South African constitution’s preamble starts with the words; “we,
the people of South Africa…” (Constitution of the republic of
South Africa, 1996: 1). This preamble was adopted in 1996 under the
newly democratic South Africa, which came into democracy in 1994,
after decades of an oppressive minority rule. The statement, “we
the people” implies
that the constitution is the will of the people and was hence written
by the ordinary South African. In fact, the very definition of
democracy is ‘power of the people, for the people and by the
people’. Democracy in South Africa, as in most democratic
countries, is a representative democracy, as the preamble best puts
it, the constitution is adopted through the “freely elected
representatives” (Constitution of the republic of South Africa,
1996: 1). The aim of this essay is to deliberate whether
representative democracy is indeed the will of the people.
The
question here, is not whether in theory parliamentary politics does
represent the people, because as we have seen and will further be
illustrated, the theory of representative democracy, sounds good on
paper and in political campaigns. What I aim to do is look at the
practical implications of parliamentary democracy and whether it
automatically
represents
the will of the people. The essay will define what the will of the
people is and what representative democracy is. Using Ranciere, and
other contemporary theories I will attempt to dispute the claim that
parliamentary democracy does automatically represent the will of the
people. In addition I will look at alternative ways in which people
can express their will.
Will
of the people
Jean Jacques Rousseau
theorizes the existence of a ‘general will’, which is the collective will of
the people. This will is about ordinary people meeting, discussing
and deliberating on issues affecting them. This assembly is both
voluntary and autonomous; it also involves
direct participation in implementing the ideas and the change which
they have deliberated (Hallward, 2009: 17). The will of the
people, is what the ordinary person thinks and wants, it is the
expression of these ideas of the ordinary. For example movements such
as Abahlali baseMjondolo, which is a collective movement or
organization of the militant poor, it is an organization that
embodies the very concept of the will of the people and the true
definition of democracy. Abahlali baseMjondolo (here on refered to as
AbM) originated when shack dwellers organized and participated in a
road blockage, as a way of protesting against the sale of land that
was promised to them, to local capitalists (Abahlali baseMjondolo,
2006).
The
state and the will of the people
The state has often
justified power, by saying it is the will of the people, and they are
acting in the best interest of the people. Although
the notion of representing the will of the people has become the
justification of modern state power, classical philosophy disputes
the idea that people have a clear idea of what they want, and those
who do have their own thoughts are seen as being unpopular and old
fashioned. Theorists often use Freud’s theory of the “existence
of the unconscious drive” to justify the idea that desire “moves”
through people, implying that people don’t really have clarity of
thought or real authority (Hallward, 2009: 18). In this way the
execution of the will of the people is denied.
Parliamentary
democracy
Looking
at the South African Constitution or any democratic constitution, one
sees a language that promotes this will of the people. The
Constitution, which is set out to limit the power of the state and
protect the individual rights of the people, talks of making the
quality the livelihood of all citizens better and freeing each
person’s potential. The constitution obligates the state to
promote as well as protect and fulfill the rights of every citizen.
This includes freedom, security, human dignity and equality. Within
freedom amongst other things, is the freedom of expression and
political rights
(Constitution of the republic of South Africa, 1996: 1).
The theory looks very appealing; it represents a utopian society
where the ordinary person is personally and unconditionally protected
by his representatives. It promises the poor majority that if they
vote, their electorates will guarantee them a life of quality, an
opportunity to realize their full potential; it promises freedom,
security, dignity- an existence Foucault described as the good life
(Anna Selmeczi, 2009). This good life is a life flourishing with
relations, arts, culture, ect. However one has to ask if the reality
is as good as the theory, if in reality parliamentary democracy does
in fact automatically do all this and if so, does this then
legitimise representative democracy?
Parliamentary democracy
is when elected representatives represent the will of the people of
the nation state. The nation state is seen as a representation of the
people, hence if the state is said to be autonomous then the people
are automatically assumed to be autonomous. From this the people is
not simply the sum of the whole population, but rather a
representation of the unity of the population, it is hence not a
natural entity but a social construct (Hardt and Negri, 2003: 82).
According to Jacques
Ranciere (2006: 53), parliamentary democracy is an oxymoron, this is
because the essence of democracy is the poor or rather the many
ruling themselves it is about representing one’s self, yet the very
concept of representative democracy, or parliamentary democracy, is
the few representing the many. Representative democracy is, according
to Ranciere oligarchic in that it is a few elites who are at liberty
to take control of public affairs. The popular slogan “your vote is
your voice” which is used during election times to get people to
vote is a misleading slogan. It’s a stretch to claim the one’s
vote, in a parliamentary democracy, is an opportunity for your voice
to be heard, it is rather giving consent to a superior power that has
promised to represent you and your voice.
Firstly in an election,
one votes only for the party to be representing them, the part itself
elects its own candidates to run it. So for example, the ANC has
voted Jacob Zuma as their president, and he is hence the president of
South Africa. Secondly, having the right to vote is not born out of
democracy, but rather out of the idea of representation, which as
mentioned, is more an oligarchy, and its use to is vote elites into
parliament. It is the concept of putting competent people in power,
however democracy makes it seem as though it is the people who put
the elites in power. Having the right to vote in democracy, is not
necessarily an assertion of being a political subject, a citizen, the
idea behind voting is to justify or legitimate the theory of the
competent ruling the incompetent. This is a justification of an elite
few, ruling the majority, and the legitimization of only the dominant
interests being represented by the electorates. Candidacies tend to
be monopolized to the few (Ranciere, 2006: 56).Voting has become, to
slightly exaggerate, about choosing a ruling party, from the ruling
class that will “represent” the will of the people in their term
in office. I say “represent” because although during elections
electorates will express a care for the interest of the people, the
reality is, the poor majority are not cared for beyond the elections.
Since
1994, every election in South Africa has brought a wave of promises
of service delivery, yet these promises never come to pass. A trend
seems to have developed in South Africa, whereby after elections, as
was evident after the 2004 elections and the 2011 elections,
community members in municipalities around South Africa begin to
protest. Reasons stated by the community for the protests are mainly
due to poor service delivery. One finds that certain areas,
especially informal settlements have no basic services such as
toilets, electricity, running water. Other promises the government
makes include increasing employment, the alleviation of poverty,
proper infrastructure and housing. These often prove to be empty
promises to acquire the vote of the people. The issue here is not
only the promises made during the time of elections, but the promise
made in the constitution (Burger, 2011:1). The constitution as
mentioned above states that these are the basic rights of the people,
and that it is the responsibility of the elected representatives to
make sure that people receive these rights. This takes me back to the
question of whether or not the constitution represents the people in
reality. This does not prove to be the case. Poor South Africans are
living below what the constitution deems to be their right. Below the
surface of poor service delivery, is the point of human dignity. If
people are not receiving proper sanitation, how is that not robbing
them of the dignity that parliamentary democracy is supposed to give
them. In certain parts of the Grahamstown location, people use the
bucket system, an undignified sanitation system that was used in the
apartheid era. Around cities all over the country, poor people are
forced to live in shacks, on the periphery of these cities, and they
are vulnerable to being moved every time capitalists wish to expand
beyond the parameters of the city.
The people are
dissatisfied and showing their dissatisfaction through strikes and
other protests. Yet nothing is done. People are showing that their
will is not being represented. Yet the ANC still show signs of
nepotism that favors the elite, for example, in the past few years
certain tenders have been given to unqualified people, because of the
connections they have to the ruling party (Burger, 2011:1). The
people given these tenders are elites, which makes one wonder if
representative democracy, is indeed the representation of the
majority, as it claims, or just the representation of the will of the
elite few.
Civil
and uncivil society
Michael Neocosmos
states that full citizenship only exists within a particular domain
of politics. A reference to Mamdani’s work provides a simple way to
explain this. The way politics is exercised is through the medium of
culture and tradition. The relation of state between power and people
differs. Access to land differs. There are different modes of rule in
politics, the dominant one being civil society, or as Marx calls it
‘bourgeois society.’ This is a society where in politics happens,
where people have access to rights and where the police are theto
protect those rights. The other domain is the uncivil society. In
this society, the relation between state and the people does not have
the same synergy as that of the state and the civil society. In this
society, the rights of the people are not protected and there is no
right to security. The relation to the state is one based on violence
and the state thinks violence is legitimate, since it criminalizes
the activities of these people. Those that challenge the system and
proclaim their rights are suppressed, in this society, thought,
especially ones own thought is considered to be against society. Even
though people in this society try to assert themselves as active in
an attempt to affirm that they are capable of their own thought, they
are met negatively because society dictates that they be represented
by a trustee (Neocosmos, 2011: 12-14).
AbM’s objectives
include participatory democracy that embodies assembly and
co-planing. They stand for popular democracy, organized and involving
the mobilization of bottom up, instead of the representative
democracy of civil society that is organized from the top down.
However true to Neocosmos’ word, when such organization occurs, the
state tries to criminalize it and hence suppress it. For example
earlier this month when the people of AbM, in Cape Town met to attend
a meeting with the major Patricia De Lille, upon finding out that the
people were attending this meeting, the city cancelled the meeting
citing a fear for the safety of the mayor. This happens in a state
that claims to be a representative democracy, a democracy that
represents the will of the people. However when the people attempt to
express what this will is, they are silenced by using language of
criminalization. This makes one wonder, what then or rather who, this
democracy is supposed to represent (Abahlali.org, 2011: 1).
When looking at the
progressive constitution of India which states that every citizen has
equal rights, one would think that India is a democratic state that
offers equal opportunity for all its citizens. Take for example the
fact that every citizen has the rights of universal suffrage. On the
surface, all the people of India are members of civil society
(Chatterjee, 2004: 38). Classical philosophy’s definition of being
part of civil society, means existing in a space where political
discussions and intellectual thought occurs. Civil society is a space
for a democratic way of being in the world. What Chatterjee is saying
is that the ideals of democracy in India are realities and
dreams only realized and practiced by the few, the civil servants and
other elites (Chatterjee, 2004: 46). The reality of the ordinary
Indian, the poor majority is a different reality because it is not a
true reflection of the democratic rights secured by statutes and
international laws. Civil society in India in its “actually
existing form” is not a space for democratic engagement for all
citizens, but a confined space limited to those who can afford to
occupy such spaces, the people ordained to have the capacity to
theorize and ‘represent’ others.
Alternative
methods
Some suggest that having seen the failure of the state in representing
its people, we can turn to Non- Governmental organizations (NGOs) or
trade unions as the representative. However NGOs, in general no
longer seem to be representing the people, as most have started
treating people as apolitical. Some NGO tend to adopt the
paternalistic stance of the state, in that they manage people, hence
treating them as less than the intellectuals or benefactors of the
NGO instead of engaging with them in a continuous dialogue. Being
deemed as passive receivers or passive bearers of rights, most people
in India have fallen outside realms of civil society (Chatterjee,
2004).
To date, dominant
political theory has failed to bring to light that modern civil
society has not been a field where equality is practiced, but in fact
it has become a space where there are deep-rooted inequalities.
Assuming the validity of this claim from Chatterjee (2004), political
theory hence has the duty to start or work on a project that produces
a theory different to the existing one, this theory must be more
reflective of reality. In other words, political theory must expand
its scope of knowledge beyond the constraints of civil society.
Political theory must give rise to a theory that is inclusive of the
realities of the people placed on the periphery of civil society. In
other words political theory must engage in a theory of political
society.
This
new concept would be used as a substitute to civil society, whereby
political consciousness would be given to the people who renounce all
ties to civil society. According to Chatterjee (2004:40) this is a
political society and it comes about as the solution for bridging the
gaps left by civil society within political theory. The aim of
Political society is to affirm the rights and equalities which have
been denied by civil society, in other words, the lived experiences
that were supposed to have been in lieu with the rights ingrained in
the traditional ideals of civil society. Mass mobilization, for
example social movements, is thus a means of affirming “popular
legitimacy” and contesting state ideals in a popular sphere as
opposed to adapting to state logic (Chatterjee, 2004:48-49).
Although it has radical
ideals, political society in no way represents a naïve portrayal of
a utopian society. It is in practice in various modes in both India
as well as other states with a strong NGO presence. As an example, a
consequence in political theory has arisen in the conception of
Subaltern Studies as a means of giving a voice to a “politics of
the people” that would exist as a parallel to the domain of the
elite (Guha, 1997:xiv). In turn, it seeks to bring to light the
“structural split of politics” between those in the elite and
those who have been silenced or ignored (Guha, 1997:xv).
Another example of
political society is present in South Africa wherein movements such
as Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Unemployed People’s Movement
(Grahamstown) exist autonomously to both NGOs and the state. AbM in
particular prides itself in the invasion of spaces such as civil
society that deny the equal intelligence and capability of the poor,
as well as formulating a politics for those who “do not count”
(Zikode, 2009:22-23). The above ultimately illustrates the change in
the thinking of political theory in these contexts. Civil society has
not only failed through its demographic limitations by creating
inequality amongst citizens but also within the NGOs that dominate
civil society. Issues of class and caste differences within the inner
structures of NGOs in India are a constant rendering of each NGO’s
attempts at creating fairness and equality, as meaningless and empty
(Sangtin Writers, 2006:116-177). In turn, subaltern classes that find
themselves ‘privileged’ enough to be a part of NGO structures
are still dealt with the task of seeking “internal transformation”
(Chatterjee, 2004:51).
Political society is a
platform for those who have been excluded and gives them the ability
to be political in a manner differing from the elite (Chatterjee,
2004: 39). The extension of political theory would reflect that the
existence of political society is an assertion of citizenship by the
excluded. They are asserting that they are a body of people that can
reason, self-govern and be actional, even through civil disobedience
(Chatterjee, 2004: 40). Political theory would have to give rise to
the realisation that although modernity has been seen as the practice
of democracy in civil society, democratic practices, thought and way
of being is located in political society (Chatterjee, 2004: 50-51).
Conclusion
‘Representing the
will of the people’ seems to be a good concept for democracy. If
the constitution is to be trusted, this representation is for the
‘better good’ of the people, and improves the quality of their
lives. However, as Ranciere points out, representative democracy is
in all sense an oligarchy dressed in democratic terms. This has
become evident through the practical examples of AbM and India that
were used in this essay. In both cases, the government which is
supposed to be a representation of the people’s will, has
marginalized the poor majority and silenced them to a point whereby
when they attempt to speak out, they are, as in the case of AbM,
criminalized. Yet in election time, everyone is told that their vote
is their voice. One has to wonder what this really means, if the
majority is set aside and their opinions shut down. Does it then mean
that the vote of the poor is a strengthening of the elite’s voice?
If so, then which people are included in the statement: “the will
of the people?”
By definition democracy
embodies the majority, which in developing countries like South
Africa and India, is the poor (well, certainly not the elites), if
then parliamentary democracy silences the poor, and reacts violently
to the poor organizing in protest to get their voices heard (For
example the recent acts of police brutality against protestors, and
the national police commissioner general, Bheki Cele’s order to
“shoot to kill”), yet it represents the interest of the elites,
how can we then in good conscious claim that it automatically
represents the will of the people? I then offered an alternative that
is not a representation of the poor, but rather a platform for the
voice of the poor to be heard. A medium where poor intellectuals can mobilize and exorcise their will, autonomously and voluntarily.
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