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The federal Liberals instincts may not be anti-democratic so much as they are dangerously naive.

They take democracy and freedom for granted thinking they can suspend Parliament in the middle of a national crisis and our representative democracy will survive, no problem.

Of course, being Liberals, there is also a conceit behind their move to suspend the House of Commons one month early and keep it shuttered until at least September: They are firmly convinced that, so long as they are in charge and making all the decisions with their elevated social consciences and their superior intellects, nothing can go wrong.

Never mind that Parliament has already sat only a handful of times since March. Meanwhile, the government is blowing through more money that at any time in our history even wartime.

By the way, the Commons managed to keep sitting through the Second World War. It even held one of its most contentious debates ever over whether to conscript (i.e. draft) soldiers during the height of the war.

And our democracy didnt fall apart.

That would seem to indicate the Liberals view the pandemic as a greater crisis than the Second World War. Theyre too busy saving the country to bother answering questions on what theyre doing.

Typically, the Commons rises for about three months in the summer because there is less parliamentary business to do. Members of Parliament may as well be home listening to constituents concerns at barbecues.

But this year it seems, the Trudeau government would rather not have to answer to the opposition for its daily multi-billion-dollar announcements or its handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

For instance, how come we still have so many foreign travellers arriving in Canada? Werent our borders supposed to be shut off? Completely. Except for essential trade.

And how come there is so little enforcement of those travellers self-quarantines?

Why shouldnt the countrys chief public health officer, Theresa Tam, be summoned to defend her actions during the pandemic, even if theyve been perfect? How come there is no one around to ask the PM whether Canada will stick so closely to the World Health Organizations advice if a second wave hits, as it did this time with lousy consequences?

How come we have a labour shortage at the very depths of the worst unemployment since the Great Depression? Could it be the governments emergency CERB payments to Canadians let go during the pandemic are too generous? They are encouraging plenty of workers to take the summer off until the benefits run out.

It may sound cliched but the people truly do have a right to know.

Remember, this is the same Liberal government that earlier in this crisis got caught trying to sneak a clause into a relief bill power that would have permitted it to borrow, tax and spend without limit for nearly two years without parliamentary oversight.

They also implemented the biggest property confiscation in our history (the recent gun ban) by order-in-council rather than parliamentary vote.

The prime minister and his government frequently pay tribute to our freedom and democracy, but apparently their own commitment to those values is limited to when Parliament is convenient for them.

All governments have limited interest in being held to account. Thats why annual parliamentary sitting days have decreased by about 20% over the past 35 years, even as the business of government has rapidly expanded.

I get the Liberals motives for all these manipulation. What I cant, for the life of me, figure out is why Jagmeet Singh and the NDP went along with the Liberal scheme?

I know they got Liberal agreement to push another pay-without-work policy 10 days paid sick leave a year for all workers.

But was that really worth the damage to parliamentary democracy?

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GUNTER: The Liberals are only committed to democracy when it's convenient for them - Toronto Sun

Ethiopia is, once again, in a crossroads. There is a real possibility of heading to the usual authoritarian trajectory.

By Mohammed Girma (PhD) @girma_mohammed

Addis Abeba, June 04/2020 I was once driving with my colleague in Yaound, the capital of Cameroon. As I took a glance through the window, one massive billboard caught my attention. It was President Paul Biyas picture with a strapline, 36 Years of Democracy and Progress. To this day, I could not find a more powerful illustration of how the word democracy has become meaningless. So fashionable, even sworn dictators cannot resist the allure of inserting it somewhere in their systems. Even North Korea calls itself The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

Ethiopia is no different. The country has yet to see a fully functional democratic order. Power transitions are typically chaotic and bloody. Politicians promise it when they ascend to power, and deny it when they realize it is a threat to the longevity of their time in power. Mistrust of the ruling elites (mainly because of aborted hope of better days) is a feeling that captures the popular mood. Nevertheless, the irony persists when it comes the insertion of democracy either into name of their political party or the state. The Derg the Marxist junta famously named the state Peoples Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. After the downfall of the Marxist regime in 1991, the new incumbent, the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democracy Party (EPRDF), now converted into Prosperity Party (PP), tweaked the name into Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. And yet, everyone knows the word democratic means nothing.

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We have to then ask: What rendered this rather important concept meaningless? I would argue manipulative selling of the West and uncritical buying of the rest are the main culprits for the hollowness of the concept. For the Western powers and NGOs democracy is a ready-made outfit that all need to wear regardless of historical conditions. In fact, Francis Fukuyama, one of the best-known salespersons of the concept, has portrayed its liberal version as the apex of the ideological evolution of humankind. Those who could not reach the summit of this evolution live nursing a sense of inferiority inflicted by constant derogation of the Western media. Worse, the West demands democracy from poor countries as a condition for financial handouts. While espousing democracy should have been based on the fusion of two interpretive horizons the local culture and the universal elements of democracy countries on the receiving end have not been given interpretive space for gradual adaptation of suitable elements into their life system and call it their own democracy. That explains, at least partially, the reason why it has not filtered down into the Ethiopian consciousness. However, its semblance survives in some Nietzschean version of morality where it is used by the weakest to criticize the powerful.

Other culprits are political and intellectual leaders. The ruling elites are more attuned to please their foreign friends than their own people. As if to demonstrate to their own people how impervious they are to the very ideals of democracy, they are keener to listen to the Western hegemonic powers than their own constituencies. For intellectual leaders, emulation from abroad is a sign of being cultured. But then, it would be unfair to deny them a credit on their diagnosis. Both Derg and Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) diagnosed the Ethiopian ill as class system and ethnic marginalization. That is beyond contention. The search for remedy, however, took the Derg all the way to Chairman Maos communism, while TPLF went to Albania of all places to model their ideology on an exotic version of Marxism. This was before TPLF took a half-hearted ideological swing to the West on the realization that the cold war has ended. Some positive steps, for sure, have been taken. However, the human price of the emulation outweighs the change they brought.

RiskyChoices

Ethiopia is, once again, in a crossroads. There is a real possibility of heading to the usual authoritarian trajectory. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has been vocal about vacating his position through democratic process. It would be tragic, and morally repugnant, if he reverses his promise. Authoritarianism, however benevolent it might be, breeds injustice and undermines the evolution of the nation towards a more free society. He needs to be on guard as there is very little in him to suggest that he is immune from the corrupting nature of power. The fact that he is already losing close allies such as Lemma Megersa from his own circles and ploughing ahead on his own is an ominous sign. Seeking consensus both within his party and beyond needs to be his second nature if he has to avoid a relapse into a one-man rule. Moreover, Ethiopians deserve democratic culture in decision-making.

But also you have to ask a reverse question: Can Ethiopia, as a society, manage democracy? One would almost be forgiven for sharing the same fear that Socrates harbored during the birth of democracy rule by the people in Athens. If you were out on journey by sea, he asked a rhetorical question, who would you ideally want to be in charge of the vessel? Anyone? Or people with skills and experience in seafaring? Eventually, he became the first victim of the kind of democracy he feared as he was killed for corrupting the Athenian youth.

The argument here is not that Ethiopians are immature; neither do I dare to claim democracy is bad. The point here is that, for one, democracy involves making informed choices. Making an informed choice is a skill, not a random intuition. I doubt that Ethiopians have been given the tools and time to make informed and rational choices. For another, the moral pillars of cohabitation and sharing borders, which were invented and maintained by ordinary citizens have been challenged by those who benefit from chaos. Social wisdom embedded in everyday life (that used to tie Ethiopians together) is wearing thinner by the day. The (social) media, politicians and activists were largely busy peddling partisan ideas, instead of educating society into taming freedom with a sense of responsibility. Ethnicization of politics has reduced the country into a collection of hostile groups consumed by mistrust and fear of one another. During the struggle, the youth might have been equipped to demand their freedom; but there is very little to suggest that they are equally equipped to manage it. It is reasonable, therefore, to fear that the collapse of moral horizons could be more tragic than the lack of democracy.

This, however, is not a good reason to abandon the democratic project. However, the cost of democratization can be minimized by way of inculturation (adaptation) of democracy and by revitalizing indigenous virtues. Concerted efforts needs to be made by politicians of all spectrum, media, civic organizations, religious institutions and schools to realize this. Revitalization of indigenous virtues must start from understanding what Ethiopia has within its culture.

UntappedIndigenous Innovations

What are the examples of indigenousvirtues?

Shengo and the virtue of listening Shengo is a traditional disputeresolution system in northern Ethiopia. While sessions are held under trees,the careful listening and adjudication is done by local Shimageles (elders). Elders are deemed to be impartial and closerto the truth, because they are considered to be closer to the divine. In olderdays, Shengo is never tedious. Itcombines administering justice with entertainment. Its bela-lebeleha genre helps both victims and defendants presenttheir cases and evidence through witty poesis akin to ancient Greeks. This is because poesis is an important truth-seeking method.

Safuu and the virtue of respect and harmony Safuu is an Oromo cosmological order cascaded into an ethical framework that helps people to guide their everyday life. There is a divine order connected to Waqqa. This order governs and connects not only human life, but also the totality of the created reality. However, there are unique (and individualized) orders to each individual known as ayyaana. Every creature needs to live in harmony with its ayyaana internal logic. However, peace and tranquillity at both individual and societal level depends on the degree to which people are willing to observe the cosmic order, stay true to their own ayyaana and respect that of others.

Afersata and the virtue of inclusion Afersata is an indigenous method of collective court proceeding in Gurage culture. The event usually takes place under oak trees. When crimes take place in the community, all the stakeholders would come together, first for awchachinge (investigation) and then for adjudication. For individuals to take part in Afersata is both a privilege and civic duty. Even clay makers and blacksmiths, traditionally marginalized groups, are invited to take part in this decision-making process.

Blessingin Disguise

These indigenous social innovations are notperfect; but they are perfectible. They depict a similar ethos to polis a life of city-state inancient Greek. They bring a unique kind of richness to social life andpolitical exercise i.e. a sense of belonging (people can see themselves in it),unassuming simplicity, appreciation to aesthetics, sensitivity to moral values,and participatory decision-making. Whatis common for all of them is that they appeal to the divine horizon as the sourceof order, justice and fairness a significant value on which modern culture isloosing its grip. The ramification of this is that the omniscience of thedivine is used to overcome lies, deceit and biases.

For intellectual leaders and academics, it is not enough to engage with, quote from and allude to the Western intellectual ancestors; they also have to be equally, if not more, conversant with their own. Ethiopia needs solutions for its political gridlock; but we need to look for solutions from within as well as from abroad. A better future is a must; but we have to be willing to accept if Ethiopias way to the future could be via the past. Academics need to do the work of piecing together the prized assets in the culture and mainstream it in a life-giving way. It takes a willingness to understand, modernize and tweak them when needed. Such a move would have double benefits: firstly, a democracy adapted in such a way appeals to cultural sensibilities, and secondly, the revitalized virtues would serve as moral receptors for democracy.

In the end, the meaninglessness of the concept of democracy could be a blessing in disguise for countries like Ethiopia. It would create an opportunity to fill in the hollow concept with its concrete cultural elements and decorate it with colors that come from different nations and nationalities. AS

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Editors Note: Mohammed Girma (PhD) is Visiting Lecturer of Intercultural Studies, London School of Theology. He is the author of Understanding Religion and Social Change in Ethiopia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), and the editor of The Healing of Memories (Rowan & Littlefield, 2018). He can be reached at girma.mohammed@lst.ac.uk

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Opinion: Does Ethiopia really need democracy? Then it should draw resources from indigenous virtues - addisstandard.com

CHINA is allowing the people of Hong Kong to exercise democracy. If they have democracy then they have the right to protest. In a democracy, it is your right to support whom you want to support. We too live in a democracy and, hopefully, we should support people who also want democracy.

Yes, business and security will be affected. But just to remind everyone, do you think the French and Russian Revolutions could have happened if people kept quiet and worried only about business and security? What about the American Civil War and the civil rights protests of African-Americans led by Martin Luther King Jr? What about the Iran Revolution and the Arab Spring?

And lets not forget the people power movements in this part of the world that overthrew Marcos, Soekarno, Suharto all this happened and changed lives for the better because people protested.

There was also the Red and Yellow protests in Thailand. And we had our own protests in 1968 and 2008 and the protests by Bersih. Nothing will be changed by sitting at home.

It is not that people like to protest. What do you get for protesting except tear-gassed, sprayed by water cannon, arrested and even jailed. But saying people cannot protest insults people like King Jr and Nelson Mandela, and puts you on the side of dictators. Yes, there will be peace and security but also hardship and suffering.

Let me make my point very clearly: I am not supporting any country. I am just saying that things can only get better if there is protest. There are protests almost daily in India because they believe strongly in democracy. Today there are huge protests in the United States over the killing of an African-American by a white policeman.

We have to protest for change, we cant just sit at home and write about it.

AMBIAGAPATHI SAMARASAN

George Town

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In a democracy, there will be protests - The Star Online

I have to confess I do not know the names of the two Conservative MPs for Watford and Three Rivers regions. I am aware however they were depressingly shoe-horned into their seats by our de-facto unelected Prime Minister Dominic Cummings. An intelligent and basically decent ex-minister such as David Gauke simply could not be tolerated.

The country has now been awakened to the reality of what a considerable number of the electorate have put into power. We have an elected Prime Minister who simply could not survive without the Machiavellian guidance of a despicable character, who has taken upon himself how he might interpret the medical advice to avoid a most dangerous virus. It is only the little people who must follow the rules and not him!

A fairly recent newspaper article described Dominic Cummings as a Doctor Strangelove character. We should be deeply frightened and concerned about our supposed democracy, with the dangerous Strangelove at the helm.

Francis Durham

Shepherds Way, Rickmansworth

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Letter: We should be concerned about our supposed democracy - Watford Observer

Three paths towards supranational democracy?

When I wrote Climate Change and the Future of Democracy in 2018, I discussed three distinct paths toward the goal of democratizing global governance in response to the climate crisis. The first path would bypass national governments altogether and organize municipalities on a global scale. This method was advocated by Benjamin Barber in his book If Mayors Ruled the World and has been further developed since his death in 2017 by the Global Parliament of Mayors. The second path would be to create a federal union of established democracies that could grow over time. The idea of combining the worlds democracies into a single federal union was advocated by Clarence Streit in his 1939 book Union Now, and the evolution of the European Union since the 1990s has made this strategy appear more plausible than it did during Streits lifetime. The third and most ambitious path toward supranational democracy would be to democratize the United Nations. The most famous advocate of this idea was the physicist Albert Einstein.

In an open letter to the UN General Assembly in October of 1947, Einstein declared that, The moral authority of the UN would be considerably enhanced if the delegates were directly elected by the people. Were they responsible to an electorate, they would have much more freedom to follow their consciences. Thus we could hope for more statesmen and fewer diplomats. At the time, critics in both the United States and the Soviet Union condemned Einsteins proposal, but the idea of bringing democratic representation to the United Nations has continued to grow over the past seventy-five years, and it has since been promoted by the Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly.

The moral authority of the UN would be considerably enhanced if the delegates were directly elected by the people. (Einstein)

Each of these three paths toward supranational democracy has distinct advantages and drawbacks. Uniting municipal governments in a global parliament offers the advantage of bypassing nationalism, but it risks leaving rural people behind, which might exacerbate the cultural divisions between the city and countryside that have fueled the rise of illiberal politics around the world.

A federal union of democratic governments has a strong appeal since democracies have a long history of peaceful relations with each other, but it is bedeviled by the question of how it can balance political cohesiveness with democratic integrity when one of its member states elects to leave that federal union, or when one or more governments remaining within the union ceases to be a legitimate democracy.

Finally, the idea reforming the UN so that it includes an elected world parliament offers the compelling advantage of being the most direct and inclusive path toward supranational democracy, offering the possibility of representation to people in both rural and urban settings, and to people living under all forms of government. On the downside, this model is beset by the inevitable problem of unelected national governments sending handpicked delegates to the parliament who would not effectively represent the citizens of those countries. For this reason, a UN Parliamentary Assembly must remain an advisory body and must not attempt to consider any form of binding legislation until all of its representatives are elected in free and fair multi-party elections which are open to international monitoring.

A UN Parliamentary Assembly as most plausible response

In Climate Change and the Future of Democracy, I expressed qualified support for all of these approaches, and pointed out that they are not mutually exclusive. Nonetheless, I argued then that a federal union of established democracies was the steadiest path forward. Over the past two years, however, two developments have made the more ambitious goal of establishing a UN Parliamentary Assembly emerge as the most plausible response to the challenges we now face.

First, the process of backsliding in longstanding democracies has continued to accelerate, thus suggesting that any federal union of democracies would face an even more vexing choice between political cohesion and democratic integrity than that which confronts the European Union today. Second, the economic and political crisis engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the importance of agile and compassionate global governance to the forefront. This crisis, like the myriad ecological and public health crises that will emerge as a result of climate change in the near future, is global in nature and it requires a congruent response. If the UN is to meet this ongoing crisis and the others that lay just around the corner, it must become far more democratic, transparent, and responsive than it is today. The establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly is the necessary first step in that direction.

Unless we bring the responsiveness, adaptability, and accountability of democracy to the global regulation of trade and industry, we will not be able to deal with climate change and the myriad disasters and disruptions that it is bound to engender. If each democracy attempts to weather the coming storm in the service of its own national interest, none of them will survive, at least not in the form that we might honestly describe as a democracy. Such democratic principles as due process, privacy, freedom of the press, and free and fair elections have already been eroded in the twenty-first century, and they are not likely to survive in a world where extreme weather events, droughts, famines, and mass migrations are addressed by an anarchical society of sovereign nation states, each angling for its own advantage in a zero-sum game. Conversely,if wecan extend these vital principles of democracy beyond the nation-state, we will increase our own chances for survival through rational, accountable, and flexible cooperation.

Extending the principles of democracy beyond the nation-state will increase our chances of survival

The most difficult question regarding global democracy is not whether we should have it, but how we could possibly achieve it. The initiative in this case will not come from governments but from private citizens joining forces across national borders. The abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century and the political enfranchisement of women in the twentieth century both furnish excellent examples of how movements by individual citizens can lead to fundamental social, economic, and political change on a global scale. In his 2012essayThe State of the Speciesthe celebrated authorCharles Mann describes the scale of tremendous behavioral changes that have taken place in the past two centuries, includingthe statistical decline in violence documented by Harvard psychologistSteven Pinker,the near total eradication of slavery, and the growing enfranchisement of women across the world. Mann attributes these dramatic changes to the behavioral plasticity of human beings, a defining feature ofHomo sapiensbig brain.Citing more quotidian examples, Mann observes that this plasticity means that humans can change their habits; almost as a matter of course, people change careers, quit smoking or take up vegetarianism, convert to new religions, and migrate to distant lands where they must learn strange languages. While it is far from inevitable that we will change our collective behavior soon enough to avoid catastrophic climate change, Mann submits that it is at least a possibility.

Pointing to the vast human potential that has been liberated by social progress of thepast two centuries, Mann observes that, removing the shackles from women and slaves has begun to unleash the suppressed talents of two-thirds of the human race. Drastically reducing violence has prevented the waste of countless lives and staggering amounts of resources. He then poses the rhetorical question of whether we wouldnt use those talents and those resources to draw back before the abyss? Of course, the jury is still out on whether the past successes in human progress that Mann discusses portend future success in addressing the unprecedented challenge of climate change. However, Manns point about liberating the suppressed talents of two thirds of the human race suggests that supranational democracy is the political system is most likely to meet that challenge. The facts on the ground indicate that the protection of individual rights and access to education for women can pay dramatic dividends in fighting climate change. In his 2017 bookDrawdownthe environmentalistPaul Hawken reports that educating girls and women is the most powerful lever available for breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty, while mitigating emissions by curbing population growth. Hawken also cites research that ranks campaign to educate girls, such as those led by Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, as among the most cost-competitive options for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, requiring an approximate investment of just ten dollars per ton of carbon dioxide.

The slow and arduousexpansion of democracy and individual rights in the United States only began in earnestafter the catastrophe of the Civil War.In the years following of that conflagration, the American poetWalt Whitman penned an essay calledDemocratic Vistasin which he identified the creation of a universal community that honored each individual as the ultimate goal of democracy. This was a powerful ethos that ever seeks to bind, all nations, all men, of however various and distant lands, into a brotherhood, a family. Whitman identified this audacious goal as the old, yet ever-modern dream of earth, out of her eldest and her youngest, her fond philosophers and poets. Though Whitman viewed the horizontal expansion of democracy as encompassing the whole human race, he viewed the powers of any democratic government as limited by a necessary respect for the autonomy and responsibility of the individual. As Whitman saw it, the mission of government was to train communities through all their grades, beginning with individuals and ending there again, to rule themselves.

Democratic institutions need to evolve beyond the scope of national borders

The relationship between a butterfly and its chrysalis offers a biological analogy that could shed some light on this relationship between the ideals of democracy and the sheltering institutions of the nation state. In the closing words of hisGettysburg Address, Lincoln alluded to the broader significance of the struggle to preserve the Union for the fate of democracy across the world. In Lincolns reasoning, the function of the Union was not only to protect the rights of its citizens but also to provide a shelter for democratic movement that transcended national borders. Like a chrysalis defending the slow transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly, the Union provided an irreplaceable shelter in which the culture and legal institutions of the United States could mature into a new kind of democracy: a new birth of freedom that would be unprecedented in size and scope. The analogy of the chrysalis and the butterfly, like so many analogies drawn from nature, entails both creation and destruction. For the butterfly to take flight, it must tear open the shelter of the chrysalis and leave it behind. What had been a shelter would become a sarcophagus if this process did not take place. The nation state, which has sheltered democracy for centuries, will become its sarcophagus if democratic institutions are not allowed to grow and evolve beyond the narrow scope of national borders.

The question that the human race faces in the twenty first century is not whether we should or should not have global governance. The global governance that we already have insures the nearly frictionless flow of goods and services around the planet by maintaining and expanding a transport and communications infrastructure that dwarfs anything seen in all of human history. The real question is whether we can make the global governance that we already have fairer, more democratic, and more effective in protecting the lives and wellbeing of the living and the yet to be born.

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Albert Einstein was right: we must democratize the UN - Democracy Without Borders