democracy
Image source: npsnet.com

By Beni Bevly
This morning I turned on my computer and read several comments on Overseas Think Tank. I never moderate the comments, nor edit them. To me comments are the thoughts should be freely delivered and without getting censored, especially when the comments are written on a blog.

In reading comments, I several time come across with unexpected, yet excited idea. One of the comments on the article that I wrote (Can SBY Handle it?) triggered me to write this article. Here is the comment:

Indratno Widiarto said on April 10, 2007 at 1:24 am |
It seems that we have different point of views in seeing democracy
I couldn’t agree more with your three elements.
Adding my ‘ideas’ as you called it, to those three is, in my opinion, too premature.
Let’s take a look at history:
Singapore: Do you think it was built upon democracy?
Unites States Of America: Do you think it was built upon democracy? (please look back to the era of slavery for this matter)
UK, Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Spain….
Don’t you think that ‘they’ don’t take advantages of democracy just for their own benefit?
Who was supporting Batista? Shah Reza Pahlevi? Marcos? Soeharto? And all other corrupt regimes? That ‘democratic’ country, wasn’t it?
I dream about democracy day and night as you do…but not that fast and not as define by those who only takes benefit of it.
Kindly regards,
Indratno

Indratno, thank you for your comment. In responding his previous comment, I think I was not clear enough. Here is my point. I agree with Indratno’s statement, “The Indonesians are simply not ready yet for living the life of ‘democratic’ dreams and ideals.”

My discussion with Indratno reminds me the discussion between one of my American fellows who believe in American democracy and that democracy will be the panacea for every single politics problem in Indonesia. I am not trying to exaggerate what he said, but that was he meant. I was in the position who had the idea that Indonesia was not ready yet for American democracy. I also mentioned to him that democracy was just like a knife. You can use it to cut fruits and vegetables, or on the other hand, someone also can use it to kill people.

I still keep the documentation of my arguments as follows:

As you mentioned that American Democratic has been existing over 200 years. Do you realize that even though the United States has been practicing the same value and system of democracy, but the results were different from time to time? Why, because it was implemented by different people who had different moral. In this point, please note, that I do not or never suggest that democracy will change somebody’s moral. But politician’s or majority moral will influence how democracy implemented.

Below are several cases that support my argument and I would like you to know:

Joaquin Murietta
In 1850’s there was a law that created by Legislative, one of the American Democracy entities. This law did not allow Indian descendants to report, complain or sue Caucasian. This was exactly what happen to Joaquin Murietta who roamed from San Joaquin County, Sacramento, LA to Mexico in 1850s. He was an Indian descendant. One day, his gold that he mined was robed, his wife was raped, his brother hung to death. Can you imagine how he felt? He went to a sheriff to seek for justice and explained what happened. But what the sheriff said? “You are not covered by the law since you are an Indian. You have not right to seek for justice.”

Murietta was so mad. He decided to bring justice by himself to people who robed himself, raped his wife and murdered his brother. While doing that he also helped other Mexicans by giving them money and gold that he robed from Caucasians. In Caucasians point of view he was a bandit. But in Mexicans he was a hero. He became a legend. Now people call him “Zorro.”

The message from this case is in that society, legislative produced that kind of law that prohibited executive and judicative to help Joaquin Murietta seek justice. Why this case happened? Because most people in legislative and other branches did not have moral conscience to Indians, they thought Indians were not human being like them.

Bommingham
Judicative, one of the American Democracy branches, failed for many times to bring people who killed, terrorized, beat, kidnapped African Americans, set bombed and burned their houses to justice in early 1960s in Birmingham, Alabama. Because of that, Birmingham was called Bommingham. Judicative already had all the facts that the actors of the crime never could deny what they did. There was a law about not to harm people as well. But why did this judicative fail many times?

In American Judicial system, there are juries who decided whether alleged actor convicted or not. In early 1960s, majority of people in Birmingham did not have moral conscience for African Americans. They thought they were not part of the United States. They were excluded from most activities that involved Caucasians. These people with this kind of mentality were asked to be juries. Of course you can guess what the result.

Again, no matter how good this democracy system, but if run by these people, the democracy will be meaningless. Later on the output of Democracy system is getting better because of the moral movement from Martin Luther King Jr. His movement influenced and changed majority people’s moral.

Bush’s Government
In modern day, you still can see how American democracy is abused by politicians who have bad moral regardless how good the democracy system established. After Bush and Cheney won the election and led the United States to Iraq war, it is obvious how they took the advantage of the democracy system that had brought them to be President and Vice President.

There are two cases that prove how this president takes the advantage of American Democracy:

First, many sources mentioned that Bush and Cheney had been doling out multi-billion-dollar contracts to Halliburton and Bechtel because these two corporations had made million-dollar contributions to their political campaign. Also, these corporations have the close relationship with them, where they can have other financial gain indirectly.

Regardless the latest CBS News poll finds Bush’s approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, he is still sending troops to Iraq. Remember, in Democracy, power must be in majority of the people. In this case Bush does not care the majority. It means he does not car the democracy. Here is another prove that moral of politicians play important role in shaping better democracy.

You were doubt about, “What justification to be used to measure that a person is being and having good moral anyway? Is it social values or religious values? Is it Christian values, Islamic values, Hinduism values, Buddhism values, Jewish value, Javanese values, Maduranese value, Batak values?” There is a guideline called “the magnificent seven” to emphasize their timeless and worldwide relevance moral as follows (Hudgson, K. 1992. A Rack and a Hard Place: How to Make Ethical Business Decisions When the Choices are Tough. New York, NY: AMACOM):

1. Dignity of human life: The lives of people are to be respected. Human beings, by the fact of their existence, have value and dignity. We may not act in ways that directly intended to harm or kill an innocent person. Human beings have a right to live; we have an obligation to respect that right to life. Human life is to be preserved and treated as sacred.

2. Autonomy: All persons are intrinsically value and have the right to self-determination. We should act in ways that demonstrate each person’s worth, dignity, and right to free choice. We have a right to act in ways that assert our own worth and legitimate needs. We should not use others as mere “things” or only as means to an end. Each person has an equal right to basic human liberty, compatible with similar liberty for others.

3. Honesty: The truth should be told to those who have a right to know it. Honesty is also known as integrity, truth telling, and honor. One should speak and act so as to reflect the reality of the situation. Speaking and acting should mirror the way things really are. There are times when others have the right to hear the truth from us; there are times when they do not.
4. Loyalty: Promise, contract, and commitment should be honored. Loyalty includes fidelity, promise keeping, keeping the public trust, good citizenship, excellence in quality of work, reliability, commitment, and honoring just laws, rules, and policies.

5. Fairness: People should be treated justly. One has the right to be treated fairly, impartially, and equitably. One has the obligation to treat others fairly and justly. All have the right to the necessities of life—especially those in deep need and the helpless. Justice includes equal, impartial, unbiased treatment. Fairness tolerates diversity and accepts differences in people and their ideas.

6. Humaneness. There are two parts: (1) Our actions ought to accomplish good, and (2) we should avoid doing evil. We should do good to others and to ourselves. We should have concern for the well-being of others; usually, we show this concern in the form of compassion, giving, kindness, serving, and caring.

7. The common good: Actions should accomplish the “greatest good for the greatest number” of people. One should act and speak in ways that benefit the welfare of the largest number of people, while trying to protect the rights of individuals.

Indratno, to emphasize my thought that goes hand in hand with yours (hopefully), I have a hypothesis that I hope one day can be proved. By borrowing Vilfredo Pareto’s theory, I hypothetically say that only 20% of Indonesian politicians have good moral, ethics and dignity, the rest of them do not. This condition, I think, is contrary to the U.S., that’s why the democracy can run much better in the United States even though there are weaknesses such as the above examples.

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*Beni Bevly holds BA in Political Science, MBA in Marketing, and is a DBA (Doctor of Business Administration) candidate. He is the founder of Overseas Think Tank for Indonesia.