GOODBYE, 1991

Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 1, 1992 TAG: 9201020160 SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: HOLIDAY SOURCE: By MARSHALL FISHWICK DATELINE: LENGTH: Long

GOODBYE, 1991
STUNNING. SHOCKING. Startling. Goodbye, 1991. You ended not with a whimper but a bang. When a stunned Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown in 1781, the British band played "The World Turned Upside Down." Play it again, Sam.
You, 1991, were a Red Letter Year: red flags down in Europe, red ink up in America, red blood out in Iraq and Yugoslavia. What one word will best mark you in the history books? I suggest democracy.
There was a chain reaction. When the Berlin Wall, like the walls of Jericho, "came tumbling down," all Eastern Europe responded. The whole Third World felt the tremors. Nation after nation, province after province, ethnic group after ethnic group, sought self-rule and freedom.
Finally the U.S.S.R. - long-time adversary and center of Reagan's "Evil Empire" - not only disintegrated but disappeared. Mikhail Gorbachev, who appeared on the scene like the morning star, faded from the heavens. But his championing perestroika and democratic reform stayed on. As 1991 ended, the West was rushing food and medicine to a crisis-ridden East: bread instead of bombs. Now the whole world could rest easier.
Democracy. The word and concept are Greek (demos, meaning people, and kratos, power). "The power of the people" has swept the modern world, but ancient questions remain. Which people - and how many? Surely not all the people. Not women, slaves and barbarians (that is, non-Greeks), said the citizens of ancient Athens. Plato, Thucydides, Tacitus, and many others warned against the mob. So did our Alexander Hamilton. He called the people "a beast." Give them bread and circuses, said the Romans - but not the vote.
Our Founding Fathers were apprehensive too. The American Constitution let "the people" vote only for the House of Representatives; they did not vote directly for senators, the vice president, president, or Supreme Court. And for many states and many years, they did not vote if they were not property-holders, churchgoers, or white males. Thanks to many heroic efforts, those restrictions have been removed; universal suffrage, the idea of democracy itself, has taken root. One man or woman, one vote.
Let's not be too euphoric - don't expect to live happily ever after. China, home of a quarter of humanity, is still staunchly authoritarian, as are North Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba. South Africa is tightly controlled, as are many "friendly allies." But the gains for democracy have been enormous and irrevocable. The record is filled with declarations of independence. No one would have been more pleased than the man who wrote ours, Thomas Jefferson. His prophecy seems fulfilled: "Give the people light, and they will find their way."
The 1991 spotlight has centered on the U.S.S.R. which may have its own Thomas Jefferson with either of two figures. Vladimir Solovyov taps the deep religious sentiment that runs throughout Russia: "Every people, even the very smallest, represents a unique facet of God's design." He echoes America's other great democratic voice, Abraham Lincoln: "God must have loved the little people - he made so many of them." Solovyov has touched the heart of Russia by paraphrasing the Christian commandment: You must love all other people as you love your own.
Nobel-prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, now living in Vermont, makes his view clear in one of 1991's most important books: "Rebuilding Russia." He believes the key is fostering democracy, beginning with small units, where the voters know the candidates and exercise "self-restraint." Good examples would be Switzerland's citizens' assemblies and New England's town meetings. He is an admirer of Alexis de Tocqueville, whose "Democracy in America" (1835) is a classic. Tocqueville saw liberty and equality not as Siamese twins, but polar opposites. He feared (as had Plato) that democracy might degenerate into mobocracy. John Randolph of Roanoke summed it up well: "I love liberty. I hate equality." How can we have both?
One must ask this when viewing democratic elections in Third World countries. The largely illiterate electorate of India often vote for a symbol - an elephant, tiger, star, sickle - rather than a candidate or platform. Results are often bloody and indecisive. India's prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, was assassinated, as was his mother before him. Bangladesh's president, Ershad, is in jail. Who really rules India and Bangladesh today? Who can say?
We need not go to Asia to find democracy in peril. Consider multiparty democracy in Italy. The people are bombarded with party labels instead of ideas: PCI, PRI, MSI, PLI, PDUP, CD, DP. The erratic and spotty technique of TV camera crews shows a parade of politicians who are cramped, insecure, playing to the camera. Shots of the audience reveal massive boredom. Reports from reformers show telltale connections with the Mafia. Who really rules Italy today? Who can say?
Instead of despairing, we must urge improving. But first we must put our own house in order. The year 1991 saw much apathy in our land. We have the smallest percentage of qualified voters going to the polls of any industrialized nation. If charity begins at home, so does democracy. We have a lot of homework to do.
Democracy is on trial throughout the world, on a more colossal scale than ever before. Not since the days of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin have so many problems emerged, at home and abroad. In the 1940s we were (in the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt) "the great arsenal of democracy." In the 1990s, we must be its great hope.
We should neither want nor expect other nations to imitate us. At the heart of democracy is diversity, not conformity. No longer can we argue that our form of governing or living is superior to that of others. But we can heed the wise words of Winston Churchill: "Democracy is the worst form of government - except for all the others." And other apt words of Karl Popper: "One chooses democracy not because it abounds with virtues, but only in order to avoid tyranny."
Back in America, one suspects that James Madison, having studied "the fugitive and turbulent existence of ancient republic," would agree with both Churchill and Popper. Madison might get a nod of approval from his friend and Virginia neighbor, Thomas Jefferson, who reminded us that "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is the natural manure."
Jefferson insisted that we give the people light. Light was a key word for the 18th century enlightenment. In our time, the key seems to be hope. Hope for better jobs, homes, medical care, leaders. Real hope cannot be fabricated or legislated. William Shakespeare knew this when he wrote:
"True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings."
We hope the New Year will prove him right.

Marshall Fishwick is professor of humanities and communication studies at Virginia Tech.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB