Friday, September 04, 2015

Democracy does not solve the problems, but the people do

It is not that Democracy solves the problems, but the people who solve the problems. Who are the people? the citizens. We should take the collective responsibility for the decision we have made, and we want to make sure that, even if it is a mistake, there will always be a avenue or mechanism to correct that in future. In that sense, Democracy is not the solution but the best auto-correct tool.

Democracy is not only about the voting rights. Participatory democracy is what really gives meaning to democracy. The institutions should empower the people to actively participate in the decision making for many important aspects of life in the society, but not discourage or limit people’s ability to do so.

We shall not just vote and then leave it all to the government to do whatever they please with the so-called mandate (that is just a form of ‘representative democracy’). In a mature democratic society, the government should be the government of the people, by the people and for the people. So, by right, People = Government, and people are not there just to serve the government's agenda. People should decide the fate of the country, so the government’s policies should match with majority wishes and responsive to the people’s voices and concerns.

A healthy democracy should include a strong and vocal civil society, especially with thriving and fearless NGOs. Repressive laws which restrict people’s freedom and rights to watch over government’s doing, should be repelled. Otherwise, who dare to give honest and constructive criticisms without getting the backlash from the authorities? The government should be transparent enough for the people to assess their performance, analyse and criticise their policies. Look at Roy Ngerng’s case, then you could understand why it is unhealthy for the state resorted to legal action rather than to engage him in the open debate/discussion about the issue of CPF, a practice which is done in many mature democratic societies.

There should be more checks and balances, and it should not just be the job of opposition parties to perform that but the whole society. To make checks and balances more effective, press freedom should be allowed. The ranking of Singapore by the Reporters without Borders is consistently low, it tells us something about the press freedom in Singapore. Some clauses in Newspaper and Printing Presses Act of 1974, just prevented the exercise of that freedom. Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Singapore#Newspapers
(if what is written in the Wikipedia section is not true about the Act, please correct me). And noteworthy also to mention that the directive from the Media Development Authority on 1 June 2013 to ‘regulate’ internet by requiring Singapore websites to register for yearly renewable licence and post a ‘performance bond’ worths SGD50k (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Singapore...).

If we cannot have the spirit of ‘People are the boss’ but still treat government as the boss, then we cannot control our own fate or have our say. Winston Churchill once famously said “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.” Sure there is a loss of efficiency in democracy because of the slow process of informing the citizens, getting the consents and approvals from them. My tutor Chin Huat once taught me that Democracy is the best kind of insurance: Authoritarian regime could outperform the democratic one at times, but in the long run, for example, once the ‘bright’ leader passed away or the system is no longer responsive to people’s needs and wants, then Democracy can save us from the worst form of despot, tyranny and/or corruption (remember the quote, “power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely”). At least when politics is in everyone’s collective business, we all would care and not leave to someone else to decide for us – that is the value what democracy should have taught us.

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