Democracy - A storm playing havoc in our society

Written by Ahmed Maajid

After decades of incessant, yet deceitful and hypocritical propaganda for democracy by our political leadership, democracy has finally got a foothold in the Maldives too. The appealing and conquering polemics for democracy, created by political leaders all over the world and especially in Western countries over centuries, has been employed with amazing success in our country as well.

The result is that the whole country is gripped with a small-scale obsession with democracy – and voting, which is one of the defining features of democracy. Even schools have started brainwashing the students to revere democracy and believe that voting is the way to decide who would occupy any position of power or duties in the society. Last year, I saw flyers and badges prepared and distributed by a student of Iskandar School in the school as campaign material; the student was contesting for, if I remember well, school captaincy. I like to think that captaincy of a school must be assigned by the school administration to the student who is most accomplished in terms of academic achievement, most capable in terms of leadership, and most deserving in terms of ethical and moral integrity.

But … Oh no, no, no, no! For those who are entrusted with the nurturing of our children, at least at Iskandar School, the position should be given as per democracy to the most capable campaigner, who prepares the most appealing badges and gives the most stirring and rousing speeches, and shows the highest level of skill in making false promises and verbally abusing their contenders. After all, these are vital skills for democracy that the students need to learn them before they step into the real world!

DEMOCRACY IS A LIE

Can the people really rule themselves – probably they can in a participatory democracy where the population is a few hundred at most. However, if the population is larger than that, it is impossible for all the people to equally participate in the government of their social, political, economic and cultural affairs. Either one man, or an assembly must rule over the society. If government is in the hands of one man, it is a monarchy. If there is an assembly of elite nobles to rule, it is an aristocracy. If that assembly is comprised of people who come to it by using their wealth and riches, or by using the influence they have through wealth and riches, then the society is a plutocracy. I will take liberty with the use of words, and describe it as a “capitocracy” or a "capitalist plutocracy"; as today’s Parliaments are peopled by none other than millionaire-or-billionaire capitalists or their puppets.

The adherents of democracy then do a trick – they bring the people to the ballot boxes, and let them chose their King, who is now renamed as President, or their representative by casting a vote. The people are then told that this vote makes the government “theirs”. The people are deceived into believing that this vote lets them control the government. However, this is a lie. Look at any “democracy” in the world, think carefully about its political history, and you will soon realize that votes only makes it appear as if the people control their government—it never lets the people to have anything even akin to real power. Charles Bukowski was indeed very right when he said that “The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting." Voting does not empower people, but artfully yet deviously fools the people into believing that they have power. In other words, voting in “democratic” elections does not bring democracy; it does not yield a system whereby people truly have power. It just completes a good-looking ritual which programs the people to think that they have control their leaders when in truth they never have that control.

Democracy therefore is a big lie, and a façade carefully designed to hide true face of government in the so-called “democratic” nations – which are nothing but capitalist plutocracies.

It is one of the “stranger-than-fiction” facts of human history that billions of people are deluded by the devious and falsehearted rhetoric and polemics advocating democracy. Are people deluded by this rhetoric and polemics because they are stupid? Not at all! They are not stupid, but experience has shown us that people do not like to call trouble by attacking the political superstructure of the society; human beings naturally love peace, and they would suffer to a great length before they are willing and ready to rise up and take action. Indeed, at democracy’s home, we saw that the people finally stood up against the lies of democracy—when the 99 Per Cent took to streets in the USA and other major “democracies” of the world, to oppose the capitalist plutocracy’s deceptions. The 1 Per Cent, the capitalist plutocracy, crushed the people with the power of the uniformed and paid security forces which had been carefully programmed by the rhetoric of democracy. When the police in the USA and many other nations of the West beat, handcuffed, dragged, tear-gassed, and arrested people on the streets of cities such as New York and Tokyo, was it democracy or capitalist, plutocratic dictatorship in action?

I watched a movie titled “The Patriot” a few years ago. It was a Mel Gibson starrer. The film was about the American Revolutionary War, which was conducted by the union of colonies that wanted independence from the “oppressive” British rule. There was a council in which leaders of the union proposed that South Carolina, the home state of Mel Gibson’s character Captain Benjamin Martin, should join the union against British rule. One man, by the name of Howard, who advocated for the independence of American colonies and formation of the American nation said that, “We are citizens of an American Nation, and our rights are being threatened by a tyrant 3000 miles away”, obviously referring to the King in England. In response, Benjamin Martin rises up and says, “Would you tell me, please, Mr. Howard, why should I trade one tyrant 3000 miles away for 3000 tyrants one mile away? An elected legislature can trample a man’s rights as easily as a King can”.

How true! How true!

Whether we believe or not, a King’s capacity for dictatorship is in no wise greater than the capacity of an elected assembly of people’s “representatives” to be dictators. It is not the system which effectively defines the character of the government, but it is the moral integrity, righteousness, honesty, piety, and leadership of the leader which makes a government “a government of the people, for the people, and by the people”. This is why Aristotle, the famous and great Greek philosopher said that the best ruler would be a benevolent dictator – a King who had absolute powers and then ruled his people with love, mercy, justice, law, and truth.

If a King becomes a dictator by using his absolute powers for his personal gains, how on earth is an elected legislature which uses its absolute powers to make laws and finalize policy for their own personal gains considered a democracy? Shouldn’t it be a dictatorship, or, a “dictatorfleet”, as a friend of mine jokingly referred to it when I raised this point. Empirical knowledge tells us almost categorically that so-called democracies are façades which hide the true ruler – the capitalist plutocracy which uses the face of democracy to deceive the people and uses the government to gratify its shockingly insatiable greed for wealth and riches.

WESTERN OBSESSION WITH IMPOSING “DEMOCRACY”

The West is obsessed with the desire to impose “democracy” in the Third World—in poor countries of Asia and Africa.

Why?

“Democracy” looks to me to be particularly lethal to countries in which there is poverty, ignorance, and social problems in abundance. Look at the Maldives for example. Democracy has divided the once unified people of this country, and now the situation is such that one often fears the eruption of a civil war in this country where the population does not reach even 400,000. Democracy has caused immoral, lying, deceitful hypocrites to come to the forefront of national leadership, and use their loud voices and imposing characters—for they are completely bankrupted in terms of knowledge, morality, and personal integrity—to take control of the government. Democracy has crippled the national economy, and it has spread hatred and lies in the society. In terms of economy alone, democracy – with its costs of elections and the allocation from national budget to political parties – costs much more than this nation spends on education, for an example.

If the West is bent on imposing such a monster upon us, then to me their agenda is quite obvious.

PREPOSTEROUS!

Yet, our “leaders” do not seem to know anything about the reality. It was once again seen when one of those “leaders” recently proposed a bill to the Parliament, in which he proposes that the Commissioner of Police should be elected in the future, for a term of four years, at the end of which there would be another election to elect a Commissioner again, for the next four years. Obviously it is the members of the police force who would vote in such an election. Phew! Many praise and thanks to the Lord that the man did not think of proposing that all the people of the country should partake in the vote to elect the Commissioner of Police.

Democracy is finally getting ready to invade the Maldives Police Service as well. In their zeal to look-like champions of democracy to the laymen, our “leaders” apparently never weigh what they say or propose on the scale of true knowledge, wisdom, and history.

Let us just pause for a while and think about what “democratic voting” will do to our police force. As soon as this system is introduced, senior leaders in the police force would have to campaign and contest in the election to become the Commissioner of Police. The most high-ranked officers would then start campaigning for the election, trying to win as many votes as possible. Our experience shows us that whenever this process starts, there would be false promises, verbal abuses and defamation of other contenders, and much dirtier games. The police force will then become divided into factions, each of them supporting a particular contender. At the end of the day, when the election is held and one of the contenders wins, it is only for a period of four years – a very short period indeed. Hence, as soon as one election is held, the time for campaigning for the next election would be at hand. The process starts again.

Soon, the police force would be paralyzed with internal politics. Hatred, personal grudges, and competition among senior officers who contend in elections would cripple the leadership of the institution, and make it impossible for any one senior rank-holder to attain the respect and love of the whole institution. Any leader who is supported by one faction of the police force would be detested, disliked, and even hated by other factions whose choice for leadership is different. If the leadership of this faction wins, those who belong to that faction would always criticize the leadership of the police, thus effectively hampering the daily operation of the police force. This process would eternally demoralize the leadership. Senior officers would be pre-occupied with their focus on winning the next election, and serving and protecting the people would be a job that takes a backseat. The leaders would spend better part of their time to campaign for the next election or to try and protect his position in the next election.

The whole scenario would be made worse when the political parties of the country start interfering in the internal politics of the police force, with each party supporting a particular contender. Gradually the factions among the police would become extensions of the major political parties. The Maldivian Democratic Party would control a faction and its leader; the Progressive Party of the Maldives would control another police faction and its leader; the Jumhoory Party will do the same and so on.

When this happens, what will be left there for the people? Deceptive and hypocritical rhetoric and polemics, as always!!

The proper and effective functioning of institutions such as the police or army depends heavily on the stability, absoluteness, unity, and strength of its central command. The underline factors or the bedrock of this whole system would be unity, discipline and loyalty. If we divide the police force into factions rivaling each other in a game of internal politics, there would no leader who can command the unified loyalty of the whole police force. The leader of the police or army should not be the most able campaigner, or the one able to use wealth and other such factors of influence to win most votes—rather, the leader should be appointed on the basis of factors such as seniority, experience, proven ability to lead and skillfulness.

Therefore, I would say that the new proposition is preposterous; it is simply absurd.

REAL CAUSES FOR DEMONSTRATIONS

We the people of this country have for long being fooled by “leaders” who have neither the knowledge, nor the wisdom, nor the moral integrity worth the description into going out into streets to shout for them, to commit crimes for them, and to sacrifice the interest of our nation for their political ambitions. It is time we learned the truth about this game. There are real reasons why we should take to the streets, but fighting for the political ambitions of anyone is not one of them. Right now, we need to oppose in every peaceful manner to the impending “democratic storm” that is threatening to destroy the Maldives Police Services.