Friday, 21 June 2013 03:21
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By R.M.B Senanayake
It is a great relief to know that the UNP if returned to power will not carry on with the present Constitution which has been vitiated by the present regime, enabling a dictatorship to emerge in place of the liberal democracy we had since Independence.
The UNP will not only have to restore democracy but also have to put into place institutional safeguards to protect it against similar depredations in the future. Those who believe and subscribe to liberal democratic values should be thankful to Ranil Wickremesinghe for the constitutional proposals put forward by him.
Democracy is an ideology
The UNP wants to educate the people about the constitutional reform proposals and seek their support. Democracy is not merely a set of institutions to form a government but a whole philosophy, an ideology. It has to assert itself over other ideologies which are competing for the people’s allegiance.
Liberal democracy in Sri Lanka is being challenged today by a Buddhist authoritarian ideology based on making the State into an instrument to implement Buddhist values. Some Buddhist monks have formed organisations to establish a Buddhist State where Buddhist religious and ethical values are enforced by the State.
There is agitation by these Buddhist monks to enforce a ban on cattle slaughter. They may also enforce a ban on the production and consumption of liquor and the practice of gambling. The Islamic States seek to enforce the Sharia code and regulate an individual’s life whether the citizen is a Muslim or not. Buddhist extremists want to do a similar thing- to regulate the lives of all Sri Lankans according to the precepts of Buddhism. Even a good thing must not be enforced by law for there is no merit in virtue if it is enforced.
Sinhala Buddhist monks also want to institutionalise majority rule ignoring the rights of the minorities. With majority rule, this leaves one half of the population (in theory) unhappy, while the other half is happy, this is a major flaw in majoritarian popular democracy.
True democracy
But democracy as exists in the West is not based on majority rule. All Western democracies are explicitly designed to prevent absolute majority rule, which is what a true democracy means.
Majority decision-making cannot make right what is ethically or morally wrong. So the rule of the majority of citizens in a democracy does not apply to fundamental rights and values. All modern democratic political systems have designed-in limitations preventing the majority from having absolute power. So a small number of people (e.g. the US Supreme Court) can block attempts by the majority (even a vast majority) of citizens to take certain actions as in declaring unconstitutional the local option polls to close liquor bars in USA in the days of Prohibition.
In modern democracies the rights of minorities are protected from the actions of majorities. This is an essential component of the democratic ideology. Without such protection democracy becomes mob rule.
Assumed legitimacy
The other thing that has to be tempered by reality is the assumed legitimacy of oppressive and absolute religious men in robes. In Iranian democracy where there seems to be free and fair elections a theocracy has engaged in atrocities against women and non-Muslims in the name of a deity. Such theocracies concentrate all power and authority in the hands of a very few men who usually operate beyond the scope of any civil law, and certainly beyond the authority or control of the people governed. This is abhorrent to the minds of most who understand democracy.
Our people must consider whether they want such a system of rule according to a religion which in practice means rule by some Buddhist monks in the name of the Buddha.
Liberal democracy
Western democratic ideology is a secular democracy and the Rule of Law is not a religious law like the Sharia but a secular law. Radicalised monks whether Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist want no separation of the affairs of the State from the religious sector. So these Buddhist monks and other Sinhala Buddhist extremists oppose secular governance.
But liberal democracy does not believe in the intrusion of religion and religious beliefs into the affairs of the State. So the first step for the UNP is to re-establish the fundamental liberal values and principles of democracy.
Whenever dictatorship is established in a country the first casualty is free speech and free expression and the suppression of the freedom of the media. What cannot be done directly can always be done indirectly and so we find over 40 journalists killed and many others have disappeared in our faulted democracy.
UNP’s role
So how should the UNP educate people about the democratic ideology? Firstly to disabuse the people’s minds of the notion that popular sovereignty means that the people can decide on any matter by majority vote. Can the majority deprive the rights of the minorities through majority vote. We seem to think it can be done.
So we find Wimal Weerawansa collecting a million signatures as if majority decision can change an agreement entered into by political leaderships of the two communities; as if there is no value in keeping to one’s word. Of what use are agreements if they can be unilaterally abrogated.
The UNP must instil in the minds of the people that there are fundamental rights which no majority can do away with. That is the reason why such rights are enshrined in a Constitution which is above majority rule.
Opinion survey
I think a survey of opinion should be carried out by the UNP on its website on whether the rights of minorities should be protected in the Constitution from majority rule or not and if so whether by requiring a four-fifths majority and a referendum to change the Constitution. These rights should be reproduced from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the people should be consulted on whether these rights should be protected in the Constitution. These include the freedom of religion.
The public should also be asked if they want the State to enforce the Buddhist moral code against all citizens or against the Sinhala Buddhists through laws passed by Parliament.
Another question should be to ask if the Sinhala Buddhist public want Buddhism to be the State religion and whether the Head of the State should be a Buddhist monk who could be the Head of the Buddhist Sasana as in the Anglican Church and other established churches in Protestant countries.
These issues must be faced up to fairly and squarely rather than swept under the carpet for they will never go away in a democracy where demagoguery is an inescapable feature.
