Democracy and Responsibility Protecting our Rights

Spirit of Democracy Design Team Presentation, April 2000 David L. Cook, Ph.D Candidate

Winston Churchills 1950s statement that, Democracy is the very worst form of government in the world -- except for all the other forms, still seems appropriate. The operations of a democracy are messy. Messy in the sense that democracy is time consuming, expensive, frustratingly filled with commissions and committees, often indecisive, and historically always in transition to a better place. Where this place is, is not known because democracy has no blueprint. Every age, it seems, has new aspirations and new energy to be considered. Democracy is not a destination -- it is a journey, a road men and women walk that may traverse many terrains....The theme has been one of human freedom -and there is no theme more crucial to the future of our race (Watson, 2000, p.9). J.J. Rousseau warned us that freedom is an easy food to eat but hard to digest, and he has been proved to be correct. Many civilizations have contributed greatly to the development of democratic principles and individuals have given their lives in support of this impassioned objective. We pursue the rights to self-mastery and liberation: the inclination to speak openly, communicate freely, pray according to ones beliefs, dance to ones own tune, think as one pleases -- but to do so in the company of other men and women in a spirit of co-operation. This, it seems, is an acquired skill and needs to be taught (Watson). We, as teachers, have responsibilities to both learn how to do this ourselves and to ensure that our students join us. Active citizenry Consider democracys long development. Athenian citizens voted and were, by all reports, vibrant participants in the everyday affairs of state. However, not all Athenians were citizens; only men who owned property and who were eighteen years of age were permitted to vote. Yet their voting meant

citizens governing themselves, and taking the responsibility to know about the issues under discussion and the responsibility to participate. Since these classical days in ancient Greece, much has happened within specific civilizations in support of democracies that would allow further participation by more of its citizens. A crucial struggle to extend the franchise from an elite group of men, to men from within a specific ethnic or religious group, then to all men regardless of religious affiliation, then all men regardless of race, then all men and women within the society, has brought us to a place where most people can vote. Yet the evolution of voting rights to the point of near full enfranchisement has not created democratic nations with fully participating citizens. Participation means involved people who have a sense of themselves as citizens; as members of a body politic rather than just self-interested individuals -- as men and women capable of expressing public judgment rather than just voicing private need and wants (Watson, p.117). Voting, it seems, is not a reliable measure for citizenship. The mere voter votes and then goes home and leaves the elected governors to govern. The active citizen, on the other hand, actually governs -- or participates in governing (Watson). Ralph Nader added that Creating a culture of citizen participation has never been easy. But now there is a greater need than ever for the activism of the empowered citizen ... and happens only when people roll up their sleeves in creating societal alternatives (Nader, 1988, p.1). In the early 1960s Martin Luther King Jr. said that When an individual is no longer a participant to his society, the content of democracy is emptied. And from a third perspective we find Alexis deTocqueville celebrating the kind of active democracy he found in the early days of the American experiment. He referred to pressure groups, local party organizations, and voluntary associations that make up a participating society. From these

positions we can see a common concern being registered. Almost every age, it seems has a worry about its democracy and a worry about participation. It seems our human needs do not ever reflect a finished product but instead what we are working on at the time. It is the case that we return to the constant human need to re-invent our democracy. Current themes Naomi Klein explains that there is this free-flowing rage against multinational corporations among young people. It is a backlash that was waiting to happen. She follows with, The Battle of Seattle protests against the WTO at the end of 1999 have been the most visible and dramatic expression of that rage (Rebik, 2000, p.57). Klein argues that the anti-corporate movement that is now so very evident in even our local situations was caused by the collision of three major forces. The first force is the loss of public space epitomized by ads in schools and ads in bathrooms. Companies have aggressively infiltrated every aspect of public space. The second force is protection lost because there is less and less connection between a particular company and jobs in the community. And the third is that corporations are much more visible. Millions and millions are spent to promote logos and burn their names into our consciousness (Rebick). There is a new grass roots resistance movement to corporations and profits with the loss of community connection. Organizations that are not elected by anyone and have immense power to change the way people live are rejected as forces of evil. Organizations such as the WTO have gained the attention of those who would have people live differently. Many groups are trying to use the United Nations as a democratic alternative to corporate globalization... Activists want to turn the UN covenants into enforceable law with as much clout as the directives of the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO. Unfortunately, the UN which was

founded at the same time as these Bretton Woods institutions and is much more democratic, has much less power (Rebick, p.60). So what is going on? What would we find in the larger picture? Patrick Watson provides these useful insights: At least since Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto not quite one hundred and fifty years ago, democrats have been asking themselves which form of economic organization best supports their political aspirations. Nowadays, free market critics of socialism, Marxism, welfare-statism and government planning continue to argue that a powerful state intervenes in the economy, encroaches on the freedom and privacy of individualism, interferes with bargaining and exchange as well as supply and demand, and turns the private labour of workers into a means for realizing abstract social ends -- a classic case of the abuse of individuals being justified on the grounds of collective unity. Social democrats insist, on the contrary, that pure capitalism brings in its train powerful social inequities that are reproduced politically; that it leaves the weak powerless and the poor to fend for themselves in a dog-eat-dog environment that guarantees their destruction. For them, they say, the unregulated market economy economy is never really free at all, since it advantages those who already posses the wealth and power and disadvantages those who are without. Watson then directs the debate into the emotions and rhetoric of what has been created in these two different worlds. To put it simply, capitalism would seem to serve private freedom, particularly for the well off, but at the expense of equality; socialism would seem to serve equality, but at the expense of freedom, privacy, and property. Capitalism demands that a limited state whose primary job is to guarantee that the market works well; socialism demands an interventionist state that regulates, plans, and controls in the name of social justice. Capitalism argues that there can be no political freedom without economic freedom. Socialism argues that there can be no political equality without economic equality. If democracy is defined by its freedoms, capitalism wins the argument. If democracy is defined by its equality then socialism wins the argument. If democracy is defined by

both -- and, we have seen, it is in fact, defined by both! -- then we are lost in paradox and contradiction (Watson, p.161). What is up for grabs in this tension is control in the new world. Will the ground swell forces of antiglobalism and yet unnamed new economic positioning emerge, or will the well-founded, well-organized traditional forces of capitalists everywhere win the day? Each has its champions and no one knows the outcome. Naomi Klein indicates that she is happy that no one knows the way and even if she happened to know which way movements would go, she would not tell. Another thought on this comes from the Massey lectures of 1965. Looking back, C.B. MacPherson, speaking on the nature of democracy in developing countries, commented that underdeveloped countries have on the whole rejected the most characteristic forms of liberal democracy ... The competitive market society, which is the soil in which liberal ideas and the liberal state flourish, was not natural to them. Insofar as they knew the market society, it was something imposed on them from outside and from above. Their traditional culture was generally not attuned to competition. They generally saw no intrinsic value in wealth-getting and gave no respect to motive of individual gain. Equality and community, equality within a community, were traditionally rated more highly than individual freedom. (Rebick, p.49) The further suggestion was made that perhaps there were issues on the nature of democracy that could be learned from looking elsewhere and beyond western concepts. Instead we have agreed to disagree that our ideas on how democracy and economics should mix are the right ways. Lula Da Silva, a municilpal politician in Brazil, is one who represents a power of a new way. The heart of his position is that people in the world need to create a new vision of a fairer society. He calls this new vision social citizenship, and he sees this happening as people become engaged with the

world in which they live. In Porto Alegre, a Brazilian city of a million people, ordinary citizens decide on their municipalitys priorities. It is a participatory budget process. All people have the responsibility to become involved in the affairs of state. Ancient Athenian democratic themes are being replayed but with a much broader band of involved citizenry. The process used by Da Silva is a long arduous task of involving community, not in an advisory role, but in the actual decision making. The community itself decides the priorities of how its monies are to be collectively spent, affecting their every-day lives. Major current themes concerning the responsibility to participate and the need to make choices about the role of big business in our lives have been identified. This story is not at all a simple one; it is a story with concurrent themes and counter-claims operating at the same time. It is a story of struggle, but we have heard people from earlier times tell us democracy was not going to be easy and they were correct. The role and power of dialogue and participation Canadian author Michael Ignatieff says that democracy is supposed to belong to everyone and that everyone has the right to be heard (Ignatieff, 2000, p.6). He goes on to indicate that our political leaders have worried about us since the 1960s because our societies are becoming ungovernable. What they mean, of course, is that we citizens are less obedient, less willing to leave politics to them (Ignatieff). What he is talking about is the subject of his most recent book, The Rights Revolution. Ignatieff describes the interesting Canadian story as one where womens groups, aboriginal groups, and ordinary citizens have forced their way to the table and enlarged both the processes of constitutional change and its results (Ignatieff, p.7) Canada has moved away from a constitutional debate

dominated by governments and first ministers to a system of constitutional renewal driven essentially by citizens, interest groups, and nations. Constitutional change might have begun with Prime Minister Trudeaus desire to anchor Canadian unity in the equality of individual rights. But by the time the process had finished, Canadians had insisted that individual rights were not enough: guarantees for collective language rights, womens equality, multicultural heritage, and aboriginal land claims had been forced into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which was finally passed into law in 1982. (Ignatieff) This is, of course, a study in responsibility. The fact that rights are placed so very firmly into our national culture is testament to the need to protect that which we see as sacred. Leaders have a responsibility to ensure the rights of Canadians. Ignatieff sees Canada as one of the most distinctive rights cultures in the world. Moral questions concerning abortion, capital punishment, gay rights are notably liberal, secular and pro-choice (Ignatieff), and as such make us more European in approach than the United States. Canadians are also supporters of social democracy in fields such as rights to welfare and public assistance. Even though most Canadians see a deterioration of the public health programs, they have been very quick to demand that it be repaired and restored. The most recent federal elections placed this issue at the very top of Canadian requirements prompting the Prime Minister to appoint a respected former Premier of Saskatchewan, the very province from which the first public health care came, to oversee the study which would allow us an opportunity to reengineer a better Canadian health care plan. The fact that Ignatieff has pointed to Canadas rights culture is an indication of the amount of dialogue that Canadians have had with leaders. Canadians influence political parties as policy positions are articulated; Canadians have reacted when government policy statements are made. It has happened that a government ministers decision announced on Friday is altered

by public pressure on Wednesday of the next week. The problem may be that positive dialogue does not happen enough. Collections of seemingly needy situations go without sufficient useful government action. Cries for substantial assistance in western family farm crisis situations have all but been ignored by Ottawa. Well-framed decisions on First Nations land issues are imperative and unavailable. Dialogue on east coast fishing rights is needed. Canadian history is based on dialogue where violent clashes have been rare. The Canadian roots for dialogue, idea exchange, creation of a climate for discussion as means to civility in action are deep. Exactly how the correct conditions for fruitful discussion are structured may need review. The contributions of Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) are useful. Montaigne recommends dialogue as the most effective means for cultivating such spirit. About having an open mind, which he deemed a necessary condition for dialogue, he says, No proposition astounds me, no brief offends me, however much opposed it may be to my own... Contradictions of opinion, therefore, neither offend or estrange me; they only arouse and exercise my mind. Believing the purpose of dialogue to be none other than the pursuit of truth, Montaigne argued that the ultimate proof of humanity lay in the free and full use of language (sokagakkai.org, 2000, p.3). Montaignes use of the story concerning the flame, St. Michael, and the Dragon is most applicable. His search for balances is presented as he explains how he attempts to stay in the middle. Montaigne stands on the good side of the candle, as he attends to the needs of St. Michael (as the Archangel wars on the forces of evil and discontent), and also of the Dragon, who is the tempter. Dialogue and the search for balances seem to have been well recognized in Canada. It has been called Canadian compromise, or Canadian muddling through. The questions are: does it still work? can we still do this? or, have the changes we made in

restructuring Canada also changed the ability to muddle through and compromise? Do we live in a more complicated world? These questions come to mind because of an observable contradiction that is evident in Canada at this time. Ignatieff speaks about how Canadians have pushed agenda items at government officials. He also informs us that the government believes that we are ungovernable. Government response to the agenda pushing is understandable but unacceptable. Top Canadian government officials have chosen to hide behind the mandate, close their ears to public dialogue, and allow the Office of the Prime Minister to rule the nation. Even the Members of Parliament have been relegated to positions where power to direct change has been eroded. In more recent times, these honourable members have complained about being reduced to nobodies even within the hallowed halls of Parliament. Political scientist Donald Savoie has gone so far as to suggest that Cabinet has been relegated to the role of a focus group, with the real power in the hands of a few key players in the Prime Ministers Office, Privy Council Office and Finance Department. The question is what to do about the power imbalances that exist in the nations capital -- ones that have been brought into sharper relief by the Shawinigan affair. Here are three suggestions: Give caucus the power to conduct votes of confidence.... Limit government discipline to the governments program -- thereby allowing a balance between representative government and responsible government.... Separate the job of ethics counsellor from the ethics investigator. Edward Greenspan (Globe and Mail, April 7, 2001) The Cabinet and the power of party were never intended to be owned by the Prime Minister. Dialogue and consultation are required. And so we note that democracy is in transition again. Tinkering with Democracy What if we have it wrong? What if we have outlived our adversarial gladiatorial parliamentary structure where the government sits on one side of

Parliament while the Opposition is two sword lengths away with the Speaker in the middle? The courts work in the same way -- accused, accuser, and Judge; the jails are filled and we live in a litigious nightmare filled with lawyers and court decisions using concepts of justice that we no longer completely trust. We have a responsibility to examine what is good for us all. We need civility. Mark Kingwell tells us about what he believes is a personal motivation that each of us brings to the practice of political activity. He argues that the key to resolving and managing the deep conflicts of pluralistic politics is a willingness on the part of citizens to tolerate imperfect solutions. (Kingwell, 2000, p.8). In order to make a social order of diverse goals tend toward justice, it was necessary for each citizen to internalize the virtues of dialogue, in which the claims of others are considered and ones own claims are phrased intelligible to others. Ideally, this specifically political form of civility -which began with the character of the individual citizen -would radiate outward to encompass a thriving debate about basic conditions of social life. It would represent what Carlo Rosseli in the 1920s called a pact of civility among free citizens. This is not a social contract so much as it is a form of civic friendship in which we give without necessarily expecting to receive in return. In practice we might hope to find this form of civility operating in everything from conventions of legal debate, which formalizes disputes in the interest of justice, to routine exchanges between neighbours, who often find that a few kind words do as much to make good relations as Robert Frosts celebrated fences. (Kingwell, p.9) Kingwell goes on to flesh-out his concept and provides us with the idea that we are all working on a social project with goals that at some level we all share, where civility is the enabling condition for the world we want. He believes that without civility there can be no political organization that goes beyond the self-interested bargaining and culture of complaint that currently dominates our sense of politics. And hence there can be no real justice (Kingwell).

What if Canadas political parties were not adversarial and individuals were elected to parties where specific policies were espoused? What if politicians sat on committees where the common good of Canada had to be served and where dialogue was civil? Members would vote with party when issues of specific national policy were concerned but could vote according to the wishes of constituents in all other matters. The goal of the project would be a better Canada. What we have at the moment alienates citizens. People who would be able governors will not run for office. Personalities and not issues are the motivators of this days government. The malaise goes deeper, as people choose not to vote, choose not to participate, and the dialogue is gone. What is worse again is the fact that the issue is not new. In 1991 Canadians told the Spicer Commission that change was required. Overwhelmingly, participants have told us that they have lost faith in the political system and its leadership. Anger, disillusion, and a desire for fundamental change [are] very often the first issue[s] raised in discussion groups and usually produce unanimous agreement... Canadians are telling us that their leaders must understand and accept their vision of the country -- that their leaders must be governed by the wishes of the people and not the other way around. (Spicer Commission Report) Change Agents : the responsibility to act The leadership for change is in place. The agenda items have settled on two major items: participation, a voice for individual people, and the issues of globalism, together with the identified evils of multinational corporation influence and their power brokers, the World Bank, the IMF and WTO -- all antidemocratic and perceived as dangerous. One such individual is Hillary Wainright, a British socialist-feminist academic and activist. Ms Wainright calls for,

a new kind of knowledge based not on expertise but experience.... Today womens willingness to share their personal problems has led toa critique of existing government programs and services and the development of alternatives such as rape-crisis centres, day-care centres and womens centres. A distinctive feature of these [social] movements is their stress on the insights, skills, even feelings of their members as essential contribution to adequate knowledge of social needs and solutions.... These ideas lead to strategies for transformation that no longer envisage the state as an external engineer but as the potential source of a democratic and egalitarian framework and provider of public support and protection for a variety of different forms of popular selfgoverment. (Rebick, p.32) This is not the business driven agenda of the major political parties that we have come to know. Any of the mainstream Canadian parties should take heed. Another person that has drawn attention in this discussion is Winona LaDuke, the co-chair of the Indigenous Womens Network and a member of the Mississippi band of the Anishinabe people. These people... ...have completely rejected all notions of restructuring corporate capitalism. The perspectives indicated by Ms. LaDuke include: Decision making is not done by those who are affected by the decisions, people who live on the land but [by] corporations with an interest which is entirely different [from] that of the land and of the people or the women of the land. This brings a fundamental question: What gives these corporations like Conoco, Shell, Exxon... and the World Bank, a right which supercedes or is superior to my human right to live on the land, or [is superior] to that of my family, my community, my nation, our nations, and to us as women? What law gives that right to them? (Rebick, p.56) LaDuke represents a view that it will be necessary to overthrow corporate rule as the only possible route to social change.

Conclusions Is there any doubt that a call for participation has been raised? Individuals representing many perspectives, perhaps more than ever before, are asking that everyday citizens get involved with the issues they feel most strongly about. There are no lack of interests, and dialogue is the preferred choice of action. There are even lots of advisors showing us how to use dialogue and what we might expect from it. The advisors advocate everything from the dismanteling of the capitalist system to expecting civility from each other. The great debate is underway and in fashions that are typical of human voyages in the pursuit of better sysytems; we are not sure of the destination or even the course. We are asked only to be responsible and to participate. Whatever happens as we watch the new battlegrounds emerge, it will take place at the level of the neighbourhood. It may very well be the case that the democratic movement will encompass the global economy and offer the world vibrant communities that echo what ancient Athenians thought was theirs alone.

Bibliography Barber, B., Watson, P., (2000) The Struggle for Democracy, Toronto: Key-Porter Gakki, S., (2000), Viewpoint: Peace and Proprosals address http: // www.sokagakki.viewpoint.html Greenspan,E., (2001), Lets keep this genie in the bottle, Toronto: Globe and Mail, April 7 Ignatieff, M., (2000), The Rights Revolution, Torontto: Anasi Kingwell, M., (2000), The World We Want, Toronto: Penguin Rebick,J., (2000), Imagine Democracy, Toronto: Stoddart Saul, J.R., (1997), Reflections of a Siamese Twin, Toronto:Viking Spicer, K., (1991) Spicer Commision Report, Ottawa: House of Commons