by Nurul Kabir

… the people of a country cannot make any substantive progress with its vast majority, including women, who constitute more than 50 per cent of Bangladesh’s population, remaining subjugated politically, economically and culturally. And of the vast majority in a political oligarchy like Bangladesh, women remain the worst victims, as they are the victims of, in addition to crude capitalist exploitations, patriarchy.

DEMOCRACY is an evolving political process, both in theory and in practice, that began its ‘modern’ journey in the West in the 18th century. The concept of democracy found its practical political expression in the United States of America and France in 1776 and 1779 respectively. While fighting against English colonialism and French feudalism, the political and philosophical protagonists of democracy had argued that all human beings are ‘born free’ but they are everywhere ‘in chains’ – chains of colonial rule and feudal exploitations, et cetera. The democratic revolutions took place with active supports of men and women, black and white, but the successes of the ‘revolutions’ did not free all – the poor in general and the women and the blacks in particular. The ‘revolutionaries’ of the day, it was practically proved after the revolutions, did not, or failed to, perceive the poor, the women and the black as human beings: they were deprived of all kinds of civil and political rights, particularly including the right to vote and the right to property, that the ‘democratic revolutions’ had promised in the name of ‘equality’.
Things have changed over the centuries. No regime ruling in the name of democracy can now afford to deny, at least theoretically, the equal rights of men and women, white and black, or rich and poor. But things have not changed automatically. The black, the women, and the poor had to wrestle out this recognition through a series of political resistance, separate and collective, against the forces of patriarchy, racism and capitalism. Patriarchy preaches male supremacist views, racism asserts superiority of the one race over the others, while capitalism believes in the bourgeois subjugation of the societies’ other classes of people. The ‘recognition’ of the equality, which has been earned through centuries of painful struggles, still remains limited at the political rhetoric – only in the statute books that is, which remains to be materialised at the familial, social and national levels within the states. Yes, the voting rights of the poor, the women and the black have been practically established, but their economic and cultural equalities still remain a far cry.
Democracy, to be really democratic, therefore, needs to be re-defined to the advantages of the vast majority of the people, if not all, to the advantage of the victims of patriarchy, racism and capitalism that is. The forces of democracy, in that case, have to incorporate into the definition of democracy the economic and cultural equalities of human beings irrespective of their gender, racial or religious identities. Equality, after all, is the key word in the concept of democracy. The political implications of this redefining of democracy is very simple: A state that does not practically recognise the economic and cultural equality of men and women at all levels of life, familial and social included, is not a democratic state in the first place; and the movements that do not consciously aim at dismantling, in one way or the other, the patriarchal, racist and capitalist relations existing in the families, societies and the states, are not fit to be fully qualified as democratic movements.
Anyone looking at the issue of democracy from this point of view would not take much time to realise that the struggle for democracy has not ended anywhere in the world. The bodies of the political philosophers of the United States, France or the United Kingdom, who envisaged democratic equalities in their respective societies centuries ago, must be turning in their graves seeing the crude level of economic inequalities among their citizens. The situation of the great feminists, female and male, who had contested the contemporary theories of democratic revolutions in the past centuries and took active roles in the struggles for women’s democratic emancipation, would not have been any better in their graves had they been able to see the post-modern forms of subjugation of the women in the western democracies. The same would have been the case with those who had fought for racial equalities, as the white races still dominate the rest across the world by the sheer power of money and muscle that the formers have made through the exploitation of the latter.
The situation in the countries like Bangladesh is much worse. The women, the poor, and the people belonging to national minorities are the worst victims of patriarchy, distorted capitalism and the chauvinistic rule of the dominant nationalities, such as Bengalis in Bangladesh, or dominant castes such as Brahmins in India. Dangerous of these all, the ruling classes in these countries have been able to reduce the definition of democracy to mere transfer of power through elections, that to crudely influenced by money and muscle, making politics a very expensive affair. The constitutions of the states in question recognise, as usual, equality of citizens but practically the women and the poor cannot think of contesting elections as they do not have money and muscle at their disposal. The mainstream intelligentsia, which usually remains slave of power everywhere, refuses to publicly contest the distorted concept of democracy that the ruling classes market in the society through hundreds of their official and unofficial propaganda machine.
Under these circumstances, global and local, the country’s genuinely democratic minds have to realise that the people of a country cannot make any substantive progress with its vast majority, including women, who constitute more than 50 per cent of Bangladesh’s population, remaining subjugated politically, economically and culturally. And of the vast majority in a political oligarchy like Bangladesh, women remain the worst victims, as they are the victims of, in addition to crude capitalist exploitations, patriarchy. More importantly, the democratic minds need to realise that the question of the economic and cultural emancipation of women, and subjugated sections of the people, remains a political issue in the first place, while a decisive political victory over crude capitalism, patriarchy and racism remains the only answer to the democratic emancipation of the women, in other words, the emancipation of the people at large.

Sourch: http://www.newagebd.com

Popularity: 1% [?]