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The colonial government handed over the reins of power to the current government. This must necessarily include all the traditions, habits and practices of the colonial government. Thus, essentially, we still have a colonial government if such practices and traditions are not purged.

A case in point is: we still have many rules and laws which make offenders or even criminals out of ordinary citizens who are just going about their ordinary business. A colonial government must do this to show people, who the boss is, but we are now supposed to have a representative government and this government continues to act like a colonial govt. under the guise of strict patriarchal guidance.

The most serious case of course whereby ordinary citizens are effectively turned into offenders for just voicing out their honest beliefs and values is the ISA, although the government would argue that the detainees are political prisoners, not criminals, but does this make a whole lot of difference to ordinary people with an honest conscience?

There are plenty of irritants called rules and laws. For example, the adult citizen or child must never be without his identity card. So a person who grabbed a few dollars just to go to the neighbourhood shop to get the newspapers or buy sweets but forgot his identity card is potentially an offender. Drivers and passengers who forget to buckle up are also potentially offenders. The university lecturer or even student who attends a political meeting even if it is for a research project is potentially an offender.

There are so many rules and laws that ordinary citizens have to look over their shoulders in fear of breaking another rule (e.g. writing letters such as this one). Yet ministers avoid declaring their assets and are not penalized. Do we have a colonial type government or what?

Citizens no longer know how to stand up for their rights in our “representative” democracy. Every attempt is treated as a potential threat to national security. Yet we are supposed to have a “representative” government. The government is supposed to represent us, not lord it over us.

For the sake of clarity, let us examine what democracy is. In essence it just means rule by the majority. But this simple definition hides lots of problems – what is meant by majority and how may they implement the decisions they have taken? How are minorities to be handled since they lack voting power? Are they forever to be bullied and treated as inferiors, servants and slaves?

The ancient Greeks had their solution – the majority was limited to male slave owners; women, children and slaves were not part of the ruling clique. They ruled by talking it out in a forum and then taking a vote and appointing persons to carry out their decisions. Unfortunately, only those who were rich enough and those with plenty of time on their hands could attend these forums without suffering economic loss – so the forums were dominated by the rich families. Democracy from the start was only for rich people.

In tribal society, there were many forms of democracy, but effectively it was for tribal elders only. They talked it out in a tribal council and then dispersed to carry out decisions taken. So, even before the Greeks, democracy was for old people only (mostly males at that). The rest simply had to abide by their patriarchs or matriarchs.

During the French Revolution, the key leaders and ideologues thought that direct democracy was the perfect form of democracy. Direct democracy means ordinary people got together and discussed issues and then implemented the decisions themselves, but this simple truth proved too advanced to be implemented even for the advanced bourgeoisie of that age and the government descended into a representative assembly packed with the friends and appointees of the leading figures who eventually found they could only enforce their rule through a bloody Reign of Terror.

When the Bolshevik Revolution was in its infancy, they actually tried to implement some form of direct democracy, not just theorise about it like the French bourgeoisie. But as they were men of vision and high ideals, small matters such as how to get decisions made and implemented in the fairest way did not occupy much of their time for long. After all, the ends justify the means. They found that it was easier to rule through bureaucrats implementing the decisions of the central committee of the communist party, later the decisions of the politbureau of the central committee of the communist party, and eventually the decisions of the general secretary of the politbureau of the central committee. Theirs is the same fate our own democracy seems to be headed towards.

The English form of parliamentary democracy actually evolved through many centuries of bitter fights, wars and revolutions. That is why they never had a constitution and I daresay it is still evolving. It was less than 100 years ago that women won the right to vote and it was only recently that they had something called devolution – the Scots have their own Parliament, but the Welsh (I think) are still waiting for theirs.

We already have our Parliament – copied from the English model. And the party with the majority in Parliament and which forms the Executive is supposed to represent us, but in spite of numerous changes to our constitution, we have not evolved one iota for the better. Instead we seem to be worse off with every change to the constitution. We still have a colonial type government that lords it over us instead of representing us.

This begs the question – have we voted for representatives or have we just voted for a referee? If we were a small homogeneous tribe with simple single loyalty, there would be no question that when we vote, we would be voting for our representatives. It would have been much simpler if the majority had been a majority of honest opinions rather than of race or religion. But no, we are a diverse mix of races, cultures and religions with complex loyalties. As such the government we vote for must act as a referee and as referee, it must assume for itself powers beyond those we give it.

This is where the colonial government blends into the current government so effortlessly. The government lords it over us because we ourselves are not united. We compete against each other (often unfairly) and are obsessively jealous of each other’s successes. We therefore have no choice but to vote for a referee instead of for our representative. This is the unavoidable character of a parliamentary democracy.

The more disunited we are and the more we fear each other, the more powers the government assumes for itself and the more tendency it has of becoming self-serving instead of being our honest representative. This means the tendency for corruption and abuse of power will increase almost hyperbolically against our own disunity while the more unity we have, the more we can control the excesses of the government.

Thus while we may compete against each other, we also have to come together where corruption and abuse of power is concerned. This is the sign of an advanced and mature society. The other end of the spectrum is an undeveloped tribal society of the African model. As citizens, we need to make some very hard decisions on this matter, before our patronising government decides it does not need our votes for its own legitimacy.

So… KT voters – please do not vote for a government that steals your oil royalty or stops land from being finally owned by ordinary people with permanent (?) TOL. Such a government actually believes it owns everything and is entitled to all the wealth of the country and subsequently fears and hates ordinary folks because they have a tendency to protest against injustices – how very similar to a colonial government!

By batsman

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