We are losing our democracy
During a long interview about the future role of journalism (and our increasingly misinformed public), I was asked, “What is your biggest worry for democracy?” It’s a fascinating question, and I want to repeat and expand a bit on what I said.
There are two big things that worry me about the future of democracy. The first problem is that we are getting increasingly unrepresented. What I mean is that our leaders are no longer really representing the public.
Take my country (Denmark). Here our government only represents 19% of the people. Granted, they still need to secure 50.1% of the votes whenever they want to enact a new law (which actually makes this worse because it results in deal making that represents an even smaller group) but, for the day to day operations of running the country, the people who do that only represent 19% of the public.
It’s the same in the UK. Here is a video by the wonderful CPG Grey illustrating just how bad it is there.
And we see it in the US as well, even though it has a two-party system. This November, the election for president is likely going to be a battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but the majority of the US public actually wants neither.
Here is a graph from FiveThirthyEight, and here you see that their net favorability ratings are the worst ever… by far.
So, no matter who becomes the next President of the United States will not be representing the public. It’s not “We the people” anymore.
We losing our democracy because the way we vote has twisted the system into something that is no longer an actual democracy.
But this isn’t even the biggest problem. A much bigger problem is about democracy itself and something I call one-way laws.
Why one-way laws are a big problem
In order to explain the problem with one-way laws and what they are are, we need to step back and ask ourselves, ‘why do we have democracies in the first place?’
The answer to this is simple. We got sick and tired of having kings, emperors and dictators telling us how to live and think. So we decided that “we the people” should make those decisions instead.
So, the principle reason behind a democracy is to be the opposite of a dictatorship. Right?
But the problem is that a democracy doesn’t actually do this by itself. It needs to be counter-balanced by an even more important element, being “the rights of the people”.
You see, without this element, politicians would be able to turn anything into a law as long as they could secure 50.1% of the votes.
- Want to reintroduce slavery? Just get 50.1% of the votes and it’s done.
- Want to ban gays? Again, just get 50.1% of the votes.
- Want to ban women from driving a car? Just make sure that 50.1% votes for it.
- Want to force every vegan to eat meat? Yep, 50.1% of the votes is what you need.
- Want to make rape legal? Just get 50.1% of the votes.
You see the problem here? By itself, democracy is no different from a dictatorship.
And we see this when we look at why we elect politicians in the first place. We do it because we agree with his or her opinion. And we hope that, with our votes, this politician can create new laws so that everyone else have to think the same way as we do.
That may technically be a democracy because they got 50.1% of the votes, but it’s actually just a dictatorship. It’s just a larger group that does the dictating.
It makes no difference whether it’s 50.1% of the public or just one king who dictates that vegans, for instance, should be forced to eat meat. Or, to use a more practical example, that yoga should be outlawed.
So, in order to prevent democracy from turning into another dictatorship, we need to counter-balance it with a constitution or a bill of rights. This document outlines what politicians can and cannot do, regardless of how many votes they get.
It’s an incredibly important concept and one that we have adopted in many countries.
The US has it. The UK has it. My country has it. The EU has its EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and then we have the big one: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
For instance, the reason why slavery is illegal is because of UDHR Article §4, which states:
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
What this means is that no matter how many votes our politicians get, no matter what their opinion or the public’s opinion is on the matter, and no matter if 50.1% decided to vote for it, Slavery is prohibited.
You see how important this is? And how important it is that we have these rights? It’s what keeps our democracy in check.
But having a Bill of Rights isn’t enough, we also need to make sure that all laws are applied equally to all.
This is where we come to the increasing problem with one-way laws.
In order for a law to be ‘just’, it needs to be a two-way law. In other words, it must apply as much to the group making the law as to anyone else. If it fails to do that, it becomes a one-way law.
Let me give you a simple example. In Turkey, we are currently seeing one of the worst examples of one-way laws in recent history. As you may know, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has created a law that bans anyone from insulting him, which has currently lead to more than 1,845 cases to be opened and even more have been arrested.
But think about what is happening here. Erdoğan has turned it into law that nobody is allowed to insult him, but he can still insult anyone he wants (which he does quite frequently).
It’s a one-way law. It applies to anyone but him.
And this isn’t just happening in Turkey. In Germany, when a comedian insulted Erdoğan, he too was faced with a lawsuit because Germany has a similar law. §103 of the German criminal code makes it illegal for people to make “insults against organs or representatives of foreign states”.
That’s another one-way law. People in Germany is barred from insulting foreign representatives of states, but those representatives can insult the German people as much as they want.
And just this month, in my country, our government enacted a new law dictating ‘respect’ towards public officials. Again, it’s the same problem. It’s a one-way law. The law makes the punishments for disrespecting one group of people much higher than another.
Again, it’s one-way law.
But, of course, this is about much more than just this one type of law. Think about all the laws that nationalistic parties are proposing across Europe and the US. Every single one of them is a one-way law. They are laws that make it illegal for ‘others’ to do something but have no effect on themselves.
Take Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the US. That’s a one-way law.
Look at all the laws that have been enacted in Europe over the past year in response to the refugee crisis. Pretty much all of them are one-way laws.
And it isn’t just about the big laws either. A few years ago when our politicians realized that we were all getting older and they had to change the retirement age, they decided to raise it just for the public as a whole… but, conveniently, not for themselves. They have since changed part of this due to public pressure, but that too was a one-way law.
Or what about all the laws we now see with digital media, privacy and data. A lot of them are one-way laws too. They apply to one group, but not another… and usually not to the people who proposed the law in the first place.
Technically all of these laws are still ‘a democracy’ because they are supported by at least 50.1% of the votes, they were democratically voted on. But in reality, they go against the very reason why we created a democracy in the first place.
For instance, one city in my country recently put it into law that kindergartens should offer pork to all children (which as you know Muslims don’t eat). Think about how insane that is. Can you imagine if just because a few kids were vegans, that the government decided that all kindergartens had to serve bacon? Or what if a few kids were allergic to milk. Would you then require milk to be served because, in your opinion, milk is an important cultural asset of the country?
No, of course not. Because it’s absolutely insane to have the government dictate what food your should eat.
But this is exactly what is happening. More and more laws are one-way laws that violate the balance between people’s rights and the power of democracy. Laws that are created based on the opinions of one group, trying to make any other group think just like them.
And when the politicians, in Europe, realize that they are violating the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, instead of accepting that they can’t create one-way laws, they propose that we vote on changing these fundamental rights so that they can get away with it.
This is how bad this problem is right now. We cannot allow democracy to run unchecked, because then we end up right back where we started, with a dictatorship-light.
So think about this the next time your politician propose something. Ask yourself, is this a one-way or a two-way law? And does it violate the fundamental rights of thepeople?
If it does, then it doesn’t matter whether you agree with that politician or not. Those laws must not be allowed to be made.
So, in answering, “What is your biggest worry for democracy?”, this is it. I worry that an increasingly unrepresented group of politicians are using their powers in order to enforce more and more one-way laws. And I worry that we the people are allowing them to do so because we like telling other people to have the same opinion as ourselves. I worry about our increasing use of a democracy to dictate the culture and rights of others.
We are losing the very concept of why we have democracies in the first place. We created a democratic system to stop this from happening.
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I want to add one more thing. When I discuss the future role of media with editors and journalists, one thing that always comes up is that journalists define themselves as ‘the fourth estate’ and being ‘the protectors of democracy’. But what does that mean?
Does it mean just focusing on the technical aspect of a democracy? In which case your role is merely to make sure people know who and what they are voting for? Or does it mean something more? Is it also the role of the media to protect democracy from itself?
In other words, do you only focus on democracy as being about votes, or is it also about the rights?
I would argue that it’s about both. It’s both the role of the media to make sure people know who and what we are voting for and what our politicians are doing. But it’s also the role of the media to protect society as a whole from having democracy turning into a dictatorship-light.
Take the refugee crisis in Europe. Is it only the role of the media to cover what is happening so that people are adequately informed? Or is it also the role of the media to stop our politicians when they are proposing one-way laws that violate the rights of the people?
Is it the responsibility of a journalist to interrupt a politicians and point out that what he or she is saying is violating the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights or The Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Is it our role to fight those who do?
Look at Turkey.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was democratically elected, and his law banning people from insulting him was democratically ratified by the majority of the representatives of the people. So, that would be it, right?
But that’s not it. If you look at western media, you will find that the media is very active in their role of extending their definition of being the protectors of democracy to also include the rights of the people.
Here, for instance, is the Guardian, where you can see that they are very active in condemning Turkey’s violations of people’s fundamental rights.
In other words, In relation to Turkey, the media isn’t just protecting democracy in terms of the votes. We are also protecting what those votes are used for.
So, my question to the media is this. If we are doing this with Turkey, why aren’t we also doing it at home?
Some of you will probably say, “Oh no. Journalists are supposed to be neutral and unbiased”. But this isn’t about bias or neutrality. You are not being a Democrat or a Republican just because you talk about human rights.
Human rights is not a bias. You are not ‘a liberal’ for instance, for speaking out against torture or focusing on issues around women’s rights. You are not taking side by pointing out how ridicules it is that people can’t laugh at Erdogan. That’s not a bias.
A bias is when you have an opinion about something, and you want everyone else to have the same opinion. Human rights isn’t an opinion. Justice isn’t an opinion. And the reason is that they are both founded on the principles of two-way laws. If you were biased, you would prefer one-way laws.
You see the difference?
Again slavery is an example where we see this quite clearly. It’s not about whether, in your opinion, it should be acceptable or not. Slavery, as a concept, is a one-way law. Back when it still happened, the master was allowed to enslave a slave, but the slave was not allowed to enslave the master.
That’s why it’s a violation of human rights. It’s not because we think it’s bad (which it also obviously is). It’s because it only applies to one group but not another.
There is no bias here. There is no opinion. It’s not something we can vote on. It doesn’t matter what political party you belong to, or what ideology you prefer personally. Even if 50.1% did vote to introduce slavery, it still wouldn’t be right.
This is what journalists need to protect when we say we are the fourth estate and the protectors of democracy. We exists to make sure that those in power don’t abuse their votes. We exists to make sure our democracy doesn’t turn into a dictatorship-light.
But we are failing to do this. Whenever our politicians propose a one-way law, we often just ‘report it’, and then we interview another politician who has a different opinion, which we also just ‘report’.
The result is that more and more people think that whatever opinion has the most public support should be how things should be. And while technically that is a democracy, it’s also exactly contrary to why we invented democracies in the first place.
The reason why our ancestors created the Bill of Rights/EUCFR/UDHR is because they realized how scary it is when democracies are run entirely by people’s opinions.
We realized that an opinion is secondary to a right.
But in the last 15 years, we have kind of lost sight of this as we have allowed more and more one-way laws to be created, because they happened to be what the majority wanted.
This is something worth worrying about.
