who enjoy protection by law and institutions, especially those who live safe from the fragments of the sole leader and the gang surrounding him... Less than 10% of the world's population.

Even what we consider to be the oldest democracies are still in fact new to democracy, and their democracy is still incomplete and needs to be developed.

More important than the figures is the diagnosis of the general orientation of the situation. The best diagnosis I found was included in the 2021 report of the Swedish organization "International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance" (IDEA), which reviewed the state of democracy in the world from 2015 to 2020 and reached the following conclusions:

• The democratic wave of the seventies that seemed to be going to conquer the world slowed down.
• The integrity of elections has been called into question even in the oldest democracies. More countries are moving towards greater authoritarianism in 2020 than countries moving towards democracy.
• There is an exacerbation in authoritarian policies, i.e. the suppression of freedoms by all non-democratic regimes.
• Even in major democracies such as Brazil, India, the United States and 3 EU countries (Hungary, Poland, Slovenia), the general trend is towards more authoritarianism. This is with the increasing support of the "people".

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When you recall the data of the past and the present, you find yourself between two contradictory situations.

Obviously, there is reason to continue to hope for democracy. This is a political system that comes from the depths of history and is not the result of Western progress. This is a system that is gradually expanding to guarantee a minimum of freedom and dignity for both sexes and then for an increasing number of peoples.

This is a regime that has been overthrown more than once, but it is coming back stronger than ever – Germany as a model – which means that no tyranny is protected from a sudden democratic surge that ever deports it.

But at the same time, there is nothing optimistic when you look at the current receding situation worldwide. The failure of the Arab Spring is only a sample of this decline.

Democracy as a final station to which all political systems go is a myth, as democracy can decline even in its oldest strongholds, and nothing prevents its emergence and stability where we do not expect

The rule is that it is the failure of democracy that spreads the red carpet for authoritarianism, and it is the failure of authoritarianism that opens all doors to democracy.

According to this law, there are today democracies in the world that do not initiate radical reforms, and their time is numbered. There are also enormous opportunities for Arab democrats that they should not waste this time, and our authoritarian regimes are breathing their last breath, albeit according to the time of some of them a few decades and others a few years.

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Talking about democracy from ancient times is the specialty of philosophers, historians and researchers in political science. When Harvard University invited me last year to teach Arab democratic revolutions, I warned students that I would not approach the subject with the mentality of a theorist or political scientist whose references occupy more pages than his lecture, but as a witness to the times, as a political actor recruited to serve a cause he believes in. And mainly with the mentality and methodology of the profession that I have practiced for more than a quarter of a century.

In doctor's logic: why does only one-tenth of humanity have what might be called democratic coverage (similar to health coverage or social security coverage)?

What diseases explain what is mentioned in the report about the decline of democracy in the world, which may be behind the ease of overthrowing it, as happened in Tunisia, Egypt or some African countries? Or that portends ominous consequences even in democracies that we think are destined to survive until the end of history?

In the following articles, I will try to diagnose the most important of these diseases, so that one day we may succeed in avoiding or treating some of them to build democracies that continue and improve dreams and projects coming from the depths of history.

Didn't the founder of medical anatomy, Verchow, say that politics is only medicine at the level of an entire society?

The next article will be about the biggest causes of the fracture and collapse of democratic systems.