”…..that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”–Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863.
That democracy shall not perish from the face of the earth was Abraham Lincoln’s prayer. It was a view of the world that he envisioned and which he strove to help create. It contrasted sharply with the world of slavery. It was not a world of racial inequality or racial prejudice.
For Lincoln, the American civil war was worth the sacrifice only if a genuinely democratic society was its final outcome. But while he achieved the goal of ending slavery, crowning it with the signing of the Emancipation Declaration, Lincoln could not advance democracy as he wished before an assassin on revenge mission silenced him.
Lincoln went to his grave not knowing whether the government of the people, by the people, and for the people would endure or perish from the earth. But he appeared to have had a premonition of things to come from some of the disturbing events of his time.
In “The Political Religion of the Nation”, an address that he delivered to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois in January, 1838, Lincoln worried about “the increasing disregard for law, which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of the Courts, and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.” That observation anticipated the January 6 insurrection by almost 200 years. And now it is no longer an empty threat. There is a real danger that democracy may not survive even among its most passionate and consistent global advocates.
But what is great about democracy that we should want it survive? Not many of the classical thinkers thought it was a good system. Plato derided it as the rule of the ignorant. His preference was for the wise and knowledgeable to rule. While Aristotle viewed democracy as the rule of the poor on behalf of themselves, he preferred “polity”, seeing it as an ideal governing system for promoting common interests.
Yet there was a reason Cleisthenes, generally acknowledged as the Father of Democracy, introduced demokratia or rule by the people as a governing system in 5th century BCE. It respects the dignity of persons and recognizes that everyone is equal before the law, which Herodotus described as the most splendid of virtues. This recognition of individuals rules out tyrannical regimes whether with men of war, money bags, or religious priests, at the helm.
However, it is worth noting that the world didn’t start out recognizing this essential normative aspect of our common humanity, namely that everyone has a dignity that must be respected and everyone in turn must live by the tenets of human dignity. From the conjuring of the Divine Right of Kings to the aristocracy of wealth, and the tyranny of military dictatorship, every human race or nation went through some era of oppression in the hands of fellow human beings. Even the Athenian experiment by Cleisthenes had a prelude in dictatorship and a postscript of dictatorship. And his democratic initiative lasted only for two centuries.
The world has seen all and tried all forms of government and the verdict appears to favor democracy as the best. Winston Churchill, the war general and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom famously declared that “democracy is the worst form of government-except for all the others that have been tried.” He should know. He was voted out of power as Prime Minister just months after leading his country to victory in World War II. Only in a democracy can that sharp turn of events occur. Remember President George W. H. Bush and his 90% approval rating after the first Gulf War of 1991? Less than a year later, he lost reelection to Bill Clinton, a war-evading governor. Only in a democracy!
This almost universal affirmation of democracy as the best form of government has facilitated its attraction to many societies and leaders, especially since the late 1950s when more colonized nations gained independence. Democracy became synonymous with all forms of governance structures. Thus we had African democracy, Socialist Democracy, Latin American democracy, Asian democracy etc., as the late C. B. Macpherson magisterially captured the trend in The Real World of Democracy. On his part, the late President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, in a “teacher don’t teach me nonsense” moment, famously attacked Western Democracy as a fake. In view of what’s going on in many of these Western democracies now, one wonders whether Nyerere wasn’t right after all.
An overriding assumption of democracy is that individuals know what is best for them and, given the chance, they will choose what is best for them, whether it be choice of the best among candidates for office, or choice of the best policy in a referendum. This assumption presupposes adequate information and knowledge of the issues as well as the absence of constraining factors, whether in the form of external pressure or the coercion of material poverty, intimidation of wealth, or the temptation of greed.
Knowing the limitations of human nature, democracy also establishes guardrails on its highway. These guardrails are designed to prevent avoidable fender benders. These include institutions or rules and practices which groups and individuals are expected to follow for the success of democracy. They are, among others, a constitution that is congruent with the nature and character of the polity, an embrace of the supremacy of the rule of law and an impartial system of justice, political parties, periodic elections, equity in the distribution of rights and responsibilities, elimination of extreme poverty, effective preventive and punitive measures against corruption, free press, etc.
The hope and expectation is that with all the foregoing in place, a polity can experience a stable democratic governance structure for the benefit of everyone. But hope and expectation is hardly sufficient as the experience of at least several decades has shown. What are the threats?
Human nature is unfathomable; but experience has shown us some of its base elements. Despite the almost universal condemnation of Hobbes’ so-called projection of a European bourgeois nature as a universal feature of humanity, we deceive ourselves if we think that none of it is applicable to us. Has egoistic mindset not been widely demonstrated among us? Is greed not killing our society? Our own SLA infamously castigated a section of the country for greed, unfortunately playing on the corrupted forms of their names. But if truth be told, which part of the country hasn’t displayed egoistic and greedy tendencies? None!
“Money is the root of all evil”, as the Holy Scripture tells us. We might just add that political evil is on top of the evils and money is its enabler. Just look around. Is there any of the fundamental institutions mentioned above, from elections to justice, from civil service to legislature, that money has not condemned to rot?
Individuals are assumed to know best their interests. But money has taken over as the yardstick of all interests. Thus, voters are bought at the cheapest price, and they forget about their long-term interest in education, health, and security. They receive N500-N1000 for a ballot and that’s it. Rousseau once mocked the British for being free only during elections because immediately after elections are over, they become the slaves of their parliamentarians. Can we say anything different about us?
On the flip side of money is poverty. While there are poor people with their dignity intact, extreme poverty and its attendant hunger compromises integrity. A hungry man with basic needs of nutrition and clothing for self and family may unfortunately be compelled to accept favors which are against his long-term interests. It is why conscienceless politicians would rather keep fellow citizens in perpetual poverty so they are under their beck and call especially during elections when they shamelessly and wickedly release pittance to them and arm them with illicit drugs and weapons to maim and kill opponents. Therefore, the elimination of extreme poverty is a condition for stable democracy.