Democracy and Its Globail Roots Why Democratization Is Not the Same As Westernization

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25 OCTOBER 6, 2003 > THE NEW REPUBLIC

In "You Thmred to Me," for instance, he disciplined writing-not his most dy- songs in a more tempered version of the; moves down the scale in C major, making namic (This Year's Model) nor his most mellow baritone into which he has shifted! impressive-sounding augmented chords imaginative (Imperial Bedroom), but his for ballads since he crooned "My Funny, with small variations on simple triads. most conversational, his simplest. Habit- Valentine" on the B-side of a single in Costello has gone all mushy for augment- ually verbose, Costello barely sounds like 1978. Some of his old fans have belittled ed chords, which sound jazzy and sophis- himself here. Each song on North has him for trying to be Frank Sinatra, but the. ticated, and he is nearly as charmed by fewer than half the words of a typical se- classic pop singer to whom he is most in-, I the Dorian mode, which can have an lection on any previous Elvis Costello al- debted is Billy Eckstine, the original mu-, eerie quality. His mastery of these devices bum, and they are employed with uncom- sically adventurous jazz-pop vocalist with' is still developing; at points Costello's mon restTaint. Only once does Costello a bad-boy reputation and a throbbing. harmony is arbitrarily complex, not yet use Tin Pan Alley cliches, in "I'm In vibrato. I know Costello is an admirer of organic. Compositionally, much of North the Mood Again," and he does so with a the late "Mr. B" because I saw him sitting sounds like exercises, although that is to theatrical wink: "I lay my head down on with his mother and studying Eckstine in Costello's credit, in one sense. (He and fine linens and satin/Away from the madl- performance at the Blue Note nightclub' I are roughly the same age, and I find it hatters who live in Manhattan/The Em- in Manhattan sometime in the late 1980sl progressively more difficult to get myself pire State Building illuminating the sky/ It was a strange, grim evening. Eckstm& to do exercises of any sort.) That Costello I'm in the mood, I'm in the mood, I'm in while vigorous and in good voice, had has the wherewithal to try a new musical the mood again."lThe language is mostly fallen into disfavor and was struggling to! instrument and to learn a new set of skills personal and intimate, with Costello reclaim his lost glory. As his finale, hle0 is remarkable in itself, and the resulting assuming fewer roles than usual. He is fumbled through a pandering medley of music is far more interesting than hear- singing as himself, celebrating love and recent pop hits far beneath an artist With! ing him play "Pump It Up" for the jil- bemoaning its futility, and ruminating on his gifts-"Love the One You're With", lionth time. (Costello plays piano-in a the passage of time: "I never did what I and "Walk a Mile in My Shoes," I remem-' manner so spare it is nearly absent-on was told/I trampled though the amber ber, and somnething else of that ilk, maybei two tracks of North, and his longtime and the burnished gold/But now I clearly "Gentle on My Mind." North may be a keyboardist Steve Nieve plays much the see how cruel the young can be." flawed effort, but its defects are aspira- same way on all the others.) Modulating his voice to accommodate tional, and I would rather suffer them. Lyrically, North has Costello's most the material, Costello sings his sedate new than watch another great artist go south. m. Amartya Sen I Democracy and Its Globail Roots Why democratization is not the same as Westernization. , i # F :; ::iStid:Ft f t: :: [ff~~~~~~ I. our tines. Democracy movements across raising income per head, and carrying out HERE IS NO MYSTERY IN THE the globe (in South Africa and Argentina institutional reform? It is also argued that fact that the iimnediate and Indonesia yesterday, in Burma and democratic governance can be deeply il- prospects of democracy in Zitnbabwe and elsewhere today) reflect liberal and can inflict suffering on those Iraq, to be ushered in by the people's determination to fight for polit- who do not belong to the ruling majority American-led alliance, are ical participation and an effective voice. in a democracy. Are vulnerable groups, being viewed with increasing skepticism. Apprehensions about current events in not better served by the protection that The evident ambiguities in the goals of Iraq have to be seen in their specific conI- authoritarian governance can provide? I the occupation and the lack of clarity text; there is a big world beyond. The second line of attack concentrates; about the process of democratization It is important to consider, in the on historical and cultural doubts about make these doubts inescapable. But it broader arena, two general objections to advocating democracy for people who would be a serious mistake to translate the advocacy of democracy that have re- do not, allegedly, "know" it.'The endorse-, these uncertainties about the immediate cently gained much ground in interna- ment of democracy as a general rule for prospects of a democratic Iraq into a larg- tional debates and which tend to color all people, whether by national or inter-: er case for skepticism about the general discussions of foreign affairs, particular- national bodies or by human rights ac-' possibility of-and indeed the need for- ly in America and Europe. There are, tivists, is frequently castigated on the, having democracy in Iraq, or in any other first, doubts about what democracy can ground that it involves an attempted im I country that is deprived of it. Nor is there achieve in poorer countries. Is democracy position of Western values and Western I a general ground here for uneasiness not a barrier that obstructs the process about providing global support for the of development and deflects attention Amartya Sen is master of Trinity College,' struggle for democracy around the world, from the priorities of economic and social Cambridge.He received the Nobel Prizc which is the most profound challenge of change, such as providing adequate food, in Economics in I998.

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practices on non-Western societies. The economic reasoning as well as by political argument goes much beyond acknowl- ideas. The process of decision-making IN edging that democracy is a predominant- through discussion can enhance informa- ly Western practice in the contemporary tion about a society and about individ- world, as it certainly is.It takes the form ual priorities, and those priorities may re- of presuming that democracy is an idea of spond to public deliberation. As James which the ro6ts can be found exclusively Buchanan, the leading public choice the- in some distinctively Western thought orist, argues, "The definition of democra- that has flourished uniquely in Europe- cy as 'government by discussion' implies and nowhere else-for a very long time. . that individual values can and do change CIVIL SOCIETY * INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY in the process of decision-making." FREE MARKETS * LIMITED GOVERNMENT HESE ARE LEGITIMATE AND All this raises deep questions about cogent questions, and they are, the dominant focus on balloting and elec- understandably, being asked tions in the literature on world affairs, and _ _LL_with some persistence. But are about the adequacy of the view, well artic- these misgivings really well-founded? In ulated by Samuel P. Huntington in The arguing that they are not, it is impor- Third Wave; that "elections, open, free tant to note that these lines of criticism and fair, are the essence of democracy, the e- C A T O e-- are not altogether unlinked. Indeed, the inescapable sine qua non." In the broader flaws in both lie primarily in the attempt perspective of public reasoning, democ- S U r R E 1 E to see democracy in an unduly narrow racy has to give a central place to guaran- and restricted way-in particular, exclu- teeing free public discussion and deliber- C 0 U R T sively in terms of public balloting and not ative interactionsin political thought and much more broadly, in terms of what practice-not just through elections nor R E V I E WV John Rawls called "the exercise of public just for elections. What is required, as reason." This more capacious concept in- Rawls observed, is the safeguarding of cludes the opportunity for citizens to par- "diversity of doctrines-the fact of plural- ticipate in political discussions and so to ism," which is central to "the public cul- be in a position to influence public choice. ture of modern democracies," and which In understanding where the two lines of must be secured in a democracy by "basic attack on democratization respectively rights and liberties." go wrong, it is crucial to appreciate that The broader view of democracy in democracy has demands that transcend terms of public reasoning also allows us the ballot box. to understand that the roots of democ- Indeed, voting is only one way- racy go much beyond the narrowly con- Coui Review though certainly a very important way- fined chronicles of some designated prac- of making public discussions effective, tices that are now seen as specifically when the opportunity to vote is com- "democratic institutions." This basic re- bined with the opportunity to speak, and cognition was clear enough to Tocque- The 2002-2003 Supreme Court to listen, without fear. The force and the ville. In 1835, in Democracy in America, Tterm promises to be one of the reach of elections depend critically on he noted that the "great democratic revo- most important of the last decade. the opportunity for open public discus- lution" then taking place could be seen, The Cato Supreme Court Review sion. Balloting alone can be woefully in- from one point of view, as "a new thing," adequate, as is abundantly illustrated but it could also be seen, from {a broader analyzes the most important and by the astounding electoral victories of perspective, as part of "the most continu- far-reaching cases of the year from ruling tyrannies in authoritarian regimes, ous, ancient, and permanent tendency a classical Madisonian perspective. from Stalin's Soviet Union to Saddam known to history." Although he confined This edition will review, among Hussein's Iraq. The problem in these his historical examples to Europe's past cases lies not just in the pressure that is (pointing to the powerful contribution other cases, affirmative action, brought to bear on voters in the act of toward democratization made by the ad- sexual privacy, intellectual property, balloting itself, but in the way public dis- mission of common people to the ranks aoss burning, commerdal speech, cussion of failures and transgressions is of clergy in "the state of France seven and federalism. 250 pp./$15.00 thwarted by censorship, suppression of hundred years ago"), Tocqueville's gen- political opposition, and violations of ba- eral argument has immensely broader paper ISBN 1-930865-52-X sic civil rights and political freedoms. relevance. The need to take a broader view of The championing of pluralism, diver- democracy-going well beyond the free- sity, and basic liberties can be found in the dom of elections and ballots-has been history of many societies.The long tradi- Available at boolstores nationwide. extensively discussed not only in contem- tions of encouraging and protecting pub- To order call 1-800-767-1241 porary political philosophy, but also in lic debates on political, social, and cultur- or visit www.cato.org. the new disciplines of social choice theo- al matters in, say, India, China, Japan, ry and public choice theory, influenced by Koiea, Iran, lrkey, the Arab world, and I-

30 OCTOBER 6, 2003 * TiHE NEW REPUBLIC many parts of Africa, demand much fuller Africa also had the misfortune of being public discussion, as was ancient Greece i recognition in the history of democratic caught right in the middle of the, Cold in general. But the Greeks were not ideas. This global heritage is ground War, in which each of the superpowers unique in this respect, even among an- enough to question the frequently reiter- cultivated military rulers friendly to itself cient civilizations, and there is an exten- ated view that democracy is just a West- and hostile to the enemy. No military sive history of the cultivation of toler- em idea, and that democracy is therefore usurper of civilian authority ever lacked a ance, pluralism, and public deliberation just a form of Westernization. The recog- superpower friend, linked with it in a mil- in other societies as well. nition of this history has direct relevance itary alliance. A continent that seemed in The second difficulty concerns the in contemporary politics in pointing to the 1950s to be poised to develop demo- partitioning of the world into discrete i the global legacy of protecting and pro- cratic politics in newly independent coun- civilizations with geographical correlates,, moting social deliberation and pluralist tries was soon being run by an assortment in which ancient Greece is seen as part interactions, which cannot be any less im- of strongmen who were linked to one and parcel of an identifiable "Western" portant today than they were in the past side or the other in the militancy of the tradition. Not only is this a difficult thing when they were championed. Cold War. Ihey competed in despotism to do given the diverse history of differ- with apartheid-based South Africa. ent parts of Europe, but it is also hard to N HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Long Walk That picture is slowly changing now. miss an implicit element of racist think- to Freedom, Nelson Mandela de- with post-apartheid South Africa play- ing in such wholesale reduction of West- scribes how impressed he was, as a ing a leading part. But, as Anthony Appi- em Civilization to Greek antiquity.;In this young boy, by the democratic na- ah has argued, "ideological decoloniza- perspective, no great difficulty is per- ture of the proceedings of the local meet- tion is bound to fail if it neglects either ceived in seeing the descendants of, say, ings that were held in the regent's house endogenous 'tradition' or exogenous Goths and Visigoths and Other Euro-' in Mqhekezweni: 'Western' ideas." Even as specific demo- peans as the inheritors of the Greek tra-, cratic institutions developed in the West dition ("they are all Europeans"), while Everyone who wanted to speak did are welcomed and put into practice, the there is great reluctance to take note of so. It was democracy in its purest task requires an adequate understand- the Greek intellectual links with ancient form. There may have been a hierar- ing of the deep roots of democratic Egyptians, Iranians, and Indians, despite - chy of importance among the speak- thought in Africa itself Similar issues the greater interest that the ancient ers, but everyone was heard, chief and arise, with varying intensity, in other Greeks themselves showed-as recorded subject, warrior and medicine man, parts of the non-Western world as they in contemporary accounts-in talking to shopkeeper and farmer, landowner struggle to introduce or consolidate de- them (rather than in chatting with the an-' : and laborer... .The foundation of mocratic governance. cient Goths). self-government was that all men Such discussions often concerned is- were free to voice their opinions and sues that are directly or indirectly rele- equal in their value as citizens. vant to democratic ideas. When Alex- : PJfl7JHE IDEA THAT DEMOCRACY IS ander asked a group of Jain philosophers Meyer Fortes and Edward E. Evans- an essentially Western notion in India why they were paying so little at- Pritchard, the great anthropologists of . is sometimes linked to the tention to the great conqueror, he got Africa, argued in their classic book _ _practice of voting and elections the following reply, which directly ques- African PoliticalSystems, published more in ancient Greece, specifically in Athens tioned the legitimacy of inequality:' ing than sixty years ago, that "the structure of from the fifth century B.C.E. In the evo- Alexander, every man can possess only an African state implies that kings and lution of democratic ideas and practices it so much of the earth's surface as this we chiefs rule by consent."There might have is certainly important to note the remark- are standing on. You are but human like been some over-generalization in this, as able role of Athenian direct democracy, the rest of us, save that you are always critics argued later; but there can be little starting from Cleisthenes's pioneering busy and up to no good, traveling so doubt about the traditional role and the move toward public balloting around many miles from your home, a nuisance continuing relevance of accountability 506 B.C.E. The term "democracy" derives to yourself and to others! ... You will and participation in African political her- from the Greek words for "people" (de- soon be dead, and then you will own just itage. To overlook all this, and to regard mos) and "authority" (kratia). Although as much of the earth as will suffice to the fight for democracy in Africa only as many people in Athens-women and bury you."Arrian reports that Alexander an attempt to import from abroad the slaves in particular-were not citizens responded to this egalitarian reproach "Westem idea" of democracy, would be a and did not have the right to vote, the vast with the same kind of admiration as he profound misunderstanding. Mandela's importance of the Athenian practice of had shown in his encounter with Dio- "long walk to freedom" began distinctly the sharing of political authority deserves genes, even though his actual conduct re- at home. unequivocal acknowledgmnent. mained unchanged ("the exact opposite 1 Nowhere in the contemporary world But to what extent does this make of what he then professed to admire"). is the need for more democratic engage- democracy a basically Westem concept? Classifying the world of ideas in terms Of ment stronger than in Africa. The conti- There are two major difficulties in taking shared racial characteristics of proximate nent has suffered greatly from the domi- this view. Ihe fiist problem concerns the populations is hardly a wonderful basis nation of authoritarianism and military importance of public reasoning, which for categorizing the history of thought. rule in the late twentieth century, fol- takes us beyond the narrow perspective Nor does it take into account how in- lowing the formal closure of the British, of public balloting. Athens itself was tellectual influences travel or how paral- French, Portuguese, and Belgian empires. extremely distinguished in encouraging lel developments take place in a world ------THE NEW REPUBLIC 0. OCTOBER 6, 2003 31 linked by ideas rather than by race. There nization of "the ancient polity of India" ance and openness of public discussion is nothing to indicate that the Greek ex- could serve as the model for India's con- are often seen as specific-and perhaps perience in democratic governance had stitution in the twentieth century, though unique-features of Western tradition. much' immediate impact in the countries that idea was actually even less plausi- How correct is this notion? Certainly, tol- to the west of Greece and Rome-in, say, ble than would have been any attempt to erance has by and large been a significant France or Germany or Britain. By con- construct the constitution of the United feature of modern Western politics (leav- trast, some of the contemporary cities in States in 1776 in line with Athenian ing out extreme aberrations like Nazi Asia-in Iran, Bactria, and India-incor- practices of the fifth century B.C.E. The Germany and the intolerant administra- porated elements of democracy in munic- chair of the committee that drafted the tion of British or French or Portuguese ipal governance, largely under Greek in- Indian constitution, B. R. Ambedkar, empires in Asia and Africa). Still, there is fluence. For several centuries after the went in some detail into the history of hardly a great historical divide here of the time of Alexander, for example, the city local democratic governance in India to kind that could separate out Western tol- of Susa in southwest Iran had an elected assess whether it could fruitfully serve as eration from non-Western despotism. council, a popular assembly, and magis- a model for modern Indian democracy. When the Jewish philosopher Maimon- trates who were proposed by the council Ambedkar's conclusion was that it ides was forced to emigrate from an intol- and elected by the assembly. There is also should definitely not be given that role, erant Europe in the twelfth century, for considerable evidence of elements of de- particularly because localism generated example, he found a tolerant refuge in the mocratic governance at the local level in "narrow-mindedness and communalism" Arab world and was given an honored India and Bactria over that period. (speaking personally,Ambedkar even as- and influential position in the court of It must be noted, of course, that such serted that "these village republics have Emperor Saladin in Cairo-the same Sal- overtures were almost entirely confined been the ruination of India"). Yet even adin who fought hard for Islam in the to local governance, but it would never- as he firmly rejected the possibility that Crusades. theless be a mistake to dismiss these early democratic institutions from India's past Maimonides's experience was not ex- experiences of participatory governance could serve as appropriate contemporary ceptional. Even though the contemporary as insignificant for the global history of models,Ambedkar did not fail to note thd world is full of examples of conflicts be- democracy. The seriousness of this ne- general relevance of the history of Indian tween Muslims and Jews, Muslim rulers in glect has to be assessed in light of the public reasoning, and he particularly em- the Arab world and in medieval Spain particular importance of local politics in phasized the expression of heterodox had a long history of integrating Jews as the history of democracy, including the views and the historical criticism of the secure members of the social community city-republics that would emerge more prevalence of inequality in India.There is than a millennium later in Italy, from the a direct parallel here with Nelson Man- eleventh century onward.As Benjamin I. dela's powerful invocation of Africa's Schwartz pointed out in his great book own heritage of public reasoning in argu- The World of Thought in Ancient China, ing for pluralist democracies in contem- "Even in the history of the West, with its porary Africa. memories of Athenian 'democracy,' the notion that democracy cannot be imple- mented in large territorial states requir- III. ing highly centralized power remained TnHE ESTABLISHED LITERATURE accepted wisdom as late as Montesquieu on the history of democracy is and Rousseau." full of well-known contrasts be- Indeed, these histories often play in- tween Plato and Aristotle, Mar- spirational roles and prevent a sense of silius of Padua and Machiavelli, Hobbes distance from democratic ideas. When and Locke, and so on. This is as it should India became independent in 1947, the be; but the large intellectual heritages of CALVIN C.JOHNSON JL political discussions that led to a fully de- China, Japan, East and Southeast Asia, rl^A mocratic constitution, making India the the Indian subcontinent, Iran, the Middle 'HIII largest democracy in the twentieth cen- East, and Africa have been almost entire- M grEEDI tury, not only included references to ly neglected in analyzing the reach of the ;gtl mwon Western experiences in democracy but ideal of public reasoning. This has riot also recalled India's own traditions. Jawa- favored an adequately inclusive under- 0-$L- harlal Nehru, put particular emphasis on standing of the nature and the power of the tolerance of heterodoxy and plural- democratic ideas as they are linked to ism in the political rules of Indian emper- constructive public deliberation. Read the only firsthand account of a ors such as Ashoka and Akbar. The en- The ideal of public reasoning is closely wrongful conviction overturned by couragement of public discussion by linked with two particular social practices DNA evidence. those tolerant political orders was recol- that deserve specific attention: the toler- lected and evocatively linked to India's ance of different points of view (along "Astory that will have readers grinding modern multi-party constitution. with the acceptability of agreeing to dis- their teeth until the end." -Kirkus There was also, as it happens, consid- agree) and the encouragement of public erable discussion in the early years of In- discussion (along with endorsing the val- AT BOOKSTORES I www.ugapress.org dian independence of whether the orga- ue of learning from others). Both toler- _ _ . _ _ 32 OCTOBER 6, 2003 > THIE NEW REPUBLIC - I whose liberties-and sometimes lead- Enclave injures his own sect but also ership roles-were respected. As barms other sects. Truly, Maria Rosa Menocal notes in her re- Our shape on the map is if a person extols his own sect cent book The Ornament of the World, Gynaecological, a bad drawing and disparages other sects with the fact that Cordoba in Muslim-ruled Of the tight way in to a bulb a view to glorifying his own sect Spain in the tenth century was "as seri- Of living space. How do we live? owing merely to his attachment ous a contender as Baghdad, perhaps Dumbly in our speech bubble. to it, he injures his own sect more so, for the title of most civilized We listen to the guard dogs and the warning slhots. very severely by acting in place on earth" was due to the joint in- The searchlights feel around our bedroom wal Is. that way. fluence of Caliph Abd al-Rahman III Our remaining romantics and his Jewish vizier Hasdai ibn Creep to the entrance on summer nights, N THE SUBJECT Shaprut. Indeed, there is considerable of public discussion Lie in the close there, it is an ancient thicket, evidence, as Menocal argues, that the I AiJi:and communication, position of Jews after the Muslim con- And weep deliciously for the final nightingale.s. ^ it ,is also important quest "was in every respect an im- But most we wife-swap, hose the lawn, to note that nearly every at- provement, as they went from perse- Flick like fleas all over the world tempt at early printing in China, cuted to protected rminority." For breaking stories. Hard to believe Korea, and Japan was undertak- 5 Similarly, when in the 1590s the We are the temptation. Pity the poor brutes en by Buddhist technologists, great Mughal emperor Akbar, with if they still think us with an interest in expanding his belief in pluralism and in the The womb of better times. communication. The first print- constructive role of public discussions, ed book in the world was a was making his pronouncements in DAVID CONSTANTINE Chinese translation of an Indian India on the need for tolerance and Sanskrit treatise, later known as was busy arranging dialogues between the "Diamond Sutra," done by a people of different faiths (including half-Indian and half-Turkish Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsees, scholar called Kumarajeeva in Jains, Jews, and even atheists), the inquisi- regarding different points of view. These the fifth century, which was printed in tions were still taking place in Europe Buddhist "councils," the first of which was China four and half centuries later, in 868 with considerable vehemence. Giordano held shortly after Gautama Buddha's C.E. The development of printing, largely Bruno was burned at the stake for heresy death, were primarily concerned with re- driven by a commitment to propagate in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome in 1600 solving differences in religious principles Buddhist perspectives (including com- even as Akbar was speaking on tolerance and practices, but they dealt also with de- passion and benevolence), transformed inAgra. mands of social and civic duties, and they the possibilities of public communication helped to establish the practice of open in general. Initially sought as a medium E MUST NOT FALL INTO discussion on contentious issues. for spreading the Buddhist message, the the trap of arguing that The largest of these councils-the innovation of pnnting was a momentous there was in general more third-occurred, under the patronage of development in public communication tolerance in non-Western Emperor Ashoka in the third century that greatly expanded the opportunity of societies than in the West. For no such B.C.E., in Pataliputra, then the capital of social deliberation. generalization can be made. There were India, now called Patna (perhaps best The commitment of Buddhist scholars great examples of tolerance as well as known today as a source of a fine long- to expand communication in secular as of intolerance on both sides of this al- grain rice). Public discussion, without well as religious subjects has considerable legedly profound division of the world. violence or even animosity, was particu- relevance for the global roots of democ- What needs to be corrected is the under- larly important for Ashoka's general be- racy. Sometimes the communication took researched assertion of Western excep- lief in social deliberation, as is well re- the form of a rebellious disagreement. tionalism in the matter of tolerance; but flected in the inscriptions that he placed Indeed, in the seventh century Fu-yi, a there is no need to replace it with an on specially mounted stone pillars across Confucian leader of an anti-Buddhist equally arbitrary generalization of the India-and some outside it. The edict at campaign, submitted the following com- opposite sort. Erragudi put the issue forcefully: plaint about Buddhists to the Tang em- A similar point can be made about peror (almost paralleling the current the tradition of public discussion. Again, ... the growth of essentials of Dhar- official ire about the "indiscipline" of the the Greek and Roman heritage on this is ma [proper conduct] is possible in Falun Gong): "Buddhism infiltrated into particularly important for the history of many ways. But its root lies in re- China from Central Asia, under a strange public reasoning, but it was not unique straint in regard to speech, so that and barbarous forn, and as such, it was in this respect in the ancient world. The there should be no extolment of one's then less dangerous. But since the Han importance attached to public delibera- own sect or disparagement of other period the Indian texts began to be trans- tion by Buddhist intellectuals not only led sects on inappropriate occasions, and lated into Chinese. TIeir publicity began to extensive communications on religious it should be moderate even on appro- to adversely affect the faith of the Princes and secular subjects in India and in East priate occasions. On the contrary, oth- and filial piety began to degenerate. The and Southeast Asia, but also produced- er sects should be duly honoured in people began to shave their heads and some of the earliest open general meet- *every way on all occasions.... If a refused to bow their heads to the Princes ings aimed specifically at settling disputes person acts otherwise, he not only and their ancestors." In other cases, the -l

TUIB NEW REPUBLIC * OCTOBER 6, 2003 33

dialectics took the form of learning from profit you more than the mind" and "no killed between two and three million each other. In fact, in the extensive sci- isolation can be more desolate than con- people-these catastrophes stopped entific, mathematical, and literary ex- ceit." These and other such proclama- abruptly when a multi-party democracy changes between China and India during tions are quoted for their relevance to was established. Chiria, by contrast, had the first millennium C.E., Buddhist schol- the contemporary world by the excellent the largest famine in recorded history be- ars played a major part. "Arab Human Development Report tween 1958 and 1961, in which it is esti- In Japan in the early seventh century, 2002" of the United Nations.The thesis of mated that between twenty-three and the Buddhist Prince Shotoku, who was European exceptionalism, by contrast, thirty million people died, following the regent to his mother Empress Suiko, not invites the Arabs, like the rest of the non- debacle of collectivization in the so-called only sent missions to China to bring back Western world, to forget their own her- "Great Leap Forward." Still, the working knowledge of art, architecture, astron- itage of public reasoning. of democracy, which is almost effortlessly omy, literature, and religion (including effective in preventing conspicuous disas- Taoist and Confucian texts in addition to ters such as famines, is often far less suc- Buddhist ones), but also introduced a rel- IV. cessful in politicizing the nastiness of reg- atively liberal constitution or kempo, _T>O IGNORE THE CENTRALITY OF ular but non-extreme.undernourishment known as "the constitution of seventeen public reasoning in the idea of and ill health. India has had no problem in articles," in 604 C.E. It insisted, much in democracy not only distorts avoiding famines with timely*interven- the spirit of the Magna Carta (signed in and diminishes the history of tion, but it has been much harder to gen- England six centuries later), that "deci- democratic ideas, it also detracts atten- erate adequate public interest in less im- sions on important matters should not be tion from the interactive processes mediate and less dramatic deprivations, made by one person alone. They should through which a democracy functions such as the quiet presence of endemic but be discussed with many." It also advised: and on which its success depends.The ne- non-extreme hunger across the country "Nor let us be resentful when others dif- glect of the global roots of public reason- and the low standard of basic health care. fer from us. For all men have hearts, and ing, which is a big loss in itself, goes with each heart has its own leanings. Their the undermining of an adequate under- rtHILEJ DEMOCRACY IS NOT right is our wrong, and our right is their standing of the place and the role of thout success in India, wrong." Not surprisingly, many commen- democracy in the contemporary world. achievements are still tators have seen in this seventh-century Even with the expansion of adult fran- r short of what public constitution what Nakamura H-lajime has chise and fair elections, free and uncen- reasoning can do in a democratic society called Japan's "first step of gradual devel- sored deliberation is important for peo- if it addresses less conspicuous depriva- opment toward democracy." ple to be able to determine what they tions such as endemic hunger. A simi- There are, in fact, many manifesta- must demand, what they should criticize, lar criticism can also be made about the tions of a firm commitment to public and how they ought to vote. protection of minority rights, which communication and associative reason- Consider the much-discussed proposi- majority rule does not guarantee until ing that can be found in different places tion that famines do not occur in democ- and unless public discussion gives these and times across the world. To take an- racies, but only in imperial colonies (as rights enough political visibility and sta- other illustration, which is of particular used to happen in British India), or in tus to produce general public support. importance to science and culture, the military dictatorships (as in Ethiopia, This certainly did not happen in the state great success of Arab civilization in the Sudan, or Somalia, in recent decades), of Gujarat last year, when politically millennium following the emergence of or in one-party states (as in the Soviet engineered anti-Muslim riots led to un- Islam provides a remarkable example Union in the 1930s, or China from 1958 to precedented Hindu sectarian militancy of indigenous creativity combined with 1961, or Cambodia in the 1970s, or North and an electoral victory for the Hindu- openness to intellectual influences from Korea in the immediate past). It is hard chauvinist state government. How scru- elsewhere-often from people with very for a government to withstand public pulously secularism and minority rights different religious beliefs and political criticism when a famine occurs. This is will be guarded in India will depend on systems. The Greek classics had a pro- due not merely to the fear of losing elec- the reach and the vigor of public discus- found influence on Arab thinking, and, tions, but also to the prospective conse- sion on this subject. If democracy is con- over a more specialized area, so did In- quences of public censure when newspa- strued not merely in terms of public bal- dian mathematics. Even though no for- pers and other media are independent loting, but also in the more general form mal system of democratic governance and uncensored and opposition parties of public reasoning, then what is required was involved in these achievements, the are allowed to pester those in office. The is a strengthening of democracy, not a excellence of what was achieved-the re- proportion of people affected by famines weakening of it. markable flourishing of Arab philosophy, is always rather small (hardly ever more To point to the need for more probing literature, mathematics, and science-is a than 10 percent of the total-popula- and more vigorous public reasoning even tribute not only to indigenous creativity tion), so for a famine to become a politi- in countries that formally have democra- but also to the glory of open public rea- cal nightmare for the government it is tic institutions must not be seen as a soning, which influences knowledge and necessary to generate public sympathy counsel of despair. People can and do re- technology as well as politics. through the sharing of information and spond to generally aired concerns and The idea behind such openness was open public discussion. - appeals to tolerance and humanity, and well articulated by Imam Ali bin abi Even though India was experiencing this is part of the role of public reasoning. Taleb in the early seventh century, in his famines until its independence in 1947- Indeed, it is not easy to dismiss the pos- pronouncement that "no wealth can the last one, the Bengal famine of 1943, sibility that to 'a limited extent just such I-

34 OCTOBER 6, 2003 * TItE NEW REPUBLIC

a response may be occurring in India in health care that the more moderate In- forms, whereas it has continued to fall ex- the wake of the Gujarat riots and the dian administration could not at all tremely sharply in Kerala. While Kerala victory of Hindu sectarianism in the Gu- match. By the time the economic reforms had roughly the same infant mortality jarat elections in December 2002. The were introduced in China in 1979, China rate as China-thirty-seven per thou- engineered success in Gujarat did not had a lead of thirteen years or more over sand-in 1979, Kerala's present rate, be- help the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, India in longevity, with the Chinese life tween thirteen and fourteen per thou- in the state elections in the rest of India expectancy at sixty-seven years, while In- sand, is considerably less than half of that followed the Gujarat elections. The dia's was less than fifty-four years. Still, China's thirty per thousand (where it has BJP lost in all four state elections held in even though the radical economic re- stagnated over the last decade). It ap- early 2003, but the defeat that was par- forms introduced in China in 1979 ush- pears that Kerala, with its background of ticularly significant occurred in the state ered in a period of extraordinary eco- egalitarian politics, has been able to bene- of Himachal Pradesh, where the party nomic growth, the government slackened fit further from continued public reason- had actually been in office but was routed on the public commitment to health care, ing protected by a democratic system.The this time, winning only sixteen seats and in particular replaced automatic and latter on its own would seem to have against the Congress Party's forty. More- free health insurance by the need to buv helped India to narrow the gap with over, a Muslim woman from the Con- private insurance at one's own cost (ex- China quite sharply, despite the failings of gress Party won the mayoral election in cept when provided by one's employer, the Indian health services that are widely Ahmadabad, where some of the worst which happens only in a small minority discussed in the press. Indeed, the fact anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat had oc- of cases). This largely retrograde move- that so much is known-and in such de- curred only a few months earlier. Much ment in the coverage of health care met tail-about the inadequacies of Indian will depend on the breadth and the ener- with little public resistance (as it 'un- health care from criticisms in the press is gy of public reasoning in the future- an doubtedly would have in a multi-party itself a contribution to improving the ex- issue that takes us back to the arguments democracy), even though it almost cer- isting state of affairs. presented by exponents of public rea- tainly had a role in slowing down the The informational role of democracy, soning in India's past, including Ashoka progress of Chinese longevity, In India, working mainly through open public and Akbar, whose analyses remain thor- by contrast, unsatisfactory health services discussion, can be pivotally important. It oughly relevant today. have come more and more under public is the limitation of this informational scrutiny and general condemnation, with feature that has come most sharply to HE COMPLEX ROLE OF PUBLIC some favorable changes being forced on attention in the context of the recent reasoning can also be seen in the services offered. SARS epidemic.Although cases of SARS the comparisons between Chi- Despite China's much faster rate of first appeared in southern China in No- na's and India's achievements growth since the economnic reforms, the vember 2002 and caused many fatalities, in the field of health care and longevity rate of expansion of life expectancy in information about the, deadly new dis- over recent decades. This happens to be a India has been about three times as fast, ease was kept under wraps until this subject that has interested Chinese and on the average, as that in China. China's April. Indeed, it was only when that high- Indian public commentators over mil- life expectancy, which is now just about ly infectious disease started spreading to 'lennia. While Faxian (Fa-Hien), a fifth- seventy years, compares with India's fig- Hong Kong andBeijing that the news had century Chinese visitor who spent ten ure of sixty-three years, so that the life- to be released, and by then the epidemic years in India, wrote admiringly in effu- expectancy gap in favor of China has had already gone beyond the possibility sive detail about the arrangements for been nearly halved, to seven years, over of isolation and local elimination. The public health care in Pataliputra, a later the last two decades. But note must be lack of open public discussion evidently visitor who came to India in the seventh taken of the fact that it gets increasingly played a critical part in the spread of the century, Yi Jing (I-Ching), argued in a harder to expand life expectancy further SARS epidemic in particular, but the gen- more competitive vein that "in the heal- as the absolute level rises, and it could eral issue has a much wider relevance. ing arts of acupuncture and cautery and be argued that perhaps China has now the skill of feeling the pulse, China has reached a level at which further expan- never been surpassed [by India]; the sion would be exceptionally difficult. Yet V. medicament for prolonging life is only this explanation does not work, since 'p TT- llE VALUE OF PUBLIC REASON- found in China." There was also consid- China's life expectancy of seventy years ing applies to reasoning about erable discussion in India on chinachar- is still very far below the figures for many democracy itself. It is good Chinese practice-in different fields countries in the world-indeed, even _ _L that the practices of democracy when the two countries were linked by parts of India. have been sharply scrutinized in the liter- Buddhism. At the time of the economnic reforns, ature on world affairs, for there are iden- i By the middle of the twentieth cen- when China had a life, expectancy of tifiable deficiencies in the performance of tury, China and India had about the same about sixty-seven years, the Indian state many countries that have the standard life expectancy at birth, around forty-five of Kerala had a similar figure. By now, democratic institutions. Not only is public years or so. But post-revolution China, however, Kerala's life expectancy of discussion of these deficiencies an effec- with its public commitment to improve seventy-four years is considerably above tive means of trying to remedy them, but health care and education (a commit- China's seventy years. Going further, if this is exactly how democracy in the formi ment that was carried over from its days we look at specific points of vulnerability, of public reasoning is meant to function. of revolutionary struggle), brought a the infant-mortality rate in China has fall- In this sense, the defects of democracy level of dedication in radically enhancing en very slowly since the economic re- demand more democracy, not less. -I

THE NEW REPUBLIC * OCTOBER 6, 2003 35

The alternative-trying to cure the Western modesty that takes the form of a that Enlightenment was a cause that gal- defects of democratic practice through humble reluctance to promote "Western vanized intellectuals committed to toler- authoritarianism and the suppression of ideas of democracy" in the non-Western ance, skepticism, individualism, civil lib- public reasoning-increases the vulnera- world includes an imperious appropria- erty, and cosmopolitanism, and that its bility of a country to sporadic disasters tion of a global heritage as exclusively the values have proved to be the most potent (including, in many cases, famine), and West's own.The self-doubt with regard to defense against the various forms of in- also to the whittling away of previously "pushing" Western ideas on non-Western humanity that we have experienced in secured gains through a lack of public societies is combined with the absence of our world. In holding this view, Darnton vigilance (as seems to have happened, to doubt in viewing democracy as a quintes- follows in the footsteps of his great- some extent, in Chinese health care). sentially Western idea, an immaculate est twentieth-century predecessors, Paul There is also a genuine loss of political Western conception. Hazard, Ernst Cassirer, and more recent- freedom and restrictions of civil rights This misappropriation results from ly Peter Gay. Forced to confront the evils in even the best-performing authori- gross neglect of the intellectual history of fascism-and in the case of Cassirer tarian regimes, such as Singapore or pre- of non-Western societies, but also from and Gay, compelled to leave Germany democratic South Korea; and, further- the conceptual defect in seeing democ- because they were Jews-these scholars more, there is no guarantee that the sup- racy primarily in terms of balloting, used their writings to make the Enlight- pression of democracy would make, say, rather than in the broader perspective of enment into the touchstone of Western India more like Singapore than like public reasoning. A fuller understand- liberal thought. Sudan or Afghanistan, or more like ing of the demands of democracy and of Had it not always been so? The origi- South Korea than like North Korea. the global history of democratic ideas nal publicists of Enlightenment-Vol- Seeing democracy in terms of public may contribute substantially to better taire, Diderot, Beccaria, Franklin, Less- reasoning, as "government by discus- political practice today. It may also help ing, Kant, and many others like them- sion," also helps us to identify the far- to remove some of the artificial cultural thought of themselves as comrades in an reaching historical roots of democratic fog that obscures the appraisal of current international movement for liberty. But ideas across the world. The apparent affairs. o they had not envisaged the French Revo- lution, and they could not imagine how the Revolution would change their im- -age. Enlightenment figures who lived Lynn Hunt through the revolutionary upheaval came to feel deeply ambivalent about.it. Radicals found them too politically mod- Great Recep'o erate, while conservatives blamed them for the Revolution's violence and terror. When a republic finally took hold in France after the 1870s, if claimed Vol- GEORGE WASHINGTON's FALSE "All things" turned out to include, big- taire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau as its TEETH: AN UNCONVENTIONAL otry, superstition, fanaticism, intolerance, forefathers, but elsewhere in the Western GUIDE TO THE EIGHTEENTH judicial torture, inequities of taxation, world their work and their legend had CENTURY and a host of other issues bound to of- much less resonance. In Spain they were By Robert Darnton fend official sensibilities. Darnton never still too "atheist," in the Netherlands and (IVW. Norton, 2o8pp., S23.95) forgets that intellectual freedom in the Great Britain they were too French, and West came at a price, and in many places even in the United States they seemed ir- OBERT DARNTON HAS A in the world it still does. He has made it relevant in comparison with Locke and .HI) knack for breaking open an his mission to bring the Enlightenment various oppositional figures in British Ik< old chestnut and finding to life, to show how it worked, and to politics. II\\ the meat still clinging in- demonstrate its continuing salience in a Fascism changed all that by cele- side. The chestnut in ques- world in which bigotry, superstition, fa- brating an explicitly irrationalist, hyper- tion is usually the Enlightenment, the naticism, and related evils have hardly nationalist, and anti-cosmopolitan ideol- eighteenth-century intellectual move- disappeared. ogy: by acting on what Isaiah Berlin ment that aimed to subject everything to When an illustrious scholar gathers called the Counter-Enlightenment. And reasoned criticism. As its great impre- together occasional pieces into a volume, so anti-fascist intellectuals on both sario Denis Diderot put it, "All things the result is often less rather than more, shores of the Atlantic looked to histories must be examined, debated, investigated a dilution of powerful ideas in the inter-. of the Enlightenment to articulate com- without exception and without regard est of making the most of every talk giv- mon Western values of intellectual free- for anyone's feelings." It sounds banal en outside the classroom. Some of the dom and individual rights. Cassirer pub- now, until you remember that "anyone" pieces in this volume do qualify as Darn- lished The Philosophy of the Enlighten- meant the authorities of church and state ton lite, but most do not. The opening es- ment in 1932; Hazard published his book who routinely banned books and put dis- say, the most substantial in the book, of- on the origins of the movement in 1935 sidents such as Diderot himself in prison. fers a powerful rejoinder to anyone who and finished his general history justCbe- considers the Enlightenment somehow fore his death in wartime France in 1944. Lynn Hunt is Eugen Weber Professor of pass6. In it Darnton gives voice to his Anti-fascism now had an intellectual Modern European History at UCLA. most profound intellectual convictions: lineage, and the Enlightenment had be- COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

TITLE: Democracy and Its Global Roots SOURCE: New Repub 229 no14 O 6 2003 WN: 0327901486012

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