Learning from ancient Athens
AS Bangladesh is taking tentative steps towards the return of democracy, it can learn from ancient Athens. The Americans, or the British, or the Arabs did not invent democracy. The ancient Athenians, who believed that ordinary citizens must have say in the government and aristocrats, invented democracy and elites should not rule them by virtue of their birth. So they invented a system of people's government and called it Demokratia -- government by the people.
Democracy; a beautiful idea of government by and for the people. But like all beautiful ideas, democracy has some apparent contradictions and the most seductive one is majority rule, which is not democracy. It is merely a government by and for the majority. Ancient Athenians learned this lesson the hard way. After several bouts of class warfare, they took practical steps to make government involve all citizens and serve the general interest.
One such idea was Athens Council -- composed of 500 citizens chosen randomly to represent a cross section of people. The Athens Council was a bulwark against unfair influence of the rich and the powerful, while acting as a shield against the majority of the poor imposing their will on the rich minority. Its purpose was to protect the poor from the arrogance of the rich, and the rich from the envy of the poor.
This was more democratic than elected representation in some ways; it made good use of citizen wisdom, and it curbed the power of wealth on one hand and the mob on the other. But it was less democratic in other ways -- the council members were not accountable to voters as they were not elected.
Ancient Athenians had shown us that democracy is not a utopian ideal, because it takes human limitations into account better than any other form of government. The ancient inventors of democracy knew that even the best of people could be distracted by ambition. They knew how easily success could lead to pride, and pride to arrogance.
They also knew how arrogance leads to blindness and blindness to catastrophic mistakes. Democracy was born out of an awareness of human folly, and it was designed to prevent its leaders from having the unchecked power that could lead the wisest of them from arrogance to foolishness. Even such a powerful leader as Perecles was held in check by the Athens Council.
Although the Athenian system of direct democracy may not be practicable in our complex world, the idea of stemming the tyranny of the majority still remains germane. Democracy is increasingly becoming a tool for ambitious political leaders to increase their personal power.
Those in the United States who claim to export democracy may be more interested in exporting their own ideology to control others in the name of democracy. US President George W. Bush often takes cover behind executive privilege -- even though this belongs more to monarchy than democracy.
As Prof. Paul Woodruff, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, writes in his path-breaking study First Democracy: "We have permitted governments we call democracies to develop so much internal momentum that fewer and fewer people feel they have any reason to vote ... The idea of democracy was subject to intense challenges in the ancient world. The resulting debate brought the ideas of democracy into clear focus. Understanding the ancient debate, we can clear the clouds and cobwebs away from the ideas we are trying to express in democracy today."
To counter a single party or a powerful leader from monopolising power, a modified form of Athens Council may be in order. Besides voting for the candidates of different parties, a Citizen Council composed of prominent citizens may be formed. This will include civil society members -- academics, lawyers, journalists, business people, union members, and other citizens who want to contribute to public life.
The Citizen Council will oversee the work of the parliament in the same way the Athens Council acted as a check on the general assembly of all Greek Citizens.
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