The Hole in Democracy’s Heart

Columnist Capt (Retd) A A JILANI talks about democracy and the role of dictators.

To day in the western world there is little that is sacred. Law, authority, religion and honour are daily mocked and ridiculed. Yet one idea has attained a sanctity that even Christianity might envy and that idea is Democracy. Whatever else may be challenged, nobody from any quarter of the political spectrum would ever question the idea of majority rule through the ballot box. All shades of political thinking accord it magical powers. We are told that democracy brings not merely political responsibility and maturity but also happiness and prosperity. Just see the sheer joy it brings to those who once laboured under communism. Pity the victims of African dictatorships whose societies could resemble the modern world if only they could enjoy its benefits. Bewail the absence of democracy in Cuba and Iraq. If these countries could cast off the dictator’s yoke they would become as fair and decent, as just and reasonable, as the NATO members.
So many of our retired Generals, with their avarice to augment their already lavish pensions, are pouring out column after column in the Press about what Ayub Khan did, what Yahya Khan did, what Zia ul Haq did and what Pervez Musharraf is now doing which has become stale and boring repetition. These newborn philosophers dwell upon the merits and demerits of basic democracy, controlled democracy, sham democracy and sustainable democracy. One wonders how much they are being paid for harping and harping on the same boring themes. Did any of them raise a whisper of protest against the abuse and slander of our sacred Father of the Nation whose name (Quaid-i-Azam) has been annexed to a political party of defectors and turncoats? This amounts to ruthless exploitation of the worst kind to which even the government functionaries have turned a blind eye. The name of our Quaid-i-Azam is being dragged in the mud by a group of power-hungry opportunists who have absolutely nothing in common with him. Either we are all blind or else we simply lack the moral courage to protest against this national disgrace.
This brief digression does not detract from the burning issue of the day. To shatter the dewy-eyed view of the benefits which democracy must usher in, we need look no farther back than the greatest disaster that humanity managed to contrive — Germany’s Third Reich. Adolf Hitler is usually presented as a great dictator, a monster as separate from the German people as Americans like to believe that Saddam Hussein is from the Iraqi people. Unfortunately, the Fuehrer was not a product from the absence of democracy but of the democratic process itself. Although, he may be the model of villainy, but he came to power through the ballot box and with his mastery of marketing he piled up the popular votes. Hitler polled more votes in a free election than any other German before him. People who are aware of his popularity often assume that he managed to sell his programme of aggression and genocide because of unique circumstances. Germany’s national humiliation at Versailles after losing World War I and the subsequent economic depression of the 1930s get most of the blame. But the truth is more alarming, and far more damaging to the idea that democracy is the ‘DS solution’ to all of humanity’s problems.
For Hitler, like many of today’s leaders, democratic politics was merely a means of securing power. The putsch he launched in 1923 had been a failure. Unlike most of today’s leaders, however, he had a very clear idea of what he wanted to do with power when he got it and when “Mein Kampf” was first published in 1925 there was no secret about his grim ambitions. The Fuehrer discovered, however, that in spite of the supposedly vulnerable condition of the national psyche, the promise of a final solution to the Jewish problem and more “lebensraum” (eastward expansion) for the German people were not the vote-winners he might have expected. Hitler believed that he understood “the secret heart” of the German people and used this understanding to turn a people
otherwise unsympathetic to his objectives into ardent supporters. What were the hidden yearnings to which he was able to appeal? Not the desire for another World War that would bring them untold suffering or a campaign of genocide that would blacken their name forever. Instead, the Fuehrer appealed to an apparently harmless longing that is as strong today in many quarters as it was then.
Then as now, many people felt unsettled by the uncertainty of a world in which ancient structures of authority had collapsed and nobody any longer had a settled position. What Hitler offered them was an inclusive folk community that would find a position for every one of them. This was the message that combined with economic anxiety to pile up the votes which the Nazis needed. Hitler told the German people that they did not need to listen to the endless arguments of the democratic parties, which he knew they found irritating and baffling. Instead they could look forward to consensus based on the decisions made by a leader whom they could trust. Today, it is not difficult to detect an uncanny resemblance in our country to what happened in Germany some 70 years ago.
The Fuehrer’s message at that time was rather flimsy, potentially raising many awkward questions. But he had cleverly grasped a truth about democratic politics that is even more enthusiastically embraced now than it was then. He believed that style mattered more than substance and he made sure that his message was superbly marketed without resorting to a clumsy referendum. Before the age of TV, politics was an outdoor affair, so Hitler enveloped his message in grand spectacle — flags and bunting, eagle banners and swastikas, bands blaring martial music, heart-warming speeches and the chanting of simple slogans. The excitement of it all was enough to quell any doubts. The Germans who fell for it were not vicious or rapacious, they were simply unwilling or unable to exercise the scrutiny required by the democratic process. Today, as discussion of public affairs grows ever more hectic, heated and hostile, the absence of such scrutiny is even more striking than it was 70 years ago. It may not have given us another Hitler yet, but it could do so. It is not a passing aberration in the working of democracy; it is the hole in its heart. And it is a hole which we must find out how to plug if democracy is ever to fulfil all the hopes and promises which our leaders are so confidently holding out.