ALFP e-magazine issue 1: Democracy

Reviewing the Demos in Democracy
Goenawan Mohamad (Indonesia)
Essayist / Playwright / Founder, Tempo / ALFP 1997 Fellow

Today, democracy is increasingly like a half-remembered love letter. It begins with fresh passion,
anticipating a warm and honest conversation—and then time wears it away. As an expression,words, and performance, democracy has lost the thrill. And yet it retains its resilient, albeit
confused, hope of rebound.
The story of Indonesian democracy is a case in point. In 1998 the Reformasi movement thatreplaced Suharto’s authoritarian rule was accompanied by a euphoria of change: big businesscould no longer be monopolized by the president’s family, critics were no longer muzzled, themilitary no longer controlled civilian life, people could not be detained indefinitely, there was noofficial obstruction to the creation of political parties, power could not be centralised, leaders,from the president right down to the bupati (the head of a regency), were elected with limited
terms.
Today, despite Reformasi, all these things persist. When the “New Order” regime collapsed,
people expected that the political institutions guarding private choice in matters of religion, ideas,
and life-styles would be enforced. But it turned out they suffered from a lack of conceptual
investment and political commitment. Today we can no longer hope for a judiciary
independent of political influence, money, and the “ideology” of the judges. Bribes roll in rightfrom the initial stage, beginning with the police.
On the positive side, Indonesia is still better off than the Middle Eastern countries in the violent
aftermath of the “Arab Spring.” Indonesia has not brought back authoritarian power similar toRussia and the People’s Republic of China. Still, Indonesian democracy is a performance inwhich political parties are a proxy of the oligarchy, the election process is sullied by corruption,and parliament has increased its own power to such an extent that it is immune from sanctions.
Vapidity is the current trait of the system.
Can this slide be stopped and the impetus revitalized? This is an important question at a time
when a state of malaise is worming into most of the world’s democracies. For about a quarter
century now, since Francis Fukuyama proclaimed of triumph of “liberal democracy,” people havebegun to speak of the system not only as an evil necessity but also a major historical misstep. Itbrings about a lot of good things (you can see it as a road of hope) but also social discontent. In
2017, Fukuyama himself admitted that he had not expected democracy to be in retreat, and had
no theory to explain how it could happen. Now he knows that it is a distinct possibility.
This year, research by The Economist shows that less than 5% of the world’s population lives in“full democracy.” Using 60 indicators, the research found that 89 out of 167 countries got alower score than the previous year. Democracy is “in recession.”© 2018 International House of Japan and Japan Foundation

ALFP e-magazine issue 1: Democracy

It seems that the ancient misgivings that Socrates voiced in the 5th century BC about democracy
have come back to haunt us. Can the demos form a good republic? Socrates took his analogy fromocean travel. “If you were going on a sea voyage,” he famously asked, “who would you ideallywant to be in charge of the vessel: just anyone, or people trained in the rules and demands ofsailing?” Socrates had a clear answer. He rejected the demos. But he did not find it crucial to probethat idea further.
History shows us that the demos are a concept of fluid identity. That is to say, the demos are
actually an event, contingent to particular time and space. They occupy the street and shout theirslogans as, to use Rancière’s words, “figure of the people.” In 18th-century France, they weregenerally identified as the bourgeoisie oppressed by the aristocracy and the Church. They made asocial entity that was the power base of the leaders of “the French Revolution.”
In 20th-century China, the demos were peasants whose means of production were just hoes —animpoverished class curiously melt into the category of “proletariat” who, according to the diktatof the Maoist party, were supposed to lead them.
In short: the demos are those who make their presence felt by demanding justice and equality—orequality that is also freedom. They are the product of a taxonomy evolved in a given politicalhistory. There are times when history is not that of revolution, but of negotiation concluded by atentative consensus. Since the 18th century, the demos of many parts of the world have been
represented by citizens expected to cast the ballot. In the 21st century, attached to the paradigmof a capitalist system, the demos are “political consumers” and society, to use Hegel’s words fromthe 19th century, the realm of the “system of needs.” Today the demos are perceived as subjects
with private lacks and desires, living most of the time in self-centred worlds.
To be sure, the taxonomy of the demos is never accurate. There is a structural inability to fix it butwith a contingent and tentative labelling, especially in our era, the time of utmost mobility. Whenthe demos are treated as consumers, we know that they are not as autonomous as assumed. The
myth of the consumer as king is bogus. The voter-to-be, the “consumer,” is a product of thepower that generates political campaigns, just as buyers of perfumes are directed by labels andadvertisements.
Recently we found out that the personal data collected through Facebook are gathered andturned into a huge bank of information (“Big Data”) to be manipulated. The aim is to bring out
the voter’s political preference. It is a case of Foucauldian “technologies of discourse” parexcellence. In other words, the voter/consumer does speak, but in an inorganic conversation.
The idea of “representation” has therefore become problematic. Institutionalised representationof the popular will is always a delayed practice. Deleuze is quoted as saying that representationpresupposes presentation, but since this original presentation never appears, “the representation© 2018 International House of Japan and Japan Foundation

ALFP e-magazine issue 1: Democracy

too lacks meaning.” There is a necessary time gap between the initial articulation of populardemands and the production of procedures and policies.
As follows, there is a temporal shift, and a spatial one as well. The focus of deliberation often
drifts along the distance between the site and the social setting of the demos and theirrepresentatives, especially in a vast archipelagic country like Indonesia. Ultimately, at a certain
stage of the political process, they will find themselves alienated.
Their mutual estrangement disrupts the deliberative rationale. The so-called “mild voice of reason”
becomes more and more inaudible. This may bring in the impulse for extra-parliamentary
contestation. The temptation is latent in the history of Indonesian politics. Both during theperiod of Sukarno’s “guided democracy” (1958–1966) and Suharto’s “New Order” (1966–1998),
authoritarian/bureaucratic management of conflicts was the product of a disillusion withparliamentarism after a brief experiment with constitutional democracy (1945–1958).
Theoretically, it is possible the current political format will have to face a resurgence of the utopiaof popular will or to deal with the demand for an unmediated rapport (and tension) between thestate and society. The so-called ‘populist’ appeal is real. It replaces deliberative process both in
the parliament and the judiciary with the force of mass rallies in city streets.
The mythical colloquium of reason meets its nemesis, i.e. the mythical unity of the demos—a unity
shaped by a rejection of the Other. The election of the mayor of Jakarta in early 2018 was a casein point: a highly respected incumbent, with an impressive record of achievement as a cityadministrator, was unseated after an upsurge of ethnic and religious demagogy against him, adevoted Christian. His defence was even misrepresented as an insult to Islam, the religion of themajority. And he was jailed.
As the presidential election campaigning gets underway for 2019, Indonesia remembered theeffect, and side-effects, of “populism.” One wonders whether another tsunami of bigoted
campaigning will mark the race. On top of that there is also a legitimate concern that the election(inevitably an expensive ritual) will be a rerun of oligarchic contest, no matter who or what will
win. But that’s the rub: it is the karma of democratic process, or struggle if you will, that it will
never lead to the promised land of happiness.
Politics entails disappointment: it is an unfinished project of freedom and justice, contested bydifferent agents engaging in the struggle for supremacy. And yet the love letter from the demos, by
the demos, for the demos, is only half-forgotten. It is what makes politics necessary, alive, andmeaningful.

The contents of this article reflect solely the opinions of the author.

© 2018 International House of Japan and Japan Foundation