Theocratic democracy (II)

Whereas Islam could not go through such an enlightening process. On the contrary, particularly while Christianity was opening up to secular thought through fresh interpretations and perceptions, Islam closed the interpretation door and turned itself into an even more rigid and dogmatic religion obsessed with form rather than meaning.

Now some Islamist pundits are asserting that if the people of a county establish a "consensus" and come up with a claim that they want the national charter of their country to be based on the principles of Islam, it would indeed be impossible to talk about democracy in that country as long as the "national consensus" was put into practice.

Well, first of all, while democracy could be described as a system of governance on the basis of "rule by the people, for the people" or in conformity with the "sovereignty rests unconditionally with the people" inscription on the wall of the Turkish Parliament, I must tell our Islamist friends that unfortunately democracy goes beyond a simplistic "election by the people" and "rule of the country by the elected representatives of the people" understanding. In the absence of norms and institutions which together with the national will produced through fair elections constitute the flesh and blood of democratic governance, a simplistic rule in conformity with majority expectations" understanding may unfortunately produce a crooked version of democracy, or majoritarianism, which is characterized with the "we have parliamentary majority, we shall decide on everything" obsession, exclusion of dialogue with the opposition and aggressive and repulsive behavior towards the people who dare to criticize the majority or the majority leader. Those wishing to see an example to such behavior may just examine the current Turkish example.

Democracy goes further than elections

Secondly, while "sovereignty rests unconditionally with the people" and democracy is "rule by the people, for the people", in the absence of "supremacy of law" and "equality of all in front of law principles" such a governance model, even if it is underlined in its name as was the case of the former "German Democratic Republic" cannot be described as a democratic governance at all. Nor, on the other hand, inclusion of a reference to the religion of the nation in the national charter can make a country a theocratic state, as long as governance in that country is achieved through man-made laws, and not with reference to divine laws or the text of a holy book that cannot be amended by the people or a parliament composed of representatives of a people in a "representative democracy." Going secular was not an overnight achievement of Western democracies. It took centuries to nourish a democracy culture. After all, more than going to the election booth once in every few years and renewing the "national will", democratic governance is a cultural phenomenon. Any nation can be educated to become democratic.

But, in order to become democratic, a nation must first develop an understanding of equality. If all people are equal and some are more equal, as was more or less what the socialist practice was until it collapsed in 1989, even if, put aside a modern understanding of secularism, atheism was imposed by the state and all laws in that country are "man-made" because of the absence of the principle of equality and supremacy of law it was impossible to qualify those countries as countries ruled by democratic governance. Therefore, it has to be clear for everyone that democracy is not just whether or not there are free and fair elections in the country; whether a state is at equal distance to all religions or not; whether there was gender equality or not but whether there exists norms and institutions of democracy in that society together with those listed.

Will continue with the third and last part on the issue tomorrow.