RANDOM MUSING ON ‘REVOLUTION’ (II)

By Mohammed Adamu

The law –for all its vaunted rectitude- has not always strictly been about what is ‘right’ or what is ‘wrong’. It has always been about what is permissible from what is not.

Nor are the conventional norms regulating electoral democracy some kind of Mosaic tablet hauled down from Mount Sinai unto the Rock of Gibraltar.

Whatever the majority in a democracy chooses, provided it is not inconsistent with the law and the Constitution, that cannot be wrong. Plus the democratic majority has the liberty also to use its numbers to amend the law, -to make it amenable to its shifting whims.

The democratic minority may inquisition even the lawful conduct of the majority, but it cannot contain, control or curtail it.

The minority grouching about the lawful conduct of the majority is as ineffectual as ‘the howling of Irish wolves against the appearance of the moon’ –a poignant metaphor revealing the limit of minority right, that it’s howling though necessary, must not change a thing.

It is such a cruel fate really that even if the democratic majority whimsically and capriciously stares the ship of state into troubled waters, all that the minority has the right to do is wail. That is the proverbial ‘say’ that democratic norm allows it.

It can scream, it can yell, but it dares not kick; because to resist the lawful discretion of the democratic majority is tantamount to usurping the prerogative of the majority, -in having a ‘way’.

Charlie Boy’s ‘Resume or Resign’ campaign ignored this limit, until a whiff of the majority’s anger at Wuse Market missed him by the whiskers! They had had their ‘say’ just singing ‘our mumu don do!’

They should just have left it at that. They had no right to determine when the ‘mumu’ of the majority should be enough. The majority can choose to be wise or foolish –including also choose how long to remain so.

Truth is the minority has no democratic right to make demands or give ultimatums. And so, the only ‘right’ that a ‘minority’ can have in a democracy, is strictly the right to ‘dissent’ without creating ‘dissension’; or the right to ‘disagree’ –without being ‘disagreeable’.

As historian Daniel J. Boorstin would say: “A liberal society thrives on disagreement but is killed by dissension, and that whereas “Disagreers seek solutions to common problems; dissenters seek power for themselves.”

Yet democratic minorities in their desperate bid to justify their right also to the expression of revolutionary anger, have contrived –and often prefer- the term ‘moral minority’ suggesting that during seasons of anomie, when virtually all the normative values of a society appear to have broken down, even they can be its avenging angel.

In truth, not even a ‘moral minority’, outside the due democratic process, has the justification to arrogate the right or to suffer the obligation either to save the ‘people’ from a political ‘affliction’ that they are determined to forebear, or to confer on them a ‘relief’ that they are not prepared to enjoy.

It is the way of all ‘civilized’ democracies, that even self-righteous oppositions must be patient to bide their time with superior argument –not to seize opportune moments with lethal narratives, to subvert the system.

By the way, ‘morality’ too –and not only law- is what the majority at any time also decides what it should be. Said the British philosopher A. N. Whitehead: “What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like”.

The right of the ‘people’ in a democracy to ‘freely’ and ‘willfully’ elect or remove their governments is sacrosanct; and that at no time and under no guise should that right be abridged by any person, group or institution even for the reason that the people may not be sophisticated enough to handle that power.

The people may freely install ‘bad governments’ or even bring down ‘good’ ones –provided they do so through the due democratic process. It is in the periodic exercise of this power that the ‘people’ assert themselves as the repository and conferrer of political authority.

In addition to possessing that power –ad nauseam and ad libitum- the people also possess the right to exercise it however they wish! And maybe it is the reason John Patrick said democracy is “the right (even) to make the wrong choice.”

Or as the 18th century poet and diplomat, James Russell Lowell said, that democracy “gives every man a right to be his own oppressor”. What the majority sows on election day the entire nation reaps in all the days of (mis)governance.

As someone ominously said, sometimes ‘democracy is ‘four wolves’ and a ‘lamb’, voting on what to have for lunch.’ What do you expect?

And that is just the way that the democratic ‘cookie’ crumbles. It is not in vain that the other name for democracy is ‘majority rule’; nor is it for nothing that they say ‘the majority’ is always right’.

It has never meant being ‘right’ in the sense of being truthful -it is merely in the sense of being numerically correct. The ‘minority’ being a ‘tail’ in the democratic enterprise, it should not ‘wag’ the ‘dog’. It should be wagged by the ‘dog’.

And maybe it is the reason that Lord Acton, the British historian said “The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority”. Call it dictatorship of the majority. Or the despotism of the ‘many’ over the subservience of the ‘few’.

It is not necessarily in the merit of its choice or in the morality of its position that the majority is entitled to ride roughshod over the minority, it is merely in the greatness of its number.

That is the nature of all democratic majorities, -that whether they are achieved by the simplest or suppermost of margins, they are bound always to get what they want -if not by merit, then by count.

When the majority exercises its constitutional right to approve a measure, that measure does not have to be the best; in fact it will not matter that it is even the worst.

Conversely when a majority rejects a particular measure, that measure does not have to be bad; nor will it matter too that it is the best measures.

It is this rampaging power of the majority that David Robertson said, has continued to be the concern of political philosophers “whether or not a majority vote really represents a positive preference, or simply a relative preference for one rather than another of a set of unpopular alternatives.”

All the same, it makes even moral sense to suggest that the ‘many’ alone should have a right to decide the fate of the ‘few’ and not that the few should arrogate to themselves the right to decide the fate of the many.

Whatever the law subordinates to the electoral process it has technically subjugated to the caprices of the majority.

Often in parliaments, some of the best legislative measures are voted down by the faintest –often un-discernable- ‘majority voice vote’. Even a majority ‘unjust’ ruling of a panel of judges represents the position of the law in spite –sometimes- of the superior reasoning in a dissenting (or minority) judgment.

Fact is, no matter how the democratic minority dislikes the way the democratic majority governs, it only has recourse to the courts to challenge obvious breaches of the Constitution, or wait till the next election or just wail.

It is only in Nigeria that any Tom, Dick or Harry can wake up on the wrong side of their political slumber to proclaim ‘Nigerians are tired of this Government’; and then they arrogate also a most ludicrous entitlement to demand the resignation of the President.

Sowore who had 33,000 votes and whose party did not even win a council seat- said 85% of Nigerians (about 160million people) supported his call for a revolution!

And he wanted a President to vacate office who won 16million votes and whose party won about 20 governorship seats, several hundred seats in parliament and hundreds and thousands of Local Government chairmanship and councillorship seats respectively.

And you wonder, who could the American writer, Wyndham Lewis be referring to when he said “The revolutionary simpleton is everywhere”.

concluded