What crimes are committed in your name, Democracy! So I caught myself exclaiming as I heard a fundamentalist sheikh explain his version of democracy:
WATANI International
25 November 2011
“Didn’t you opt for democracy? Democracy is the rule of the majority; we are the majority; we will rule and others must submit.”
Radical Islamists have been used to brand democracy as some form of apostasy, since it promotes the idea of the rule of the people, while they insist only Allah holds the prerogative to rule. But now that they have learned to use it to their own end, they have arrogantly endorsed it.
What majority?
But what is this majority which now has the ballot box to decide on Egypt’s future? Sadly, this majority is illiterate on two counts: some 60 per cent of Egyptians are illiterate as far as reading and writing are concerned, and the majority of the majority comprises individuals who are politically illiterate. Their loyalties lie first and foremost to family or clan or, most conspicuously, to religious affiliation. And what with the rampant poverty, they have discovered that their votes are a tradable commodity; they can be sold to whoever would pay a price. Candidates running for elections know that votes may be bought for as little as a pack of oil, sugar, rice or pasta. And who but the Islamists is flush with the cash to provide almost limitless supplies of such vote-earners? Beyond a doubt, democracy has been made to work in the interest of the Islamists. No wonder they have begun to rave about it.
Killing a nation
If democracy, defined as the rule of the people—admittedly, the majority of the people, can wreak havoc on our lives; we ought to be entitled to tamper, if just a little, with the instructions cited in its operation manual.
It never ceases to surprise me that the ability to read and write is a pre-condition for obtaining a driver license, while anyone—literate or not—is entitled to vote. Only recently, during the referendum for constitutional amendments, many of those who went to the polls were illiterate. They could not correctly spell out the word ‘constitution’; they could not even pronounce it right. Anyone who thinks I am exaggerating may just follow the TV shows that interview people on the street for their opinion on current events. The shockingly low level of general, or any, knowledge is enough to make one beat his breast. How can a person who thinks the League of Arab Nations is the name of a Cairo street be entrusted with deciding on how this country is run? Granted, an illiterate driver may kill a man; along the same line an illiterate voter can potentially kill a nation.
One-man one-vote
When a liberal objects to the unadulterated participation of illiterates in the polls, he or she is swiftly yelled at: “it’s all about equality”. The ‘one-man one-vote’ principle is thrown to his or her face. Yet why should equality constitute an essential ingredient in politics while it cannot be unconditionally so in all other aspects of life? No unskilled worker is expected to make as much money as a qualified, skilled one; no hospital worker can make as much as a top-notch surgeon. Using the same logic, it does not make sense to overlook education, awareness, and social maturity, when we speak of political participation. For every advantage in life there are preconditions and necessary qualifications and, in my view, this holds true for political participation. Otherwise we face the inevitable challenge of what the rule of the majority implies. Is it just an unconditional, uneducated, unmonitored implementation of the majority’s whims?
For centuries, corrupt ruling regimes were keen on leaving the majority prey to the ruinous triad of poverty, disease, and ignorance in order to facilitate the task of ruling them. Now this ruinous triad plays well into the hands of ‘democracy’ advocates. Now we, the educated minority, have to patiently wait for the verdict passed on our country by the illiterate majority.
Precondition
In view of all the above, I believe a literacy precondition should be placed for voting. It is bizarre that no State-owned or independent TV channel offer shows or programmes that target illiterates or combat illiteracy, while they present hundreds of political-oriented shows that speak languages and expressions alien to millions of Egyptians.
The ballot box should not be the all in all where democracy is concerned, at least until we conquer illiteracy. Let us add to the definition of ‘democracy’ that it is the rule of the educated, knowledgeable, aware, mature majority, or else let us stop talking, and lament our future.