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Conduct Worthy Of A Democratic Society 2

By Saneitha Nagani

On the road to a democratic society we must first fill the potholes and pitfalls that exist

along the road. Without doing them first we could not expect to have a smooth ride. The potholes

and the pitfalls I am referring to here are something like flaws in our legal system, the independence

of our judiciary, the military as one of the organs of state and not the organisation that is ruling the

state, and so on. Without those being fixed first, President Thein Seins government must be thinking

of airlifting us towards our democratic destiny. We have been taken for a ride on the Burmese Road

to Socialism before and I hope we do not have to remind him of where it took us. He has not even

baked us a democratic cake yet but he is already questioning whether we would be worthy enough

to taste the goodness of that democratic cake. What if we are not? What will he do about that?

That reminded me of a story about an Irish priest and a parishioner; when he was asked how to get

to Heaven the priest replied that, Oh there are many ways but you cannot start from here! For

an autocratic state like Burma to transform it into a democratic state overnight cannot be possible.

However, we might like that Burmas road to democracy will be short. As put by a person named

Sithu Nyein Aye put it in one of the former military Juntas mouthpiece that, The word democracy is

defined very simply in dictionaries of government by elected representatives of the masses. In

reality, it is not as simple as that. A mere government by elected representatives of the masses is not

yet democracy. Hitler, the Nazi Dictator, who ignited the Second World War was a representative

elected by the people. Nobody can now say that his form of government was democratic. There

have been several instances of elected governments turning into dictatorial regimes. He then went

on to write as some took democracy as freedom to do what he or she likes and since human

society exists on a plane higher that that of the animal world that it must have discipline and it must

have limitations. Sadly though, he did not mention anything about discipline not to steal and how

much limit that one should have when it comes to stealing from the people.

Advocates of democracy talked about democratic sequencing the transition strategies being

sequentialism and gradualism. There are many theories and on-going debates about democracy

and socio-economic situation a society is in. Since I am not the expert in either of those I will

present my opinion in this piece. Whatever the theories might be, they all come to the conclusion

that democracy does not come about randomly, and for democracy to be stable it must come about

from within, since it is the socio-economic conditions which create and maintain an environment for

stable and enduring democracies. Therefore, to promote democracy in a country the central

component must be the socio-economic development of the people.

Seymour Martin Lipset, in his book Political Man mentioned that there is a strong correlation

between economic factors and the emergence of democracy. However, Samuel Huntington criticised

that claim and instead he argued that economic development leads to political stability and it is also

important that the state has to be able to establish its capacity. Both of them believed that there is

an ideal sequence for democratisation. If transformation to a democratic society is to be successful i t

is more likely to follow well-defined steps such as increasing wealth and economic equality among

the population, accumulating state power before the elections are held.

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On the other hand, some academic and political heavy weights like Edward D. Mansfield, Jack Snyder

and J. Carothers, argued that gradualism - for a country to transform itself to a democratic society

certain conditions, such as the rule of law and state capacity should be in place before a attempting

to change. Carothers questions the relative compatibility of authoritarianism against democracy with

the rule of law development and state-building. Doesnt that makes you wonder why Daw Suu is

calling for the rule of law to be established at every chance she got?

To some, Burma will soon become a discipline democracy like China or Singapore. In one of the

Burmese sayings if the majority agrees then the symbol eimust be read as buffalo (amya-nyi ei

kywe-phat). So, if the Constitution, flawed as it might be is still there and if none of the repressive

laws has changed either then we might end up with a form of discipline democracy. In my view,

what has changed though is that within the military there are those who are still in many front-lines

fighting against the Kachins, the Karens, the Shans and many other ethnic minorities in the border

areas while on the other hand some of their fellow military officials are fortunate enough to sleep

their way through various sessions of the Parliament no sweat.

How can anyone justify a system that lacks accountability? If you are one of the high-level officials of

the Party (USDP Union Solidarity and Development Party) then you can dole out Johnnie Walker

Blue Label whisky as much as you want, to whomever you want, without the need to account to

anyone. If and when democracy comes to Burma (come it will, it is only a matter of time) then

people like whom I have mentioned will lose the privileges which they should not have in the first

place. Are they going to let them slipped away without doing anything? It is all too well for President

Thein Sein to make a pledge to end corruption and hope for a clean government; end poverty and

let every youth in ethnic minorities areas to have laptop computers instead of AK47s if they want

to, but that will still a pipe dream if the reforms he has pledged that he and his government would

do are going to be undermine by people like those I have mentioned above in the ruling party that

he leads?

I hope U Thein Sein knows that by being a democratic society he should also expect that people

also have this belief that people must participate in the decisions of government under the rule of

law. I guess he should be the one who should know better that whatever the government decision,

without consulting with the people or at least obtain some input from them will always be met with

resistance. Even if he does not know that before he should be wiser by now because it was he who

called for the suspension of the construction of the 6,000-megawatt hydropower dam in Kachin

State in a letter to the Parliament. In that letter he explained that, Our government, being elected

by the people, has to take great consideration of public opinion. Accordingly, we have an obligation

to respond to the public concern with seriousness. Therefore, we will suspend the Myitsone project

during the term of our government.

Whether he really believed it or not he cited public opinion was the driving force for his decision.

However, I have a different view. Bearing in mind that U Thein Seins government was not elected by

the people not without the controversy of how the results were obtained, the lack of transparency

as regards to their sudden change of heart, apart from the understanding reached between him and

the opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi not much was made available to the public, and Bertil

Lintners assertion that there was the master plan for Myanmar authored by Lt-Col Aung Kyaw Hla,

who is identified as a researcher at the countrys prestigious Defence Services Academy completed

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and circulated in 2004 which outlines the thinking and strategy behind the master plan, all that talk

about this process of change in Burma is irreversible seems more of a fairy tale to me. My take on

this process of change in Burma is like a person who pleaded insanity as his excuse for committing

murder now find himself bounded by his own plea he has to keep on playing being insane.

Meanwhile, there are reports that the Myitsone dam project continues so as the wars in the regions

of ethnic minorities despite of his pledge to seek lasting peace in his address on the Union Day.

According to Richard Williamson, member of the board of directors of the International Republican

Institute (IRI), Democracy responds to a deep longing by man to be treated with dignity. Democracy

is premised on a longing in human nature for people to have a voice in their own destiny. In

Burmese, it simply means ko-kyama ko-phantee-naing-yei for one to be able to determine ones

own destiny. That is the conduct worthy of every one who aspires to live in a democratic society.

END