Dictatorships

Now that the summer is here and the demands of teaching lessons, marking essays and wearing trousers are no longer upon me, I am able to pick up a book or two and give them some serious attention. With the boys spending the morning in nursery, I sat in the bath and read some of Russell Brand's Irons in the Fire followed by some of J.M Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year. The first book follows West Ham United's 2006-07 season, which included the double-signing of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano; the takeover of the club by Eggert Magnusson and a last day victory at Old Trafford to ensure their Premiership survival. The second book, so far, is split into two narratives: one is the writings and complainings of an academic about what is wrong with the world and the other is his diary which has so far included him meeting a beautiful girl and employing her as his secretary. Every page is split into two halves with the top half an academic discussion and the bottom half his personal diary.

Coetzee is a master at reinventing the novel format. I first came across him in my first year at university when I partially enjoyed his novel Disgrace which won the Booker Prize in 1999. It was his autobiographical trilogy Boyhood: A Memoir, Youth and Summertime that really captivated me though. The last, Summertime, discusses Coetzee's life from the perspective of a third person interviewing people who have known Coetzee at various points in his life after he has died. The people he interviews are blunt and honest and it allows Coetzee to be hugely critical of his own life in a way that very few autobiographers are.

I have barely touched the heading at the top of this page yet, so I must press on: the theme of dictators arose in one of the opening chapters of Diary of a Bad Year. In the academic discussion topping the page, Coetzee discusses the nature of democracy in relation to dictatorships, claiming that their is little freedom in either. Dictatorships demand that you follow Person A and democracy forces you to choose between Person A and Person B when the reality for most people is that they want neither or a little bit of both. In both scenarios people are led by people that they don't really want to lead by and they have no choice about that. He criticises the fact that political debate doesn't take place outside of politics, meaning that people who don't agree with the two main parties don't get to have their voice heard. I can see where he is coming from, but I think he ignores the fact that people surely do have more power in a democracy because if the person in charge keeps doing things that the majority of people disagree with, then they are likely to lose power the next time an election comes round, whereas with a dictatorship, the dictator is pretty much free to do whatever they want because there are few consequences, although a deeply despised dictator may find themselves disposed.

His discussions branched out towards religion and it got me thinking about the relationship between democracy and religion. A faith in a religion will put what that religion says above what the democratically elected person says although a lot of people who don't align themselves with a particular religion will have strong convictions that they will stick to regardless of what a law demands of them - I guess whatever world view we hold is a sort of religion. God is not elected to the position of God, so in some ways he could be accused of being a dictator, but from a Christian perspective God gives us free will to follow him or not making it clear that our destinies are dependent upon this choice as all of our choices have consequences of some kind. This freedom is a key distinction. There's also the fact that Christianity is not about laws, but about a relationship whereas governing a country is about maintaining stability, order and that sort of thing, so the aim is completely different.

I guess my conclusion is that democracy is limited, but is certainly distinctive from dictatorships. However, I also concede Coetzee's point that forced democracy is probably not always the wisest step forward - surely it needs to be discovered, not demanded.