by Simon
To borrow a catchphrase, it isn’t that our system has been tried and found wanting: it’s that it often hasn’t been more fully tried and understood.
•Simon is a young Bahamian with things on his mind who wishes to remain anonymous. His column 'Front Porch' is published every Tuesday in the Nassau Guardian. He can be reached at frontporchguardian@gmail.com.
Those Bahamians prone towards romanticizing America’s republican form of government, while failing to appreciate more fully the time-tested rationale, genius, sophistication and flexibility of our own democratic heritage, do themselves, our parliamentary democracy and young Bahamians a national disservice.To borrow a catchphrase, it isn’t that our system has been tried and found wanting: it’s that it often hasn’t been more fully tried and understood.
Many of those mesmerized by the American system do so after gorging on a limited fast food diet of US cable television, much of which offers a caffeinated fix, but little nutritional value when it comes to understanding a system that some Bahamians want to imitate absent a fuller grasp of its genesis and context.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Though more Americans than one may believe that these words are found in their Constitution, they actually appear in a declaration of independence issued in 1776, some 129 years after a group called the Eleutheran Adventurers launched their own democratic experiment in 1647 in a sister British colony.
GENESIS
The genesis of the aforementioned immortal words predates their re-articulation by a fledgling American democracy. And, while America’s democratic experiment is unique in form, it is not exceptional in its philosophical roots and moral ambitions.
Over many centuries, those roots and ambitions have inspired a pluralism of experiments by a commonwealth of democratic nation states and revolutions, all struggling by trial, error and success to craft their own variation of We the People.
Of course, representative government is a human, not an American invention -- the world’s oldest parliament, the Althing, having been established in Iceland in 930. Native North Americans also fashioned their own novel forms of federated and representative government well before European immigrants began their own democratic experiments in the Americas.
Paradoxically, the European colonists in America often did so with genocidal fury, denying the first Americans life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in both their daily lives and in the rights and protections of the constitution promulgated by the newcomers.
While the desire for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are noble goals, they are not exhaustive of the longings of the human heart, whether by an individual, a country or a global commons.
There are similar and companion virtues, embedded in other national narratives, in both story and text. The heirs of the French Revolution pledge allegiance to the virtues of liberté, égalité and fraternité, a more communitarian national ethos than that of the American enterprise.
RIVALRY
Samuel Huntington in his major thesis, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, lists the Anglophone Caribbean, of which The Bahamas is member, as a distinct cultural entity, combining a variety of historical influences to fashion a unique identity, including a democratic one.
ANCIENT
Like America, France and others, the Commonwealth Caribbean countries combine ancient wisdom with considerable accomplishments as democratic success stories. While we may have some catching up to do in various areas, let’s not forget that we have been self-governing and majority-ruled for a much shorter period than the aforementioned nations.
Despite this, we have done remarkably well in instilling the ideals of democracy not only in our founding document, but also deeply in the hearts of citizens. And, let’s also not forget that those countries are also not without critical challenges to their own democratic ideals.
As sister democracies, the US and The Bahamas have democratic lessons to share with one another. Such exchange will be helpful as we expand our own democratic franchise with regard to modernizing our parliamentary system, expanding citizen participation, and the eternal task of making government even more transparent, accountable and effective
But, before borrowing ideas willy-nilly from others, we should better understand our own system and how it already possesses the tools necessary to meet common ends.
Before remodelling one’s house, it’s best to understand its foundation, internal workings and history, especially a house that has stood the test of time and weathered many storms, among them cynicism, apathy and ignorance.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Though more Americans than one may believe that these words are found in their Constitution, they actually appear in a declaration of independence issued in 1776, some 129 years after a group called the Eleutheran Adventurers launched their own democratic experiment in 1647 in a sister British colony.
GENESIS
The genesis of the aforementioned immortal words predates their re-articulation by a fledgling American democracy. And, while America’s democratic experiment is unique in form, it is not exceptional in its philosophical roots and moral ambitions.
Over many centuries, those roots and ambitions have inspired a pluralism of experiments by a commonwealth of democratic nation states and revolutions, all struggling by trial, error and success to craft their own variation of We the People.
Of course, representative government is a human, not an American invention -- the world’s oldest parliament, the Althing, having been established in Iceland in 930. Native North Americans also fashioned their own novel forms of federated and representative government well before European immigrants began their own democratic experiments in the Americas.
Paradoxically, the European colonists in America often did so with genocidal fury, denying the first Americans life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in both their daily lives and in the rights and protections of the constitution promulgated by the newcomers.
While the desire for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are noble goals, they are not exhaustive of the longings of the human heart, whether by an individual, a country or a global commons.
There are similar and companion virtues, embedded in other national narratives, in both story and text. The heirs of the French Revolution pledge allegiance to the virtues of liberté, égalité and fraternité, a more communitarian national ethos than that of the American enterprise.
RIVALRY
The philosophical rivalry between France and the United States over which system is best is a healthy one, providing other nations with a treasure of ideas from which to draw. Moreover, every system of government emanates from and reinforces a certain type of society. Recently, New York Times columnist David Brooks highlighted seminal features of the American national ethos.
“We in this country have a distinct sort of society. We Americans work longer hours than any other people on earth. We switch jobs much more frequently than Western Europeans or the Japanese. We have high marriage rates and high divorce rates. We move more, volunteer more and murder each other more.
“Out of this dynamic but sometimes merciless culture, a distinct style of American capitalism has emerged. The American economy is flexible and productive. America’s GDP per capita is nearly 50 percent higher than France’s. But the American system is also unforgiving. It produces its share of insecurity and misery. … This culture, this spirit, this system is not perfect, but it is our own.”The American theologian and philosopher, Reinhold Niebuhr warned that “no society, not even a democratic one, is great enough or good enough to make itself the end of human existence.”
Quite often Americans give in to this temptation, forgetting that their system borrows generously from other traditions, and that there are other forms of government and societies that work just as well or better, depending on how one measures the quality of life, liberty, happiness, equality and fraternity.Samuel Huntington in his major thesis, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, lists the Anglophone Caribbean, of which The Bahamas is member, as a distinct cultural entity, combining a variety of historical influences to fashion a unique identity, including a democratic one.
ANCIENT
Like America, France and others, the Commonwealth Caribbean countries combine ancient wisdom with considerable accomplishments as democratic success stories. While we may have some catching up to do in various areas, let’s not forget that we have been self-governing and majority-ruled for a much shorter period than the aforementioned nations.
Despite this, we have done remarkably well in instilling the ideals of democracy not only in our founding document, but also deeply in the hearts of citizens. And, let’s also not forget that those countries are also not without critical challenges to their own democratic ideals.
As sister democracies, the US and The Bahamas have democratic lessons to share with one another. Such exchange will be helpful as we expand our own democratic franchise with regard to modernizing our parliamentary system, expanding citizen participation, and the eternal task of making government even more transparent, accountable and effective
But, before borrowing ideas willy-nilly from others, we should better understand our own system and how it already possesses the tools necessary to meet common ends.
Before remodelling one’s house, it’s best to understand its foundation, internal workings and history, especially a house that has stood the test of time and weathered many storms, among them cynicism, apathy and ignorance.
Yuong Simon,
The British style parliament as an institution has failed every country but Britain.In the caribbean a plurality of voted in a region that you have no social connection to, can entitle you to be the next major decision-maker, otherwise called Minister, in a field that you have absolutely no knowledge. So you are the more popular of two people , who have little to do with his/her constituents. Having decided a winner, of the two proposed , not chosen strangers. You then set him/her in a position to make life important judgements, in fields that they are not equipped to.
Look it's archaic , and only really worked in fuedal
times, since representatives at least owned the village.
The world has yet to develop a really democratic system, We are stuck with this in the caribbean , But I think at least political accountability,harsh swift justice/injustice that is handed out in the US. Is proving that opposition to gov must be in the hands of the people, not backbenchers in waiting.
Posted by: Errol Fling | October 18, 2009 at 01:56 PM