Seira Tamang

Invariably beginning with the statement "eight years has passed since we achieved democracy", concern over the state of Nepali politics is usually expressed in terms of the damage done to democracy either by individuals (amoral political leaders) or more collectively via such national diseases as corruption, chakari and aafno manche. The exact nature of the democracy that is currently in need of saving is never explained.

If we believe that what we have, or are trying to save now, is democracy, C. Douglas Lummis' Radical Democracy makes clear that we are deceiving ourselves and settling for less than the real thing. For he not only reveals the various ways in which the term "democracy" has been "stolen by those who would rule over the people", he also lays open the very undemocratic foundations and ideologies which permeate the political, economic and social structures of those living in the Third World. Key here is the hegemonic notion of "development" and the concomitant language of "efficiency", "practicality" and "progress" which only serves to obstruct the goal of democracy - rule by the people.

With the simple premise that "if something deeply affects the order of our collective life and we are taught that we have no choice about accepting it when in fact we do, that is a problem for democracy", the chapter on "antidemocratic development" is very lucid. The apparently universal promise of "economic development" legitimizes only one particular economic and thus social system. Alternative models of organizing socio-economic structures are seen as obstacles to "development" and are labeled "inefficient", proof of "apathy" and a "premodern mentality". In the same manner, his chapter on "undemocratic machinery" reveals how "technological advancement", draped in the aura of progress and inevitability, represses our ability to judge it's value based on its actual effect on people, society and the environment. Furthermore, we are made to believe in such dichotomies as "poverty versus modernization" or "slums versus development", forgetting that slums are just as modern as high-rises and that poverty is systematically generated by the "modernization" process. In the meanwhile, the system of inequality is allowed to be unquestioningly perpetuated.

When choices are depicted as non-choices, when the possibility of people defining their own ways of living is denied and via the rule of pseudo-democracies, vast military organizations, transnational and multinational corporations, and international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, major decisions which affect millions of people are made "without their knowledge, much less their being consulted", the fact that "[p]articipatory democracy means the right to participate in the making of decisions that affect one's life" is rendered meaningless.

The manner in which our consciousness has been colonized to accept these undemocratic features in our lives goes further. For such is the indoctrination, Lummis points out, that questions of political domination for which democracy is the solution, are transformed into "economic domination, for which submission in the form of disciplined hard work, eventually leading to prosperity and ëleisure' is the alleged solution". Thus, among other things, we readily accept development ideologists' bhasans that the poor are not interested in politics and ideologies; forgetting that while their economic dependency may mean they have to swallow their pride, this in no way nullifies their concern for issues of justice and decency in human relations.

In such a context, democracy as simply "rule by the people" has radical and subversive implications for "democratic" countries, socialist states and military dictatorships alike. Democracy, [u]nderstood radically, contains a promise yet to be fulfilled." And it entails a state of being that results not from institutional and organizational changes, but from a mental transformation which results from the breaking of "ideological bonds that prevent one from assuming that natural attitude of democratic sense".

The Solidarity movement in Poland and the People's Power movement in the Phillippines provide examples in the book of being in just such a state of democracy. In both cases, the repressive state institutions and military powers remained unchanged. Yet, people spontaneously joined together in a state of public action, generating unexpected power and changing what had hitherto been thought unchangeable. The transformation occurred on a mental level where individuals who had previously been in a state of despair, begin to believe that public action could succeed. The parallels to Nepal's own 1990 display of people's power is stark.

Key here is that this was democracy as it should be - not as a particular arrangement of political or economic institutions" - but the rising up of people into public action, bound together by the trust they placed on each other and "the commitment to, knowledge of, and ability to stand for the whole". The power held was therefore not by any collection of persons, but those who had formed themselves into "a people". The emphasis is on the "coming together" via a trust and belief in each other and in the power of public action.

The tragedy of the Philippine's example (which is all too relevant for Nepal) is that "the moment of People's Power soon ended, [and] that the Philippine people were induced to put their trust in the wrong place". What has occurred is not only the misplacement of trust, but a loss of faith and hope that public action can succeed. "When people will not join together in public action because they believe it is doomed to failure, then it is doomed to failure".

In the matrix of dominating ideologies that perpetuate inequality, resuscitating public hope so that people take part in public action, requires effort. "If the state of democracy means a state of public action" democracy cannot come by itself.

This is especially so if the sphere of democratic participation remains so narrowly defined as to exclude the antidemocratic economic, state military and other bodies which impact our lives.

Democracy as a state of public action takes certain forms such as that of one individual wishing to act on his decisions finding like-minded fellow actors with which to form a group of people desiring to act together. Creating the spaces for autonomy and freedom, these groups, conventionally understood as civil society, may take institutionalized forms. Yet this does not mean the democracy has then become institutionalized. Democracy as the power of the people is for Lummis an ideal and "a historical project" which contains the unfulfilled promise toward which people must continually struggle.

While overall very accessible, the book does become slightly tedious in parts- especially in the chapter on "democracy's flawed tradition". Among other small details, given the author's careful analysis of various theorists, he is surprisingly loose in dealing with Huntington's Clash of Civilizations - unquestioningly accepting that the globe can be divided into swathes of humanity based on conflicting "civilizational" differences. These minor points do not however, take away from the power of this small book.

Especially relevant for those living in bikas driven lands, Lummis' book is more than enlightening. It makes immense sense. And that is why this book should be immediately translated into Nepali.

(Seira Tamang is a student of Political Science)