Underlying the political culture of all countries is the view that morality is different in private life and politics. But in dishevelled countries such as Guyana a crude form of this belief is widespread even among the populace. Some seek to justify the vilest political act with: “ha, it’s politics!”
We persistently hear that political leaders are not expected to give in without a fight and even the line between legal and moral requirements is here blurred. The major objectives of politicians are to come to power and to stay there by almost any means. Thus, there are those who say that Desmond Hoyte was a fool to cede power to the PPP/C in 1992 and that the PPP/C would be idiotic not to do all it can to keep itself in power today!
This view is reinforced by the almost universal nature of the language politicians use, even when speaking in quite different contexts. Thus, President Obama doing everything to stay a second term in the White House does not and cannot include manufacturing reasons not to perform constitutional functions.
In Guyana, the situation is different. For example, the constitution requires local government elections to be held now but, according to the Stabroek News, asked when elections will be held, the president stated “As far as local government elections are concerned I cannot be oblivious to the political situation that exists in this country and further I say not.” This left the newspaper to conclude that “there is only one plausible inference that can be drawn and this is that the President is holding in reserve the option of calling early general elections and therefore preparations for long-awaited local government elections cannot begin” (Free and fair local government elections” SN: 12/05/2014).
Of course, the reasons for the universality of this belief have to do not only with the actions of politicians themselves but also with the invention and distillation of raison d’etat, i.e. the notion that the interest of the state has priority over private morality, by Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527). As he said in his famous work The Prince “A prudent ruler … cannot, and should not, keep his word when keeping it is to his disadvantage and when the reason that made him promise no longer exists.”
As well known, to be Machiavellian is to be associated with all manner of political chicanery to hold on to power. Yet I believe that if Machiavelli was using his method today his recommendations to princes who wanted to succeed, would be vastly different.
Machiavelli was a child of the Renaissance with ambitions very much suited to his time. He admired Christopher Columbus and sought to do for politics what Columbus did for geography.
He told us something of his method in The Prince: “I depart from the orders of others…..But since it is my intent to write something useful to whoever understands it, it has appeared to me more fitting to go direct to the effectual truth of the thing than to the imagination of it. And many have imagined republics and principalities that have never been seen or known to exist in truth; for it is so far from how one lives to how one should live that he who let go of what is done for what should be done learns his ruin rather than his preservation.”
This then is Machiavelli’s ‘realpolitik’. His recommendations are based not on how the state ought to be ruled but on how the successful princes of history actually behaved. He built his realism by studying the activities of leaders such as the biblical Moses, Cyrus the Great, etc.
If Machiavelli was living today, his recommendations would be quite different. For one thing, even if, as some have suggested, his intention in writing The Prince was to curry favour with the then ruling prince of Florence, today he would have had to address his work to The President’. The implications of this are enormous, but will not detain us.
He would have seen too that in the second decade of the 21st century, successful princes are not those who hold on to power at all cost and are certainly not those who use terror against their populations in the manner he had suggested.
He would have noted perhaps in retrospect, that the arrest of former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998 in connection with hundreds of human rights violations, tax evasion and embezzlement during his 17 year rule was a watershed for those seeking to consider the effectual truth of how 21st century leaders are expected to behave. He would also have noted that since Pinochet, numerous leaders have been dragged before international courts for various kinds of human rights violations.
The situation in the autocratic Middle East would have been of particular interest to him. There the powerful President Muhammad Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was forced to leave office as the result of popular pressure and he and his sons have been placed in prison for everything from corruption, abuse of power, ordering the shooting of peaceful protesters and being associated with the assassination of his predecessor.
But perhaps more confusing for him, Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president for thousands of years, was also ousted after a popular uprising and by November 2013 he too was on trial, for incitement of murder and violence.
Recognising a possible Mubarak revival, all poor Morsi did was to give himself unlimited powers to legislate without judicial review, sought to introduce an Islamic-orientated constitution he thought best for his country, intimidated a few journalists and attacked nonviolent demonstrators!
To complete Machiavelli’s reeducation to 21st century realities and perhaps most apt for those in power in Guyana, earlier this month, Thailand’s Constitutional Court ousted the Prime Minister for abuse of power, transferring an official for her own benefit and (take note) further deepening divisions in the country!
With these effectual truths, Machiavelli would not have failed to see, and nor can we, that in terms of political accountability the moral landscape has shifted significantly against political profligacy, even that which existed only a few decades ago. The gap between public and private morality is closing rapidly: all is not politics!
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
