Reality Bites: The Possibility of Ending Democracy

There are just too many defects in us, in the milieu we are in; from reality to democracy, in them we have also found a lot of rooms for improvement; and what is of significance is to reduce the imbalances and aim for coherence in this world of contradictions

Why is our reality a hard meat to chew? It is always totally in a random order of the things, no matter how much we have become civilised. There is one thing for certain, though, if we have to find logic in it, our effort is only as good as doing nothing.

Reality manifests in a constant flux and is a mixture consisting of our so-called intelligence and the chaotic nature which we have little control over. We are how much we can scramble a part of the jumble in a sane way and perfect order is like the pursuit of a nonexistent god or hitting the road for Utopia.

Agree to disagree   There is a Greek wisdom that the ability to entertain an opposing idea, howsoever it is repulsive, makes us a better person. When it is taken into consideration, at our societal level, this wisdom gives birth to philosophy and poetry; or simply madness if it gets out of control. Like an onion, the constant flux is made up of several layers, though with no chance to ignore one of them.

Why should inequality and injustice exist? These concepts are already incorporated in the law of nature, or rather the law of existence of the human being. So it is not necessary and is a futile attempt to search for an order in our reality. Our life, thence, is to attempt and attain the highest level of coherence.

The law of nature   Nature provides the answer clearly. Money, on an individual level, and economic development on the societal level, for instance, are not helping us to let us live in an ordered world. The gap between the haves and havenots are always widening. War is also the perfect example how the law of nature is meant to defy reason and create more mess.

Just to take an example, consider the declining superpower, USA. Its existence entirely comprises disorder, more evident in the extermination of the native people, in their lies about WMD and attack on other sovereign countries, in their own social unrest shown in the Occupy Movements and so forth. A minute's check into their crime includes: (Year - Crime) 1893 Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii; 1949 Syrian coup; 1953 Iranian coup; 1954 Guatemalan coup; 1961 Cuban invasion; 1963 South Vietnamese coup; 1964 Brazilian coup; 1973 Chilean coup; 1976 Argentine coup; 1979 Afghanistan resistance; 1980 Turkey coup; 1981 Nicaraguan 'contras' 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt. Examples are galore, the order of the system is simply out of sync from each other.

In my hometown, the chaos is terrifying. It is written all over the wall: The government, spineless yet so active in being one of the most corrupt and brutal regimes in the world; the insurgents who are more interested in investment than in revolution; the people, including me, who are clueless and annoyingly quiet; and various inorganic issues like the half-baked notion of nationalism, the utter lack of policy in development issues, the social problems and the list goes on.

In an American democratic way of being a pain in everyone's ass, we also have a list of massacres by the army of the world's largest democracy: Heirangoithing Massacre, Langjing Massacre, Tera Massacre, Tonsen Lamkhai Massacre, Malom Massacre, Oinam Massacre, erstwhile-RMC Massacre and so on. If there was a bit of rationality, these tragedies would not have been possible. There would also have been an agreement between the government and the rebels a long time ago, their differences settled starting from the controversy of the Merger Agreement. But it is not, and no wonder the ceaseless rape of reason continues unabated. It looks reason is our enemy at face value. Imagine how messy the chaos could be when we go into the details.

We, the Wasted Electorates 
If democracy is prone to go bad in the developed states, then it is not hard to see how it could be in a place like ours. Police rule, insurgency, excesses of state and non-state actors, rampant violence, mob justice, kangaroo courts and de facto area are a few words we hear every day through the media and in our casual conversation. Another deduction is when democracy fails, it subjects itself to more criticism, even calling for a replacement as a new form of governance and administration. It is liable to change inevitably; and all the forms of government have been changing throughout history. Previously it was monarchy, then 20th and 21st centuries belong to democracy; now we can expect a new form, next.

Instead of a fake people's representative, most notably in developed states, the power is in the hands of a few wealthy citizens and in underdeveloped states, we can go for a free association. The great unwashed is simply out of the picture. At best, this is a farce that proceeds to tragedy most of the time, like in a melodramatic movie. To replace the defective system, authoritarianism is out of the question, so are monarchic and communist states. History is witness to the failings of all these systems. However, in an unadulterated manner we can come up together doing away with the government and letting ourselves, all of us to each its own.

Belonging together is not a new thing. In democracy we agree and cooperate to elect a candidate, in a seemingly naïve way to represent us. So is in monarchy we submit ourselves to the head without a question. What if we do away with the second and third parties or any form of authority, and be responsible to ourselves? The new world order will also have the last nail on its coffin.

It will be a kind of system, where there will be no fancy phrases like a general election; bloody or bloodless coups; and a government for, of and by the people; nothing. There will be no force, no coercion, but only our free will to live and let live. We come together on our own, not relying on useless opinions and discussions, rather with the help of our conscience. If we agree, fine and if we don't, even better. So long as there is no external prompting, we will be together. The only weakness is that unlike sugar-coated and diplomatic craps that has been forced onto us, there will be no power to lead us. We will instead have to find a way ourselves in the most original way.

It is amazing these things are possible, isn't it? Even if it is always hard for us to create order or associate ourselves together for a new way of life, this choice is, at best, a form of hurling craps on the face of the existing system.

Remaking History 
History can be remade like movies. Our first war of independence was fought in 1857; a quarter of century after the Treaty of Yandaboo. We learnt about the 1857 war even before we learn how to write our names in one of the national languages. Yet it is our own responsibility to learn about the above Treaty in the hardest ways, because it is an un-national issue, while all the history textbooks  are flooded with stories of Indian rebellion, protest against the imperial rule and Rani Jhansi Bhai and so forth.

For the natives, there is no history but to invent or revisit once. At least, this is how the authority wants us to believe and live our life. Histories are important as the national anthem and flag that identifies us as a people. Unknowingly or not, this history remaking is calling for some severe criticism. Rather than resorting to an emotional outburst, rationality should declutter the mess of a manipulated history.

Liberals would argue this is regionalism speaking up, but they might miss the woods for the trees with their please-all attitude and unconditional love for their nationality. As much as genocide is a crime, this distortion of the real narratives is nothing less than calculated steps to nationalise the people howsoever they are different on historical, geographical and cultural terms. Neglecting the parts to emphasise on the whole sounds like a very patriotic concern at the cost of neglecting the grievances of a group of people that constitute a small sub-part. This issue is a classic example of letting our reason rot in a whorehouse. We do know where it is taking us. It's time to decide.

   Images from the Anonymous ART of Revolution