On Democracy (8 April 2004)

There are days when I believe that there's such a thing as too much democracy.

Let me give you just one example. When I was sixteen I attended a school that was founded on basic democratic beliefs. It outlawed hierarchy. Our teachers were there to guide us, to give us the benefit of their experience, but they were not to be our superiors; to underscore this fundamental belief that everyone was equal, everyone, from the Director of the college to the gardeners and the cleaning ladies, was called by his or her first name.

But it was not governed democratically. In fact, when we first arrived, the Director sat down with us and explained to us that although the college was based on democratic principles, there was such a thing as getting a job done, and there was such a thing as division of labour. Our job was to get the best education — not just academic — that we could, and to do so not for our own selfish edification, but to make the world a better place. His job was to govern. If that made him a dictator, he said, then so be it. He would be a benevolent dictator.

And by and large, he was. Benevolent, that is, and a dictator. And things got done.

In 1995, I returned to that college as a teacher. It was still democratic in name. But the division of labour was no longer working as it did. Students no longer had a say in the running of the school. On the other hand, every minor decision, it seemed, had to be sanctioned by every teacher. Consensus was the order of the day.

I have never wasted so much time in my life.

I remember one meeting, a beginning-of-the-year faculty meeting, which took nine hours to complete. We began one day, and finished halfway through the rest. Those of us who were responsible for student residence houses came back the next day and met some more.

The burning issue: what dates to schedule things like mid-term break, last day of classes, first day of classes after Christmas, end of the school year — things that could be decided by computer. We talked for nine hours straight, and nothing much got done.

Too much democracy.

Now don't get me wrong. I believe in democracy. I support wholly the idea that everyone should be equal before the law, equal in the eyes of the state, and equal before God.

I also believe that everyone should have a say in the way he or she is governed. I believe in it so passionately, in fact, that I am uncomfortable with the easy principle of the simple majority; there is something fundamentally unfair in the idea that just because a decision is supported by more than fifty per cent of the population it should prevail. In a society where every individual is equal, numeric superiority is a quick-and-dirty way of making some more equal than others.

I also believe in consensus, which is the arrival at workable compromises by a group of people who have an equal chance to express their views. Consensus is one way of ensuring that those people who do not have a numeric majority have a chance to be heard.

And sometimes I believe in outright dictatorship. This is because I believe in the division of labour. Those people best trained or most skilled at a particular area should have more authority to make decisions in their areas. I don't necessarily believe that a businessman can make sensible artistic decisions, that a doctor is better equipped to make educational decisions than an academic, or that a musician can make structural decisions about the building of a house.

You see, if democracy is the best system of government known to humankind, it is also the most difficult. Government is not easy; good leadership has far less to do with the perks of position than with rendering the greatest service to the largest number of people. The greatest leaders recognize that being in the driver's seat that doesn't mean one knows the best route to get where one's going; there's always the possibility that someone very unlikely knows better. And so the best leaders keep their ears open to what everyone has to say.

And the best participants in a democracy are both educated and informed. They have to be, if they want the best government that they can get. In a democracy, all citizens are responsible for the quality of their own lives. This involves knowing what one's duties are, and doing them, and not meddling in other people's areas of expertise. It also involves speaking out about injustices, and doing what one can to address them, and not waiting for someone to come and take care of them for one. It requires doing what one can to make oneself and the whole society better, and not expecting some agency to do the job on one's behalf.

If one is a politician, one's responsibility is to govern — to represent one's people, to determine policy, and to concentrate on the big picture.

If one is a civil servant, one's responsibility is to turn policy into practice, and to serve the public to the best of one's ability.

If one is a citizen, one's responsibility is to know as much as possible about what is going on in one's country, one's island, one's own back yard, so that one can influence the politicians and the civil servants to make the best decisions possible.

There is no room in a democracy for apathy, for disinterest. We are all one another's keepers; what hurts my neighbour, be he white, black, Haitian, homosexual, Christian, FNM or PLP, hurts me. Democracy is hard to secure. If we believe in it, we must all work for it, making sure that the decisions we are making are both appropriate and right. Otherwise, we're better off with dictatorship.

Benevolent, of course.