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 Editorials | April 2007 
The Pitfalls of Democracy: A Mexican Viewpoint
 Carlos Luken - MexiData.info
Democracy is a wondrous thing: its absence is suffocating and oppressive, the struggle to attain it is painful and dangerous, yet once obtained it’s confusing and treacherous.
People who have dreamed of freedom and self-determination suddenly find themselves confounded in having alternatives, and bewildered at the ability to make choices in an unconstrained manner.
When oppressed people have the easy option of blaming the oppressors for everything they find wrong in their lives there is a bonding mood in society. The enemy is clearly identified and the rules are straightforward, as there are only two groups: those who have power and those who don’t. In this sense autocracy is reassuring.
Democracy complicates life, for citizens now have options and can make choices. They also acquire the burden of responsibility and lose the advantage of having an obvious culprit for their mistaken paths. Democracy also opens the door to different opinions, and the elementary polarized condition between haves and have-nots becomes a confusing arena of many opinions and contradictions.
The simple bond that once fused people is now an open and often disorganized forum in which everybody has their own opinion. Unfortunately different opinions carry inflexibility for many now believe that having the right to think and express opinions also gives them infallibility.
Since all have the same right, all fall under the same misconception. This brings about another uncomfortable condition, the disjointing of society into smaller and more diverse groupings.
Ironically in a democracy as in an autocracy, people who think differently are aggressively attacked as rivals. Although dissention is no longer crushed nor penalized, larger groups tend to push away opposing views and, when possible, ridicule and indict them.
Also as in a suppressive regimen, a common technique to face community dissent is the development of convenient majority rights, and the creation of conspiracies and societies that seek to eliminate them.
Thus one of the major dangers of a democratic society is its inclination, once free, to organize into dissenting groups and turn on itself by polarizing opinions.
Previously powerless groups then find themselves able to force or negotiate their will upon others. Unfortunately, having been discriminated from the decision making process of an open society, the groups tend to form under the leadership of radical dissenters rather than democratic intellectuals.
Thus the democratic process goes into a long and convoluted learning process that eventually and painfully allows it to acquire knowledge, tolerance and experience. But as Oscar Wilde remarked, “Experience is what you find when you seek something else.”
This frequent and public tumble and fall process also produces impatience, civic scorn and, eventually, apathy. When it does, democracy unwillingly fosters an atmosphere that sets the framework for its own annihilation by making autocracy a possible alternative to the disorder brought about.
The Mexican experience can teach many things.
In a very short period Mexico has transformed itself from authoritarianism to democracy. And now Mexicans are suffering the growing pains, having to accept the responsibility for their actions while they tend to blame government for their maladies. Too, they uncomfortably know it’s now their government and that their decisions can make changes.
Another confusing fact for Mexicans is the rise of a fragmented society, in which good and evil are not as easily defined as in the past. Now truth and falsehood are lost in a diverse dialogue, in which groups at times express and defend contradicting viewpoints. Political parties and public figures are simultaneously admired and demonized.
Adding to social bewilderment are the communications media that also hurriedly came of age, as did democratic society. Still unable to grasp their great responsibility, the media groups take sides on every issue regardless of moral principle implications.
Dissident groups with inflexible viewpoints took over political parties, refusing to consider issues they ostensibly oppose. This political antagonism, coupled with a lack of democratic experience and misinformation by an embryonic media, is encouraging division and enmity.
Groups tend more to distance themselves than to seek common ground, and Mexican society is simultaneously being pushed to fragmentation with supposed conspiracies found everywhere. Conservatives are now encountering liberals in areas previously unthinkable and vice versa, while political party mutinies have proliferated creating public havoc and mistrust.
Still, before pointing more fingers the reader should acknowledge that Mexico is not unique in this democratic experience. As well, a lesson to be learned is that there is still time for political organizations (parties, unions, et cetera) to change course and avoid the pitfalls of democracy.
Carlos Luken, a MexiData.info columnist, is a Mexico-based businessman and consultant. He can be reached via email at ilcmex@yahoo.com. |
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