Dr. Hossam Badrawi Official Website
Young dreamers of tomorrow gathered around me, and said: We are in January, Doctor, ten years after the revolution that shook the country. Now is the time to analyze its truth and impact, and find out what was achieved by the youth’s chants at the time, before it was kidnapped, in a desire for freedom, democracy and social justice.
I sighed and said: Let’s go back to the further history to know the location of what happened within the framework of achieving democracy, and then return to the details of the events of January 2011 in the coming weeks.
If we go back to the history of social or political revolutions, we cannot see a movement that is believed to be a “human rights” movement in the sense of one of the meanings of this phrase as we understand it in the present era. Perhaps among them were the so-called “democratic movements” in Greece, in which the use of the word democracy was interpreted as a movement of peoples and human rights, but it is not so even in its verbal connotations. As Professor Al-Akkad says: The democratic system in Greece was called the government in which the tribes participated in the election, and its participation in the election was not a recognition of a human right in which individual people are equal, but rather a recognition of the tribe and to prevent its opposition from working in the army.
The Greeks and the Romans had successive types of democratic governments, which had no principle on which to base it other than that it had practical plans to ward off sedition and to attract loyalty from the conscripts to the army and fleet from among the tribesmen and the owners of industries.
We will consider that the first generation of democracy.
As for the human and electoral rights that arose in Western democracy in the mid-twentieth century, they gradually generalized according to the needs of the electorate. Workers in industrialized countries obtained them before the farmers acquired them, and women obtained them after they became workers in factories on behalf of soldiers in the war, and people of color obtained them. In the United States, after the state was forced to serve their services in society and in the armies gradually in the two world wars, and different peoples gained them as a result of mutual pressures and conflicts between classes to reach a specific political formula acceptable to all parties.
We will consider that the second generation of democracy.
As for human rights that are recognized in principle and not practical plans dictated by equality of power between sects and the masses of voters, they are represented by an unimaginable human democracy without the elements of equality, individual responsibility, and the establishment of governance based on shura and on well-defined constitutions of limits and consequences… These are the elements that we advocate for. As general principles, they are not forced into an electoral reality or service in the armies, but rather they represent a real belief in how justice is in governance in recognition of the rights of citizens, regardless of their educational level or social position.
We will consider that the third generation of democracy.
But we notice as we look at the third generation of Western democracy and what is applied from it in the countries of the world, especially the developing countries, that there are many contradictions between philosophy and reality, and the powers granted to governments, and sometimes social injustice, force classes of peoples that are not able, with their knowledge and capabilities, to You get real equality of available opportunities, as we claim and say, the more educated, the richest, and the most open to the world gets the opportunity, and the gap between citizens gradually increases, and the human development opportunities that we seek from good governance are often lost. Third generation democracy has partially succeeded in Europe and North America, but failed to implement it in developing and poor countries.
The question remains about how to reach fourth-generation democracy that achieves the goals of democracy, and how to avoid the reality of what happened and is happening in the developing world from alternatives.
Whoever reads history does not get lost, and human society, despite its different geography and cultures, still has its basic needs for progress in common, and also the factors for its success or failure are compatible. History says that all religious, military or factional systems, no matter how successful they are in moments, are like building a sand castle on the beach. It often ends in violations of freedoms, coups, wars, revolutions, or assassinations that destroy what has been achieved, and return the country to ground zero again.
Some countries have established what is called “defensive democracy,” which is anomalies in which democracy is forced to resort to non-democratic methods, which affect the rights and freedoms of citizens, and democratic principles in order to defend itself by non-democratic groups that threaten the entity of democracy and threaten the security of the state.
The philosophy of defensive democracy is to protect the democratic system and its principles and the character of the civil state from any person or group who are active in the public space and exploit democratic tools and means in order to eliminate the democratic system or the character of the civil state, such as preventing religious parties from engaging in political activity, or in the legal rules that Elections are regulated, as the founders of the state in the United States acknowledged in its constitution, or as countries such as South Korea and Israel did to protect the philosophy of their establishment.
We must realize that all human conditions have changed, and the world around us is changing, and we must link the fourth generation of democracy with the changes of the times.
The democratic model, even in its current application in the West, is under review, as a result of the information and communication revolution that broke the barriers between the citizen and the decision maker, and provided an opportunity for direct communication between them.. perhaps without the need for a mediator such as parties. Rather, the parties lost their importance as a tool for organizing, mobilizing voters and collecting donations due to The possibility for the candidate to do these things directly over the Internet. There is also a decline in the importance of ideology as a framework for gathering citizens in a political or partisan framework. Perhaps the greater interest of the citizen now is focused on the effectiveness of the ruling, that is, the extent of achievement and response to the demands of the citizen, regardless of the ideological idea adopted by the regime. On the other hand, however, the achievement of the greatest effectiveness of governance is related to the access of the most efficient to the seats of government through
A system that allows this, and is also linked to the importance of having a system of control and accountability for the decision maker, and setting periods for rule limits to ensure innovation in thought and vitality of performance.
In short, we believe that the new generation of democracy should focus on the following elements:
The effectiveness of the ruling.
The competence of the rulers.
– Oversight and accountability independent of the executive authority.
An independent and effective justice system (the real revolution must take place here in this field).
An education and culture system that allows citizens to choose the best.
One of the young people interrupted me, saying: Why does democracy fail in developing countries?
I said: Democracy fails in most developing countries. Indeed, many now believe that poor, ignorant peoples need dictatorship to live.. which is a mistake and a sin.. because in democracy there is a lot of dictatorship that people need, but it is the dictatorship of the law and not the individual. The alternative to the chaos arising from freedom without the application of the law is not the dictatorship of an individual or a group, but rather the endeavor to accompany them with just laws that apply to everyone. Democracy, with both wings of the transfer of power and the rule of law, is the alternative that peoples should seek.
Egypt’s wings for development and development must be in education, justice, the rule of law and the transfer of power.
Everything comes simply if these wings are the basic structure for development, which are things that revolutions full of emotions do not achieve, but democratic rule achieves with its wings.. which is the subject of our discussion about the January revolution next week.
