WHO IS THE PIMP? – PIMPING TOM OR PIMPING KISSOON?

Aug 24, 2008 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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I have been accused wrongfully by Freddie Kissoon of misrepresenting what Fareed Zakaria wrote in an article entitled ‘The Rise of illiberal democracy’ which was first published way back in 1997 in the journal, Foreign Affairs.

Normally, I would leave Freddie to his own whims. However, since he has gone back repeatedly on his promise not to reply to anonymous columnists because of concerns over young minds imbibing false concepts, I think I must respond to his contention that I have falsified what Zakaria wrote.

As I will demonstrate here today, the falsity originates not from Peeping Tom but from Freddie’s own opportunistic attempt to misapply and misrepresent Zakaria. Kissoon has been intellectually honest in his use of Zakaria’s theory about the rise of illiberal democracy.

Kissoon is honest when he says that Zakaria indicated that the spread of free and fair elections countries in the eighties have not resulted in greater freedoms in some countries.

Where he becomes dishonest is when he used this fact to support his own view that the PPP is an “elected dictatorship”, without of course informing his readers that one of the fundamental theoretical arguments made by Zakaria in that 1997 article is a distinction between democracy and constitutional liberalism.
Kissoon, of course, wants to label the PPP regime as an “elected dictatorship”.

However, as I have pointed out on more than one occasion, this concept is oxymoronic since a government cannot be said to be a dictatorship if it is freely and fairly elected. And this, unlike what Kissoon tries to represent, is exactly the point that Zakaria made in his article.

I will quote extensively from Zakaria’s 1997 article in which he argued, in direct contradiction to Kissoon, that it is asking too much to label a government which has been freely elected as a dictatorship.

He begins by quoting Samuel Huntington who argued that free and fair elections are the very essence of democracy.

Huntington notes that governments produced by elections may be inefficient, corrupt, short-sighted, irresponsible, dominated by special interests, and incapable of adopting policies demanded by the public good. However, he says that these qualities may make such governments undesirable but it does not make them undemocratic.

“Democracy is one public virtue, not the only one, and the relation of democracy to other public virtues and vices can only be understood if democracy is clearly distinguished from the other characteristics of political systems.”

Zakaria then makes the point that to equate democracy with good government is to render the concept of democracy as analytically useless.

This is what he wrote: “If a country holds competitive, multiparty elections, we call it democratic. When public participation in politics is increased, for example through the enfranchisement of women, it is seen as more democratic.

Of course elections must be open and fair, and this requires some protections for freedom of speech and assembly.

But to go beyond this minimalist definition and label a country democratic only if it guarantees a comprehensive catalog of social, political, economic, and religious rights, turns the word democracy into a badge of honor rather than a descriptive category.

After all, Sweden has an economic system that many argue curtails individual property rights, France until recently had a state monopoly on television, and England has an established religion.

But they are all clearly and identifiably democracies. To have democracy mean, subjectively, “a good government” renders it analytically useless.”

He then establishes the distinction between democracy and constitutional liberalism: “Constitutional liberalism, on the other hand, is not about the procedures for selecting government, but rather government’s goals.

It refers to the tradition, deep in Western history, that seeks to protect an individual’s autonomy and dignity against coercion, whatever the source — state, church, or society.

The term marries two closely connected ideas. It is liberal because it draws on the philosophical strain, beginning with the Greeks, that emphasizes individual liberty. It is constitutional because it rests on the tradition, beginning with the Romans, of the rule of law.”

Kissoon will thus only continue to confound himself and his readership by repeating that nonsense peddled by his former political guru about Guyana having an “elected dictatorship”.

There is no such thing. If, of course, he knows that he has found himself in a bind and, as he is now doing, wishes to re-title an elected dictatorship” as an elected autocracy, he is free to make a case, but he should not try to pass of his own flaws as those of this columnist.

Who knows, the next thing we will hear from the professor is that Burnham was an unelected autocrat. And who knows, in his eyes this may be a virtue.

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