-Democracy is a means, not an end.
-Democracy is not a spectator sport.
-The world is run by people that show up.
Let us start this Reader debunking a couple of myths:
1. Myth # 1: Foreign aid can transform an anti-democratic structure of power into a democratic, human rights-respecting one. No. It only reinforces what is there. Government to government aid only gives the elites a greater stake in protecting the status-quo; overwhelmingly, it contributes to increased powerlessness of the poor majority.
2. Myth #2: Democratization of, for example, health can be independent of democratization of all institutions of society. No. The real problem is not one of scarcity of health, but scarcity of direct democracy (or collective decision-making power) over health issues.
3. In general, government services (in this case, health) become rights-based only when the services that beneficiaries are entitled-to are specified and when mechanisms to-review-decisions and mechanisms-to-provide-effective-remedies exist, should someone be denied access unjustly. Only then do beneficiaries have power on their side.
4. But to have power on their side, communities must undergo an apprenticeship in new and higher forms of democracy for the needed changes of the above type to happen.
5. It is the DIRECT, participatory form of democracy that is required for development to succeed, because representative democracy has always fallen way short. The question is: How difficult is it to install AND practice DIRECT democracy around human rights (HR) issues?
6. Representative democracy-based forms of accountability have consistently (and increasingly) proven to be obsolete vehicles for providing political voice worthy of the term, notably to poor and marginalized people. (When will we understand that only staging elections will simply not do?).
7. We note that what is being referred-to as ‘good governance’ in the prevailing development discourse is actually politics depoliticized; we are thus called to turn this around so as to understand governance in political and thus truly democratic terms. (PHM India)
8. As a corollary, non-state voices and action alliances have to arise. The construction of new transnational accountability institutions is meant to address failures of traditional state-centered accountability mechanisms. This is a goal that can only be achieved through DIRECT democracy, particularly because the fate of theoretically sound solutions to the human rights problem is grim when, for political reasons, they cannot be implemented.
9. To make the needed difference, DIRECT democracy uses rational persuasion AND political strength! It adds action-orientation to the process of democratization aiming at a more just and fair human development.
10. The caveat, of course, is that authoritarian governments manifest their fear of popular empowerment reaching those levels mostly through organized repression. So, this also has to go into the equation of efforts to promote DIRECT democracy.
11. In any democracy, it is the structural and cultural causes of HR violations that need to be overcome. For that, one needs to have a holistic understanding of the structural violence that expresses itself as HR violations. In practice, this calls for locally assessing and acting upon everything that prevents individuals from fully developing their potentials and from living in dignity (including all forms of discrimination, unfair distribution of wealth, unequal education opportunities, and disadvantages due to environmental damages). DIRECT democracy is the vehicle to achieve this –so we should be talking more about it when we talk about HR.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org