Elections and Democracy
“If we cannot accomplish that which we will, we may at least have willed it, and not just have blindly wished for it; and, on the other hand, our weakness may indeed prevent us from winning, but not from comprehending the force by which we are crushed. Nothing in the world can prevent us from thinking clearly.” – Simone Weil, Revolution Prolétarienne, 1933
Last fall, after I did Radio War Nerd, once again trying to bring the concept and the gospel of democracy to a flailing republic that either forgot about it or dismissed it as unnecessary, Ames sent me a couple pieces on Serbia's democratic movement.
Serbia you guffaw, what could they possibly teach about democracy? It appears quite a lot.
A week ago, a student led movement ousted the Serb regime that basically has been in place since the break-up of Yugoslavia. Most importantly, this is not a testimony to the power of elections, but the organizational efforts that took place before the elections, and if the Serbs are going to continue their democratic efforts, this organization will need to be institutionalized.
Key to this effort were face to face meetings, the Serbs called them “plenums.” In one of the articles Ames previously sent, the plenums functioning was described,
"The rules are simple: every student has the right to participate, put forward a proposal, take part in discussions, and vote. A decision is passed by a majority vote of those present, usually after many plenary sessions. All important decisions are made in plenums, including on strategy going forward.
“Plenums are not just a technical tool, but the ideological pillar of the student movement. In the manual for plenums, students encourage people to organise zborovi, or public gatherings, as ‘plenums for citizens’, and even offer training. In this sense, direct democracy has been rediscovered as a long-forgotten political method.”
Truly, all democracy is direct, but that’s a discussion for another time. The plenums grew out of the need to birth a vital democratic politics as,
“Serbia’s ruling party had taken control of every institution in Serbia, at the national and the local level, from the parliament to student assemblies, school boards and professional associations. As such, these institutions lost their legitimacy.”
If you replace ruling party with ruling parties, you have a spot-on description of the American system today.
The FT writes of the birthing efforts, call it democratic labor,
"Day by day, students gathered for hours-long plenums to vote on everything from what they would eat to their political programme. The meetings were chaired by a different student each time. They avoided letting the same people speak to the media too often, for fear they might be portrayed as leaders."
This point is as imperative as it is completely antithetical to the way American politics is practiced today. Contemporary American politics, such that it can even be called politics, places the personality in the forefront, a mutation of the business processes of PR and advertising developed to market industrial products and celebrity culture, but then celebrity culture is just another means to market industrial products. Issues, concerns, and solutions become subordinate to manufactured personality. At best, these American political personalities leave much to be be desired. At worst, the flaws of any given personality detrimentally define the issues they advocate. MAGA has become the latest to learn this lesson.
The Serbs now face an old historical dilemma, as old as modern republicanism anyway. The great contradiction between a democratic movement’s organization and the institutional representative systems in which they must now operate.
History has shown again and again, beginning with the American revolution, then the French, the Russian, and numerous others, the failure to institutionally/constitutionally empower the plenums, the councils, the soviets, and in the American case the townships, halts further democratic evolution. The movement itself becomes the democratic high tide, breaking against the institutional ramparts of government.
The Serbs showed the foundation of democracy was always, is, and will always be about organizing, meeting, discussing, and deciding. Effort is the essential ingredient, effort that must be valued by the society if it is to endure. The Serbs revealed the power of democracy and that democratic practice is always easily learned, the real question always concerns the will.