Defining our democracy and getting it right
By Natalie Shobana Ambrose
The events of the past few weeks have shown that democracy has many faces and variations. And of it, many supporters and detractors. Some look to America's version of democracy as the frontrunner while there are those who dispute that. What does it take to make a democracy and how do we get it right?
Scotland's independence referendum vote last week was deemed "the largest democratic event in the history of Britain". For a brief moment it felt as if part of the world was holding its breath while the votes were being counted. Perhaps Queen Elizabeth's private comments to "think very carefully about the future" were resounding in the minds of many.
While Spain might have breathed a sigh of relief at the nay outcome, for many perhaps more so for the Catalonia Independence movement that has ambitions to secede from Spain, it has added to their plight to vote and push for their version of democracy.
A few days after the Scottish vote, India's Modi in an interview about democracy in his country told CNN: "It is our great legacy, a legacy we simply cannot compromise. Democracy is our DNA."
He went on to say that India's strength in democracy has allowed a chaiwalla (tea seller) to become prime minister. While this itself seems to be an epitome of democracy, India's version of democracy has produced shoddy infrastructure while its neighbour, authoritarian China has not only grown economically but boasts fancy highways, skyscrapers, fast trains and new cities.
In an interesting twist of things, Hong Kong students began a week-long protest demanding free and open nominations for the chief executive, Hong Kong's top official while China has proposed rules to screen candidates. How does a demand for democratic process fit into China's authoritarian regime?
Thailand's Junta stopped scholars who had been attending an event entitled Democracy Classroom: Fall of Foreign Dictator in Bangkok's Thammasat University. Thai democracy has definitely zigzagged in the last few years while Indonesia has shown to be a thriving growing democracy after its recent elections.
So what makes a democracy?
For many, the word democracy is synonymous to freedom and the currency of a country's democracy is valued on the level of freedom its citizens enjoy. In his book The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen describes freedom as having two aspects; opportunity and process. The opportunity to pursue the things that we value and the process of choice. While I do no justice elaborating this further, both opportunity and process are important.
So let's take this closer to home – and ask these questions about our freedoms. Do people feel that they have the ability to decide how they would like to live and the choices they make (opportunity) and is this process free or is the process of deciding already limited?
While there is no such thing as absolute freedom, we have to examine what freedom and by extension of that democracy means in Malaysia. As we know there are many forms of democracy in today's world and one size does not fit all. So what is Malaysian democracy? Are we a guided democracy, a rules-based democracy, liberal democracy?
Many might laugh that these are rudimentary and basic questions being raised but with the aggressive resurfacing of the Sedition Act, and the various charges in the name of protecting our democracy, it seems quite clear that the definition of democracy, freedom and rule of law vary between the authorities and the people.
For a country that established the global movement of moderates, sits on the UN Human Rights Council and is vying for a non-permanent member seat in the United Nations Security Council, we need to put into practice the tenets of such affiliations or risk being mocked.
Not only do we need to clearly define what Malaysian democracy looks like, we also need to get it right.
The events of the past few weeks have shown that democracy has many faces and variations. And of it, many supporters and detractors. Some look to America's version of democracy as the frontrunner while there are those who dispute that. What does it take to make a democracy and how do we get it right?
Scotland's independence referendum vote last week was deemed "the largest democratic event in the history of Britain". For a brief moment it felt as if part of the world was holding its breath while the votes were being counted. Perhaps Queen Elizabeth's private comments to "think very carefully about the future" were resounding in the minds of many.
While Spain might have breathed a sigh of relief at the nay outcome, for many perhaps more so for the Catalonia Independence movement that has ambitions to secede from Spain, it has added to their plight to vote and push for their version of democracy.
A few days after the Scottish vote, India's Modi in an interview about democracy in his country told CNN: "It is our great legacy, a legacy we simply cannot compromise. Democracy is our DNA."
He went on to say that India's strength in democracy has allowed a chaiwalla (tea seller) to become prime minister. While this itself seems to be an epitome of democracy, India's version of democracy has produced shoddy infrastructure while its neighbour, authoritarian China has not only grown economically but boasts fancy highways, skyscrapers, fast trains and new cities.
In an interesting twist of things, Hong Kong students began a week-long protest demanding free and open nominations for the chief executive, Hong Kong's top official while China has proposed rules to screen candidates. How does a demand for democratic process fit into China's authoritarian regime?
Thailand's Junta stopped scholars who had been attending an event entitled Democracy Classroom: Fall of Foreign Dictator in Bangkok's Thammasat University. Thai democracy has definitely zigzagged in the last few years while Indonesia has shown to be a thriving growing democracy after its recent elections.
So what makes a democracy?
For many, the word democracy is synonymous to freedom and the currency of a country's democracy is valued on the level of freedom its citizens enjoy. In his book The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen describes freedom as having two aspects; opportunity and process. The opportunity to pursue the things that we value and the process of choice. While I do no justice elaborating this further, both opportunity and process are important.
So let's take this closer to home – and ask these questions about our freedoms. Do people feel that they have the ability to decide how they would like to live and the choices they make (opportunity) and is this process free or is the process of deciding already limited?
While there is no such thing as absolute freedom, we have to examine what freedom and by extension of that democracy means in Malaysia. As we know there are many forms of democracy in today's world and one size does not fit all. So what is Malaysian democracy? Are we a guided democracy, a rules-based democracy, liberal democracy?
Many might laugh that these are rudimentary and basic questions being raised but with the aggressive resurfacing of the Sedition Act, and the various charges in the name of protecting our democracy, it seems quite clear that the definition of democracy, freedom and rule of law vary between the authorities and the people.
For a country that established the global movement of moderates, sits on the UN Human Rights Council and is vying for a non-permanent member seat in the United Nations Security Council, we need to put into practice the tenets of such affiliations or risk being mocked.
Not only do we need to clearly define what Malaysian democracy looks like, we also need to get it right.
