So, I love democracy. Or, at least I love voter registration. I
really love the idea of creating a government and a state that best represents
the diverse needs of its people and gains its power from their consent.
However, democracy also makes me very, very nervous. I cannot help but read
democracy in the context of Mignolo's discussions of the imposed value of
Greco-Abrahamic traditions and creations. Democracy, as I learned in
seventh-grade social studies, was created in Greece, and due to its glorious ability
to represent the people and rid them of all oppressive tyrants, it graciously
travelled in the hearts of committed democrats to all the greatest
civilizations that followed. If a state was not democratic, it was making a
mistake because as Rome, France and the British Empire demonstrated, no state
could survive without it and would eventually succumb to its implementation.
Democracy is what the people want and what the people deserve--as long as you
don't ask what people we're talking about.
The United States has, in my understanding, taken on some of the
most dramatic colonial projects in the century and we've accomplished it under
the guise of 'spreading democracy'. It's the same rhetoric that Mignolo warns
against in his discussion of modernity and progress. We disguise colonization
under benefit programs, aid work, war, and occupation to make it more palatable
to the folks at home and further promote 'western ideals', democracy included,
onto others.
I don't like being a part of that rhetoric and that process.
So, like we asked in class, I want to discuss what to do about it. When
domestic and international politics are so complex, convoluted and inaccessible
to the public, what can we do to change?
We're already starting in that process as students/scholars
in this field, but what can we do with it? As someone else asked in class, how
can we make our involvement in this field relevant to our lives post
graduation? Aren't we supposed to become the people who decide what matters? At
least, that's a part of the rhetoric of education and progress on a personal
level. It's all a part of the same narrative, and I'm a little lost in it. What
I know though, is that I no longer feel nearly as comfortable with democracy as
I know it as an arm of the colonizing forces that continue to erase what does
not comply with it. I'm frustrated that I've been convinced that democracy is
the ultimate form of political representation, and I'm frustrated that thanks
to that narrative, I'm not sure what I can do about it.
Dare I say democracy is a colonial offspring, with disastrous implementations. Because of democracy being an "arm of the colonizing forces" I do not genuinely think that it is entirely bad. Mignolo has stated in his reading that to not implement this idea of double thinking and incorporate indigenous and non-indigenous thinking and inventions into our own knowledge, then we are behaving just the same as our colonizers. I think democracy on its own accord could be implemented in a way that encompasses all people, but its current set up creates a win-lose dichotomy that is very exclusionary. Your frustration with not knowing what to do about dealing with democracy's lack of political representation is colonialism's removal of interculturalidad and incorporation of double thinking. We have internalized democracy as the best way and have removed ourselves from improving or doing more substantial work at inclusiveness in terms of our political system. Mignolo is honing in on our inability to remove ourselves from this imperfect system because we have followed colonial imperialism's route. Our struggle now is removing ourselves from it, while still realizing its effects are present. Double thinking is necessary.
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