Three Words to Describe Democracy

Reading Brett's article this morning, 'Let's Do Away With Elections Altogether' (http://www.citizenjournalismafrica.org/blog/%5Buser%5D/16-may-2008/826), made me realise that I was not the only one thinking about governance and how strange it was that I wished Jacob Zuma, a known homophobe, was already in office.

I was sitting on my wall over the weekend thinking about how Zimbabwe is trying painfully and slowly to crawl its way towards democracy and how dangerous and fragile the game has become. I am proud of the determination of Zimbabweans to use the ballot box and not violence to get what we want but there is a tremendous risk that it might all go horribly wrong and that we will have to wait for another five years before we get another chance to assert our will. I can't honestly see us getting there.

I thought about Churchill who, having lost the British election in 1945, quipped: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." My own impression of democracy is that it can be very slow, tedious and time-consuming but, like Churchill, I've never been able to imagine any workable alternatives. So, Brett's idea of electing parliaments through a jury system made sense. However, if I was not enthusiastic about becoming a parliamentarian in the first place, I might not fulfill my role with very much passion or enthusiasm. How would I be held accountable when I can throw my toys out the cot with: "I didn't want this job in the first place; I'm a professional drag queen?"

But the problem of governance is not just at a national level; it is global. It might seem obvious that Zimbabwe's issue be resolved at the highest level of the United Nations but because the Security Council consists of politicians looking to protect their own backyards and to expand their spheres of influence (note that I did not include protecting the interests of the people they govern), we get China and South Africa amongst others rejecting the obvious need for international help to resolve the crisis here.

Someone once said to me that the United Nations may be bureaucratic and cumbersome but it is all we have and so we have to understand it and try and work with it. But what are the significant achievements of the UN since October 26th 1945 when it originally came into existence? It even botched the Rwandan crisis. But is this a bigger version of Churchill's paradox: we have no choice but to allow choice?

There have been a number of theories about abandoning the essentially nationalist model of the UN and setting up a world parliament, the best known being the World Parliament Experiment initiated by Dr. Rasmus Tenbergen (http://www.tgde.org/). Instead of national governments appointing individuals to represent them on the global stage, each individual in the world would have the chance to vote for a representative of his or her choice. This would mean that those living in China would have a disproportionally larger say on the world stage than Britain. Is it disproportionate when there are lot more Chinese in the world than Englishmen? It may sound frightening considering China's dodgy human rights record but what does the average Chinese person really think? I may assume but I don't know. Besides, it has to be a lot better and fairer than the present set up we have.

These alternatives for national and international leadership may sound Utopian but I do believe we are working towards some kind of new world order: it is part of globalisation and, as such, a force of history. But the process towards fairer governance for all will be long, tedious and messy - three words which you might use to define democracy! For example, I can't see it being readily acceptable to most of the political power houses on this planet.

Oh, and by the way, a number of checks and balances naturally would be put in place to ensure that the World President was not Robert Mugabe.