Why democracy matters Rory Stewart

so little Billy goes to school and he

sits down and the teacher says what does

your father do and little Billy says my

father plays the piano in an opium den

so teacher rings up to the parents and

says very shocking story from little

Billy today just heard that he claimed

that you play the piano in an opium den

and the father says I’m very sorry yes

it’s true I lied but how can I tell an

eight-year-old boy that his father is a

politician now as a politician myself

standing in front of you are indeed

meeting any stranger anywhere in the

world when I eventually revealed the

nature of my profession they look at me

as though I’m somewhere between a snake

a monkey and an iguana and through all

of this I feel strongly that something

is going wrong 400 years of maturing

democracy colleagues and Parliament who

seemed to me as individuals reasonably

impressive an increasingly educated

energetic informed population and yet a

deep deep sense of disappointment my

colleagues in Parliament include my new

intake family doctors businesspeople

professors distinguished economists

historians writers army officers ranging

from Colonels down to regimental

sergeant majors all of them however

including myself as we walk underneath

those strange stone gargoyles just down

the road feel that we become less than

the sum of our parts feel as though we

have become profoundly diminished

and this isn’t just a problem in Britain

it’s a problem across the developing

world and a middle-income countries too

in Jamaica for example look at Jamaican

members of parliament you meet them and

they’re often people who are Rhodes

Scholars who’ve studied at Harvard or

Princeton and yet you go down to

downtown Kingston and you are looking at

one of the most depressing sites that

you can see in any middle-income country

in the world a dismal depressing

landscape of burnt and half abandoned

buildings and this has been true for 30

years in the handover in 1979-1980

between one Jamaican leader who was the

son of a Rhodes Scholar and a QC to

another who done a economics doctorate

at Harvard over 800 people were killed

in the streets in drug-related violence

10 years ago however the promise of

democracy seemed to be extraordinary

George W Bush stood up in his State of

the Union address in 2003 and said that

democracy was the force that would beat

most of the ills of the world he said

because democratic governments respect

their own people and respect their

neighbors freedom will bring peace

distinguished academics at the same time

argued that democracies had these

incredible range of side benefits they

would bring prosperity security

overcomes sectarian violence ensure that

states would never again Harbor

terrorists since then what’s happened

well what we’ve seen is the creation in

places like Iraq and Afghanistan of

democratic systems of government which

haven’t had any of those side benefits

in Afghanistan for example we haven’t

just had one election or two elections

we’ve gone through three elections

presidential and parliamentary and what

do we find do we find a flourishing

civil society of vigorous rule of law

and good security no what we find that

Afghanistan is a judiciary

that is weak and corrupt a very limited

civil society which is largely

ineffective a media which is beginning

to get on to its feet but a government

that’s deeply unpopular perceived as

being deeply corrupt and security that

is shocking security that’s terrible

in Pakistan in lots of sub-saharan

Africa again you can see democracy and

elections are compatible with corrupt

governments with states that are

unstable and dangerous and when I have

conversations with people I remember

having a conversation for example in

Iraq with a community that asked me

whether the riot we were seeing in front

of us this was a huge mob ransacking a

provincial council building was a sign

of the new democracy the same I felt was

true in almost every single one of the

middle and developing countries that I

went to and to some extent the same is

true of us well what is the answer to

this is the answer to just give up on

the idea of democracy well obviously not

it would be absurd if we were to engage

again and the kind of operations we were

engaged in in Iraq and Afghanistan if we

would suddenly find ourselves in a

situation in which we were imposing

anything other than the democratic

system anything else would run contrary

to our values it would run contrary to

the wishes of the people on the ground

it would run contrary to our interests

I remember in Iraq for example that we

went through a period of feeling that we

should delay democracy we went through a

period of feeling that the lesson

learned from Bosnia was that elections

held too early enshrined sectarian

violence enshrined extremist parties so

in Iraq in 2003 a decision was made

let’s not have elections for two years

let’s invest in voter education let’s

invest in democratization the result was

that I found stuck outside my office a

huge crowd of people the secchi of

photograph taken in Libya but I saw the

same scene in Iraq

of people standing outside screaming for

the elections and when I went out and

said what is wrong with the interim

provincial council what is wrong with

the people that we have chosen there is

a Sunni Shey there’s a Shia Shaikh

there’s the seven leaders of the seven

major tribes there’s a Christian there’s

a Sabian there are female

representatives there’s every political

party in this council what’s wrong with

the people that we chose the answer came

the problem isn’t the people that you

chose the problem is that you chose them

I have not met in Afghanistan in even

the most remote community anybody who

does not want a say in who governs them

most remote community I’ve never met a

villager who does not want a vote so we

need to acknowledge that despite the

dubious statistics despite the fact that

84 percent of people in Britain feel

politics is broken despite the fact that

when I was in Iraq we did an opinion

poll in 2003 and asked people what

political systems they preferred and the

answer came back that seven percent

wanted the United States five percent

wanted France three percent wanted

Britain and nearly 40 percent wanted

Dubai which is after all not a

democratic state at all but a relatively

prosperous minor monarchy democracy is a

thing a value for which we should be

fighting but in order to do so we need

to get away from instrumental arguments

we need to get away from saying

democracy matters because of the other

things it brings we need to get away

from feeling in the same way Human

Rights matters because of the other

things it brings or women’s rights

matters for the other things this brings

why should we get away from those

arguments because they’re very dangerous

if we set about saying for example

torture is wrong because it doesn’t

extract good information or we’d say you

need women’s rights because it

stimulates II can

growth by doubling the size of the

workforce you leave yourself open to

position where the government of North

Korea can turn around and say well

actually we’re having a lot of success

extracting good information with our

torture at the moment or the government

of Saudi Arabia to say our economic

growth so okay thank you very much

considerably better than yours so maybe

we don’t need to go ahead with this

program on women’s rights the point

about democracy is not instrumental it’s

not about the things that it brings the

point about democracy is not that it

delivers legitimate effective prosperous

rule of law it’s not that it guarantees

peace with itself or with its neighbors

the point of our democracy is intrinsic

democracy matters because it reflects an

idea of a quality and an idea of Liberty

reflects an idea of dignity the dignity

of the individual the idea that each

individual should have an equal vote an

equal say in the formation of their

government but if we’re really to make

democracy vigorous again we’re ready to

Reaver fie it we need to get involved in

the new projects of the citizens and the

politicians democracy is not simply a

question of structures it is a state of

mind it is an activity and part of that

activity is honesty after I speak to you

today I’m going on a radio program

called any questions and the thing you

would have noticed about politicians on

these kind of radio programs is that

they never ever say that they don’t know

the answer to a question doesn’t matter

what it is the answer about child tax

credits the future of the Penguins and

the South Antarctic ask to hold forth on

whether or not the developments in

Chungking contribute to sustainable

development and carbon capture and we

will have an answer for you we need to

stop that to stop pretending to be

omniscient beings politicians also need

to learn occasionally to say that

certain things that voters want

certain things that voters have been

promised maybe things that we cannot

deliver or perhaps that we feel we

should not deliver and the second thing

we should do is understand the genius of

our societies our societies have never

been so educated have never been so

energized have never been so healthy

have never known so much cared so much

will wanted to do so much and it is a

genius of the local one of the reasons

why we’re moving away from banqueting

halls such as the one in which we stand

banqueting walls with extraordinary

images on the ceiling of Kings enthroned

the entire drama played out here on this

face where the King of England had his

head locked off why we’ve moved from

spaces like this Thrones like that

towards the town hall is we’re moving

more and more towards the energies of

our people and we need to tap that that

can mean different things in different

countries in Britain it could mean

looking to the French learning from the

French getting directly elected mayor’s

in place in a French commune system in

Afghanistan it could have mean instead

of concentrating on the big presidential

and parliamentary elections we should

have done what was in the Afghan

Constitution from the very beginning

which is to get direct local elections

going at a district level and elect

people’s provincial governors but for

any of these things to work the honesty

and language the local democracy it’s

not just a question of what politicians

do it’s question of what the citizens do

for politicians to be honest the public

needs to allow them to be honest and the

media which mediates between the

politicians and the public needs to

allow those politicians to be honest if

local democracy is to flourish it is

about the active and informed engagement

of every citizen in other words if

democracy is to be rebuilt is to become

again vigorous and

vibrant it is necessary not just for the

public to learn to trust their

politicians but for the politicians to

learn to trust the public thank you very

much