The Essence of a Democratic Nation

It's not voting. It's not laws. It's not Constitutions. It's...

[Image: A Syrian, a Syrian-Briton and a Briton standing before the seat of British democracy. Is democracy as simple as voting, laws and institutions?]

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Introduction: Is Syria a democracy in disguise?

Is Syria a democracy in disguise? At first, this seems like a crazy question. How can a country without elections be democratic? How can a nation led by an (ex-?) jihadist be one of us? But stop and think about it for a moment. Does al-Jalani not represent a plurality of contemporary Syrian thought? If there were an election tomorrow, would he not win comfortably?

It is my contention that if elections be the mark of legitimacy, then Syrian’s new hero has undergone a Damascene conversion. The road to that country's capital often has that effect on people. For far from a myth, al-Jalani is one day’s box ticking away from democratic metamorphosis. A majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims. A majority of Syrians are ultra-conservative Sunni Muslims. Female “modesty” and second class status for minorities are squarely within the Overton Window. So does it not stand to reason that his election is guaranteed? Does not the precedent of Egypt not set the stage with disconcerting clarity? The Land of the Pharaohs with its 10% Coptic Christian minority and its extraordinary military grip over the economy was powerless to stop the brief accession of Islamist Mohammed Morsi to the throne; and only the force of the gun was sufficient to wrest it back from his grasp. Democracy- or more accurately the vote - led to the prospect of an illiberal nightmarescape in Egypt and likely would do so similarly in Syria. To be sure, if al-Jalani were to take Western advice and introduce unprecedented freedoms for homosexuals, women, Christians and alcohol salesmen, he would lose any potential free vote. But that would only be because he had strayed far beyond the common consensus of the Syrian public.

Now it may be that upon publishing that the Syrian reality has changed beyond measure in a positive direction. Perhaps unicorns are now galloping along the alleyways of Aleppo and flying chickens are coming home to roost. But even if that be so, and the fat lady is proudly singing her heart out as the locals toast L’Chaim, this thought experiment makes the wider, more general point: Democracy is not voting. Democracy is not the enacting the enforced will of the majority. At least, that is, if we are conflating the political majority with some ethnic or religious plurality. For if the will of the majority is determinative, bringing tyranny in its inevitable wake, then Syria is one national holiday away from Jeffersonian paradise. And do you really believe that is the case?

From London to Jerusalem: The essence of a democratic nation

It is often seen as close to axiomatic that democracy is a good, bringing freedoms and often economic success, as its beneficial corollaries. But Egypt shows us that democracy-as-voting may bring unfreedom and China (apparently) shows us that no democracy-with-no voting may bring economic wonders. [The latter example may be questioned, but let’s just take it as given for the purpose of our wider point.] More than that, there is clearly no one-fits-all model for a genuine democratic system given the wild differences between States in terms of check and balances. Some, as with Britain, have pure Parliamentary Sovereignty such that no law can be struck down by the Courts and the Prime Minister has unprecedented powers. Others, notably the United States, take systematic gridlock as evidence of their commitment to freedom. This has animated the debate about “judicial reform” in Israel where its proponents look to countries such the UK to show that its High Court has engaged in overreach. If Britain, the mother of democracies, can possess of a Lord Chancellor who traditionally has straddled all 3 branches of government, then how important is the Separation of Powers anyway?

It is true. Britain is unquestionably a democracy. But why? It has no real separation of powers. Its Prime Minister has monarchical prerogative powers and parliamentary legislative powers. And most shockingly, it is one of only two major democracies to still have no written Constitution. So what makes Britain democratic? Surely it breaks every single rule. But our concession, our certainty of Britain’s democratic status, shows us that democracy isn’t to be found in votes or Constitutions or Montesquieu-esque dictates or even checks and balances: it is to be found in the minds and the hearts of the people. Britain is a democracy because that is the will of the people enshrined in ancient conventions.

The question for proponents of Israeli judicial reform isn’t whether such-or-such piece of paper gives such-and-such powers to such-and-such organs of government. It isn’t even whether they propose a full and complete constitutional settlement. Rather, to paraphrase Deutoronomy, it is whether democracy is in their mouths and hearts to do. If democracy is the aim of the people and the aim of her representatives, then democracy is the result. The protestors on the streets of Tel Aviv are not reacting to any reform in particular, each of which has the potential to be justified by reference to other jurisdictions; but the mood music is creating its own special resonances. It is leading the minority to ask what the plurality feel about the combined nation as a united democratic body.

Before asking questions about the nature of democracy, we need first to ask about the essence of the democratic nation. Is the nation a mere fictional construct as Yuval Noah Hariri would have us believe? What is at its heart? Or, to continue the human body metaphor, what is in its brain?

It is fashionable for nationalists to talk about the extremities of the national body. Its fingers. Its toes. Its borders. The obsession of this alone to the exclusion of all else is indeed the definition of extremism. I would concur that borders are as important to the national existence as my physical being is to me. Short of reckless nihilism, I must take care of what comes in and comes out. But immigration and security, though vitally important, are a secondary element. For what I wish to emphasis is that at the heart of the nation and at the foundation of any discussion about democracy is the unity of the body. A human composed just of extremities is less a human and more a Frankenstein-esque monstrosity.

Democrats the world over disagree strongly about all manner of issues, from the economy to education to immigration policy. Non-democrats the world over are happy to plan the game of elections, constitutions and majority rule. But what makes democrats democrats is the following idea, deeply embedded in their souls: that every member of the nation is on the same team. We may have different views. Indeed we must. Our strategies, solutions and conceptions of justice may radically differ. But we are on the same team. There is no us or them. Within these borders, there is only us.

You and I may want different things for the nation, but we all seek the common good. Its health is my health. Our body, if damaged, damages us all; and some damage is terminal. But lest we forget the next, oft-forgotten essential: where we disagree, we must disagree politically, not ethnically. Though I may come from the smallest of small minorities, though I may be a citizen who is ethnically one of a kind, I may through my positions and votes form part of the political majority. A nation is blind to religion, ethnicity and race come election time. It is the national, political will that matters. In sectarian Syria, no such will exists in the heart of the people. If it sometimes seems to exist, it is by authoritarian force alone and as such Syria - vote or no vote - fails the test of a democratic nation. Arguably it is no nation at all.

This civic conception of being on the same team, sharing one body whose good we wish to advance, leads to the fruits of trust and truth. Britain isn’t a democratic nation because some document says it be so. The powers of the Prime Minister should make us quiver but we do not. And the reason is clear: our embedded, abiding, unspoken trust in the other. We know that Prime Ministers will resign gracefully once the public verdict is received. We know that the King will respect the will of the people in his choice of national leader. We know that the judgments of their judicial lordships will be respected when they declare a legislative breach of human rights and though they have no official strike down power, Parliament will amend bills accordingly. At each and every stage of the political process we are bound to believe in the good will of those that lead and with the possible exception of Boris Johnson on the matter of proroguing Parliament over Brexit, the political class have obliged.

What law says and what convention says are two entirely distinct matters. According to the law, the King can reject laws passed in Parliament, start wars on his say so and appoint his best friend as Prime Minister all with the backing of the military who swear loyalty to him personally. He never does. According to the law, the Prime Minister could appoint all his ministers from outside Parliament on the basis of separation of powers (!). He never does. According to the law, Parliament could ignore judicial declarations on human rights breaches. They never do. And as for the judiciary: so opaque is the system of selection and so few are the reasons for their decisions that they legally need give, that theoretically the bench could be stacked with one issue ideologues who never have to justify their judgments. That never happens. The system works not through law or words or ink foolishly wasted, but through good will, precedent and convention. The system works - the system is democratic - because the hearts of the people and their representatives make it so. Democracy is not a system of government, but a national way of life.

The individual person, the national body and the persistence of memory

But though the heart of democracy may be pure, how does its brain concur? What history must have elapsed to make the entire national person conform with dictates of self-denying love? To ask this question, we are called to become philosophers. We are asked to pose the question of questions. If the nation is a person and the democratic nation is the person united, then what is a person? Is it body? Is it mind? Is it soul? For what applies to the human individual can equally be applied to the national corpus to explain its unflinching disposition.

Since the days of John Locke this question has been posed about each and every one of us. It is I that talks of Nation States, but it is he that began the national conversation with talk of micro-individuals. I have been loose with terminology thus far; individuals, persons and humans being mentioned almost interchangeably. Yet for Locke the human-person distinction was as important as it was real and his way of thinking persists to this day. For Locke, the human represented the continuity of physical life: The body. And though there is no cell of me now that was present at my birth, the shedding of cells now lying as dust on the kitchen floor was no sudden process. It happened as an evolution, day by day, hour by hour and as with the Ship of Theseus that was repaired in fits and starts until the original remained no more, so does my gradual change of bodily substance form a steady change from my birth until today.

The person, by contrast, exists in a different domain. For though I and my babyfied self share physical continuity, as unwelcomely patched up as my modern incarnation may be, we definitively share no common personality and no common perspective. More importantly, we share no common memory. And it is indeed memory that formed the heart of the Lockean perspective. With my baby ancestor I share no personhood, but with my 5 year self (with whom I share memories) I do. From my earliest flashback until today I have been one person and although I struggle to remember earlier times clearly, there has been a continual chain of memory from my youngest days until this moment. This is the essence of who I am.

The emphasis on personhood over human physicality seems intuitively correct. John Locke’s famous thought experiment about the Prince and the Pauper says it best. Imagine the protagonists changed brains: who would be the Prince and who would be the Pauper? Almost all of us would say instinctively (and upon reflection) that personhood, personal identity and criminal responsibility lies with the brain. Though we become rather attached to our mortal bodies, ever looking for anti-ageing tools to prevent the inevitable decline, it definitively isn’t who we are. It is our personality and above all our memories create personal identity.

This Lockean concept of personhood has been refined and adapted over the years, particularly by Oxford professor Derek Parfitt. Interesting science fiction possibilities have been considered to test the personhood thesis, particularly the consequences of a Star Trek-style transporter system going wrong, but these need not detain us here. Because whether you take the wider view that personhood requires both memories and non-branching into multiple bodies or merely a chain of memories to childhood as per Parfitt, the common denominator for all thinkers is clear: Memory.

As for human persons, so for national persons. The essence of the nation - its Prince and the Pauper “brain” - is its common memories. ITS NARRATIVE. Though the nation of England has changed entirely since the days when King Edward I set up a Parliament 800 years ago, with not even an individual cell in the national body remaining as before, it nonetheless changed only piecemeal, evolving slowly over time. The national ship of Theseus, battered and repaired, retains never-ceasing continuity with the old country and the memories of a nation well- and painstakingly developed are with us all. We were all there at Hastings, at Waterloo, at the divorce of King Henry and in the evacuation at Dunkirk. We remember. We are British not because of a piece of paper that doesn’t exist, but because of a national memory that remains and is taught from generation to generation.

The nation is distinct from its land and culture

Even if the population upped sticks and collectively moved to Brazil the nation would remain. Displaced; in hopeless exile; but it would remain. For our memory of the old world and our yearning to return would never leave us.

This is the story of the Jewish people who were forced into exile on two occasions and although they never forgot their homeland and though they prayed endlessly to return, continued to live as a nation in exile. For it wasn’t Jerusalem or Judea or Samaria or those precise borders that made the essence of their nation. Neither the cultural peculiarities of the Levantine bazaar. Rather that special something in their hearts and in their souls that coloured their past and animated their future hopes. It was their national memory taught from father to son, mother to daughter and it was this, above all, that created a people in exile which regardless of political fortune will always remain.

And though that national memory included a memory of past borders, it was not the borders themselves that made the people. Bezalel Smotrich upon a hill top outside Jenin is no more the essence of the nation than the pauper’s body with the wrong brain. The nation yearns for a body, yes, but the nation isn’t the body. The nation of Israel, the nation of Britain and all genuine nations are narratives remembered in the collective minds of the people, the education of the next generation in that narrative and the duty of writing the next chapter in an evolutionary, consistent fashion with what came before. Even if we lost our body, we would still be “we”.

Britain's democratic DNA

And so why is Britain a democratic nation? Is it our “race”? Is it our land? Is it an “indigenous” people? Is it the precise borders? Is it security and controlled immigration? Is it procedure, laws and voting? Or is it rather our memory, our narrative, our national democratic brain? I would argue most strongly that we the People have a collective sense of ourselves as a democratic nation. The procedures, the voting, the laws, the constitutional conventions: these are the natural actions of our body in line with our national brain. We do as we do not because of a Constitution unwritten but because that is our instinct honed over centuries.

Ideally - and ordinarily - we are one people with the same body, on the same team, working together to make a better country for all its citizens in accordance with our values and national story. And though we disagree, we do so for the good of us all.

Where we act as such we are a true democracy. Where we infight, the liver lying to the stomach, the feet kicking the head, the leader smearing the judiciary, we are diminished.

It is an open question whether the non-anglo nations, unweaned as they are on democratic development, have it in themselves to create a sustainable democratic future, so untrained are their national brains to control the national body. I hope that I am wrong. I hope that all nations from Syria to Hungary are capable of democracy. But sure as hell the right Constitution won’t make it so. I hope the French are listening…