“It is through
the conduit of the popular vote, and not necessarily as a result of vote fixing,
that transfers of power have increasingly tended toward political dynasties, such
as the Bhutto family in Pakistan, the Ghandhis in India, father and son of the Bush
family in the United States; the Bongos [in Gabon], the Kabilas [in the Congo],
or the Eyadémas [in Togo].”
When considering our faltering civilization, I think it beneficial
to paint a broad picture of the electoral circus; the confiscation of power
that this circus allows right before our very eyes; and the regime of uninterrupted
elections that renders life for citizens of democracies so exhausting.
The electoral circus hinges on the implausibility of public
speeches made by notable figures, and the appalling disconnection between themselves
and high culture. It is a race to completely wipe out any historical memory, in
which the actors play second-rate “paper games” to try and pretend that they
really detest one another. But most of all, it is the utterly mind-blowing
result of what follows from what philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville
called "universal suffrage."
For it is through the conduit of the popular vote, and not
necessarily as a result of vote fixing, that transfers of power have increasingly
tended toward political dynasties, such as the Bhutto family in Pakistan,
the Ghandhis in India,
father and son of the Bush family in the United States; the Bongos [in Gabon], the Kabilas
[of the Congo], or the Eyadémas
[in Togo]. And what of the Karamanlis and
the Papandréous, where we are no longer talking about a
single generation of sons, but of grandsons (the hereditary Greek democracy was
embodied by five members of these two families for 37 out of the last 50
years!).
Moreover, we have to realize that today, just as universal
suffrage is frequently trampled underfoot, its virtues, greatness and sacredness
are equally and emphatically boasted of. Do the people vote “as they should”? The
cohort of yes-men and the columnists they pay are quick to congratulate themselves when
they do. And if they vote “badly?” Then the election
must be rerun as quickly as possible (France, Ireland, the Netherlands). And whenthey vote badly? (Palestine
in 2006) Then let us bomb them.
“Political life” is no more than a theater of shadows,
devoid of the major issues that concern the public. In addition, election
turnout continues to decline in the major industrialized countries. In 2008, a
“record” year, Barrack Obama collected the votes of some 30 percent of the
American electorate. And during the June 2009 European elections, the “hyper-abstention”
rate of registered voters across every E.U. country
reached 57 percent. This is how, in these times of such civic discontent, a
small fraction of the overall electorate amounts to a huge majority of votes
cast.
Posted
by Worldmeets.US
Some would have us believe that the measure of a proper
“democracy” is an election process with impartial observers - the election being
the queen of politics and touchstone of all virtue. In addition, this cabaret,
which revolves increasingly around local issues, has a new accomplice: the
poll, which is now considered one of the higher arts. This practice, in
addition to reducing politics to a kind of market place, puts “informed” citizen
in the middle of a never-ending election campaign.
The circus of uninterrupted neoliberal reform is answered by
the political-media circus of uninterrupted voting and a regime of continuous
polling, which is based on marketing principles taught in college, and which appear
to give the "consumer" an illusion of choice.
*Jean Salem is a philosopher and professor at the
University of Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne