Democracy is the Secularization Itself
A Comment for Caroline Fourest’s Secularize, then Democratize (www.theglobalexperts.org; reprinted by The Jakarta Post on 3 January 2011).
In her article, Caroline Fourest talked about democracy and totalitarianism. Shall we, in the name of democratic principle, give chance to people willing to kill democracy to participate in, and win, election? Or shall we accept lesser evil of political restriction endorsed by some authoritarian regimes as a necessary step to prevent such groups reigning?
Caroline acknowledged the hard choice. Instead of picking one between the two evils she went with secular democrats as ‘the only ones that deserve our solidarity.’ She asserted that to support such democrats, we better accept that endorsing theocracy deserves disqualification from political race. The most important thing is, outside such limitation, political freedom must still be held up.
It was hard to not see the restriction as merely a lesser form of the lesser evil. It is still evil nonetheless. We hope democrats to emerge from an undemocratic system. Is that a realistic hope? Since hope is about the future, it is hard to judge if it is realistic or not. Nevertheless, we can learn from past and current experiences to rationally and ideologically-free answer the question: does democracy need us to protect it by restricting its enemies, of particular interest religious vigilantes?
First and foremost, contrary to public belief, never did in history a religious party that won election betrayed democracy. This was evident from Stathis Kalyvas’s (2000) study. The Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science took Algeria’s FIS (1988-1992) and Belgium’s Catholic party (1870-1884) as cases. FIS won the election but never ruled because the incumbent annulled the result, which led into bloody civil war. The Belgium won the election and moderated itself so no longer perceived as a threat to democracy.
The message of the study is clear: our fear of radicalism will kill democracy has no historical precedence. It is merely our guessing, which pretty much colored by fear. Of course such fear-based prediction has its own truth but we have learned along our course of civilization-building that public matters as important as political participation shall be decided in rational rather than emotional way.
Still talking about the possibility of radicals winning election, one question asks for an answer. How will they win the election? Surely lot of works they need to do. Yet, we tend to forget that part of hard work. We are too occupied by what if those totalitarians got more votes than we did. The consequence is regrettable. We endorse preemptive restriction which kills the meaning of democracy itself.
Paying attention to the effort needs to be done by anyone willing to win election is paramount because only by it can we understand the moderating effect of democracy. The principle says that in order for a group to gain the most votes, it cannot be in the extreme left or right. It must be in the middle, which implies that it must sacrifice some of its extreme principles.
Again, studies confirmed this. Julie Chernov Hwang (2008) examined Indonesia’s Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). Just in order to survive –forget winning the election– PKS opened itself to non-Muslim members and set aside some of its sharia agendas. Skeptics may wonder if such steps were merely camouflages but the message is loud and clear: in a democracy where the system provides incentives to groups playing by the rule, one cannot survive if it is ways too extreme. We can expect that by building a healthy democracy and encouraging radicals to participate in it, we can force them to moderate and, to some extent, secularize themselves for the incentive of popular support.
Last, it would be unwise to restrict theocracy-oriented groups from democracy exactly because we need them. Democracy is invented so we no longer use bullets to voice our concern and use ballots instead. If we block them from using the ballots, by what other means must they deliver their voice but by bullets? Another study by Julie Chernov Hwang (2009) found that one of the prerequisites for peaceful mobilization is political channel. If we block the radicals’ channel, how can we expect them not to be violent? If we want peace then we must give peace a chance, which means we must allow radical political groups to gather their supporters and deliver their aspirations in politically correct ways. Only by that can we ensure everyone respects the system.
In sum, instead of supporting secular democrats, we must support the democracy itself, regardless who participate in it. Democratization is, in a sense, secularization. If we do the democracy rightly, it will moderate any group participating in it and make violent mobilization less attractive. The end does not justify the means and a good end needs a lot of hard works. We just need to work harder and ignore the temptation of the easy way –political restriction. (Nathanael Gratias)
