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Hello, 

Hiermee 'n oorsig van die ontwikkeling van demokrasie in Europa en die lesse wat daaruit geleer kan word, soos geneem uit Democracy in Europe A History of an Ideology by Luciano Canfora en vertaal deur Simon Jones en deel van "The Making of Europe Series" onder die redakteurskap van Jacques Le Goff. 

The belief that democracy is a Greek invention is rather deeply rooted. One consequence of this crude notion was apparent when the draft preamble to the European constitution was published on May 28, 2003. Those who drew up that text included former French president Vale´ry Giscard d’Estaing. In the preamble to the European constitution, Pericles’ words appear in this form: 

‘‘Our Constitution . . . is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole of the people.’’

In the weighty oration that Thucydides attributes to him, Pericles says:

‘‘The word we use to describe our political system [it is clearly modernistic and erroneous to translate the word politeia as ‘‘constitution’’] is democracy because, in its administration [the word used is in fact oikein], it relates not to
the few but to the majority [‘‘power’’ therefore does not come into it, let alone ‘‘the whole of the people’’]. 

For the opponents of the political system that was based around the people’s assembly, therefore, democracy was a system
that destroyed freedom.

Thucydides’ Pericles takes a step back, saying: we use democracy to describe our political system simply because we are in the habit of referring to the principle of the ‘‘majority’’; nevertheless, we uphold freedom.

Thus can we start to understand the gaffe committed by those who crafted the preamble to the European constitution. They had learned at
school, perhaps at a fairly junior level, that ‘‘Greece invented democracy’’: a nonsensical formula and so schematic that, looked at in depth, it proves false.

Hence the most brilliant and, in its way, classical solution: to make Thucydides say what he does not say. 

There is nothing by any Athenian writer that sings the praises of democracy. And this is no coincidence.

Demokratia – both concept and word – was forged in the heat generated by all these problems. From the earliest mentions it has always been a word denoting ‘‘conflict,’’ a factional term, coined by the higher classes to denote the ‘‘excessive power’’ (kratos) exercised by the non-property-owning classes (demos) when democracy reigns.

Let us start with the first question. Who holds citizenship? Polis denotes the whole of the politai who, by virtue of who they are, are also politeuomenoi: that is, they exercise the right of citizenship.

If we look at the best-known and most typical example, Athens, we see that at the time of Pericles this priceless right was possessed by relatively few: adult males (of an age eligible for military service) as long as both their parents were Athenian and they were born free men. The last was a severe restriction considering that, at a conservative estimate, the ratio of free men to slaves was one to four.
Moreover a considerable number of people must have been born of only one ‘‘pure-blooded’’ parent. It is obvious Athens practiced a restricted form of democracy. Non-property-owners occupied an inferior position politically. In short, their situation was not far removed
from that of those who were not free. Citizenship was therefore a precious privilege that was granted sparingly, and which demanded and involved firm and exclusionary criteria aimed at keeping to a minimum the number of people who enjoyed it. 

'n Kort voorbeeld van wat gebeur het toe daar gepoog was om burgerskap in 'n uur van nood uit te brei: 

Hyperides, a highly respected politician proposed that a vast army be formed – by immediately freeing some 150,000 slaves. However, he was immediately dragged before a court, accused of ‘‘illegality’’ – the most dreaded charge in Athens, against the improper, unheard-of, opening of the floodgates in broadening citizenship. The full citizens of Attica, who numbered not many more than 20,000 at the time, would have been ‘‘submerged’’ in the much bigger numbers of a democracy that encompassed everyone. 

Needless to say the accusers was completely successful in their action against Hyperides’ ‘‘illegal,’’ & ‘‘antidemocratic’’ initiative.

Daar word nou beweeg nou na die 1600's in die lang kronkelpad na demokrasie en die verskillende bedoelings wat in die woord demokrasie opgesluit is:

On January 4, 1649 the Rump Parliament – that is, what remained of the Long Parliament after the ‘‘mutilation’’ (the arrest of 90 members of the intransigent Presbyterian wing) inflicted by Pride’s Purge on December 6,1648 – ratified this principle, which can be seen as the culmination of the first English revolution. 

Thanks to Ireton’s, (Cromwell’s brother-in-law), arguments, the vision of England’s distant and recent history led to the blocking of the radicals’ demand for true universal suffrage. 

‘‘We believe that all people who have not compromised their inherent right should have an equal vote in the elections.’’ 

The expression ‘‘inherent right,’’ coupled with the theory of the Anglo-Saxons’ ancient liberty, was used as the grounds for the argument that, in any case, not all members of a community were necessarily equal with regard to the right to vote, and that such a right was connected to ‘‘ethnic’’ origin.

There is not a word about the ‘‘others.’’ The political freedom and greater equality demanded by these revolutionaries rested on two pillars: the ideological basis provided by the Bible on the one hand, and the ‘‘nation,’’ the ‘‘race,’’ on the other.

Die hoofstuk brei ook uit oor die Amerikaanse kolonies en sal nie in hierdie brief uitgelig word nie, net soos die omstandighede rondom die Franse Revolusie bespreek word. Dit word wat hierdie brief betref ook verby gegaan om by 1912 te arriveer. 'n Bonaparte, maar wel van 1852 is die baken waarvandaan verder beweeg word:

Sixty years were to pass between the presidential decree of February 2, 1852 –with which Louis Bonaparte reorganized the electoral system after the new constitution was promulgated –and Giovanni Giolitti’s reform of 1912, which vastly extended the right to vote and is optimistically described as universal suffrage by some Italian historians. It is striking that, in contrast to Bonaparte’s legislation, Giolitti’s reform was still partly restrictive. Both limited suffrage to men; it was extended to women only with the Russian revolution.

This was clearly a big step forward for Italy, given that until 1880 only 2 percent of the kingdom’s population had the vote, a figure that rose to 10 percent with the reform of 1882. At the 1913 elections, after Giolitti’s reform, 23 percent of the population had the right to vote. 

Hierdie is nie as vordering gesien nie: 

Liberal coolness towards universal suffrage is well documented in the work by Croce, "Storia d’Europa nel secolo decimonono (1932)", in vibrant, polemic terms. 

Croce seeks a clear distinction between ‘‘liberal beliefs, mores, and actions’’ on the one hand and ‘‘suffrage that is broad to a greater or lesser degree, or even universal’’ on the other. 

The breadth of suffrage, he asserts, ‘‘tells us nothing about the extent or depth of liberalism.’’ The implication is that a ruling elite imbued with ‘‘liberal beliefs’’ can impart a far more free character to the whole of society than can the abstract, merely arithmetical device of suffrage extended to all. He takes issue with certain countries where suffrage is ‘‘very broad,’’ and especially with universal suffrage itself, ‘‘[which is] often very dear to the enemies of freedom: feudal lords, priests, kings,and demagogues or adventurers.’’ This is far less detached language than Croce devoted a few years earlier to the ‘‘wisdom’’ of Giolitti’s reform. It also conveys an unshakeable pessimism regarding that indiscriminate and potentially dangerous form of admission to ‘‘citizenship.’’ The following illustration compares large European states, but the chief comparison appears to be between England and Germany.

England had a more restricted suffrage than France or Italy or even Germany, with conditions laid on voters of having to own a house or to have a certain income represented by the amount of rent paid, and other similar requisites; and yet her [England’s] life of liberty was not inferior to that of France and Italy, and was certainly far superior to that of Germany.

The history of the very slow progress of universal suffrage in England is a particularly instructive one. It helps us rid ourselves of the recurrent Anglocentric rhetoric that paints England as the geometric center and natural home of a perpetual freedom, continuously existing in this blessed country from the Magna Carta of 1215 until the present day.

This freedom supposedly endured undisturbed (despite two revolutions, the beheading of a king, and a lengthy interlude of republican dictatorship) while the rest of the continent was gripped by madness, especially after the French Revolution. Burke’s Reflections on the events in France and, in literature, Dickens’s regrettable novel A Tale of Two Cities (1859) have contributed to keeping this cliché alive and only in 1895 was near-universal suffrage achieved: all adults with their own lodgings (whether rented or
owned) and all owners of property yielding rent of £10 were at last admitted to the electorate.

The Prussian chamber continued to be elected on the basis of quotas assigned to the three ‘‘classes’’ (Dreiklassensystem). The Reichstag, which was the parliament of the whole empire, was elected by universal suffrage (with none of the restrictions that survived in France, or the ridiculous English contrivances that tied the right to vote to the status of the head of a family, or to the ownership or occupation of a house).

What is less widely known is that as late as 1918, immediately after the First World War, some voters – despite the existence of ‘‘universal’’ suffrage – had the right to vote twice,11 and women (as long as they were aged 30 or above, naturally) had the right to vote on condition that they owned property or were married to property owners.

Die stand van demokrasie in wat beskryf word as ‘‘The European civil war - 1917-1945’’, word ook bespreek. 

There is merit in attempting to understand Europe’s twentieth-century wars in a unitary fashion. This should be an analysis of the links that make the two world wars a single conflict, as far as Europe is concerned.

The First World War itself was the first act of the ‘‘European civil war’’. Revolution broke out in Russia and achieved unhoped-for and unexpected success precisely because it was a war waged on war by the classes who were victims of the inhuman, imperialistic, conflict aimed at dominating world markets.

This is a telling vision, but it is almost naive. Europe was immersed in slaughter by the very classes that had made it the garden of the world; it was they who began the ‘‘civil war.’’ Common people looked favorably on Lenin because their other masters throughout history had given them war and hunger.

What really matters however – in facing the inescapable fact of the immense political, social, and military conflict (and sometimes all three at once) which shook Europe between 1914 and 1945 – is not to discard the argument stated, but to establish the elements involved. There were not two of these (communism and fascism, in its various forms) but three, and the third was the most important.

The third element being the classes that had supported the parties in government until then (liberals, radicals, and so forth) gradually withdrew all favor, lost faith in ‘‘parliamentary democracy,’’ and chose fascism instead. Social tensions, the ‘‘fear’’ and the discredit into which parliamentary systems had fallen, all shifted centrist-moderate opinion towards that choice.

By this time, even in ‘‘respectable’’ countries fascism had become normality. 

These and other critical voices were developing a debate on the nature and real mechanisms of democracy that had begun long before, springing up and gathering momentum fueled by daily observation of political-parliamentary societies during 40 long years of peace. It had its roots in the ‘‘elitist’’ criticism of the apparent ‘‘democracy’’ of parliamentary systems.

This criticism had, to varying degrees, inspired all the postwar protagonists: the architects of fascism and of the ‘‘conciliar’’ system (with the considerable complication that the ‘‘dictatorship of the proletariat’’ had become in reality the ‘‘dictatorship of the party’’). The latter found the old system of parliamentary government – dusted down for the postwar period, and tempted on all sides by fascism – intolerable. They therefore advocated a radical renewal of democracy that was not dissimilar in its content to the way the soviet system had structured society: ‘‘justice’’ was to complement, and if necessary correct, ‘‘liberty.’’ Their programs were to have a lasting echo in the attempt (of which more later) after the fall of fascism to found democracies in Europe that were no longer eroded by the flaws that the two inter-war decades had so glaringly exposed.

Naturally they played into the hands of the other two ‘‘solutions,’’ fascism and the soviet revolution. 

The change in alliances that led to the Yalta peace produced a situation that was profoundly changed once more, and not only in political and military terms. All the judgments and rallying cries of the inter-war period had become inadequate.

For several years (which were highly productive in terms of institutions) antifascism provided common ground for political cultures that had succeeded in surviving fascism because they had chosen to fight it, with the common aim of not reviving the old ‘‘liberal democracies’’ that had given birth to fascism in the first place. History, in other words, was not resuming where it left off once the ‘‘interlude’’ of fascism had passed; it was continuing, enriched by everything that had taken place in the meantime, but starting from a completely different point.

The aim, therefore, was to incorporate the fruit of the struggles and victories of the first half of the century – into the constitutions that were being written from 1946 onwards. Catholic ideas about society also made a contribution.

Examples of the fruit the struggles and the victories brought: 

(En is die verwagting dat die leser aspekte van die Suid-Afrika grondwet sal erken)

Regulation of property and of social rights. 

‘‘Contempt for race or nationality’’ punishable under the law. 
‘‘the right to material assistance in old age, and likewise in the event of illness and loss of the ability to work’’ 
‘‘the right to free education, including further education’’
‘‘the right to be given a guaranteed job, with a wage that corresponds to the quantity and quality of the work’’
‘‘Private property may, in cases stipulated by the law, and on payment of compensation, be expropriated on the grounds of the public interest.’’

Historical processes can be broken up into segments only arbitrarily and in abstract terms. Once this is fully appreciated we can take account – in contrast to those who believe in the ‘‘revolutionary break’’ – of the fact of continuity.

To return to where we started in our overview: the good constitution-builders of Strasbourg, who applied themselves to writing a ‘‘European constitution’’ – thought that involving Pericles was a mere rhetorical flourish. But inadvertently they hit the nail on the head. Pericles is very uncomfortable when he uses the word democracy, and places all his emphasis on freedom. Without realizing it, they had turned to the noblest possible text to utter not a piece of edifying rhetoric but rather what truly needed to be said: that freedom has won with all the terrible consequences this has, and will continue to have. There exists, despite everything, a ‘‘human nature’’ – as the Greek historians and Machiavelli called it – that forms a rock-solid substratum to events.

Hierdie bevestig die kronkelpad van die reg van mense om te stem, dat dit relatief nuut is en die feit dat jy nie voorheen die reg gehad het om te stem nie, nie beteken dat dit nie vir jou waardevol is nie of jou nie toekom nie of dat jy dit nie verlang nie. Dit bevestig ook dat die mensdom van die begin van sy geboorte moes veg vir hierdie reg en dat baie bloed gevloei het tot die moontlikheid van vryheid die "norm" begin word het, hoe problematies demokratiese vryheid ook al mag wees, soos gesien kan word selfs hier in ons eie land, waar die EFF nou selfs vir die wittes ekonomiese vryheid belowe.

Baie dankie

Wouter