Developing a truth-telling democracy

If there ever was a time when Jamaica needed a truth-telling democracy, it is now. Democracy is usually thought to be about regular, competitive elections held freely and fairly. To this we have added respect for human rights. To that we accept the right of interest groups and civil society to advocate their interests and causes. To all of these we expect to be held to higher standards of good governance so that what we do is participatory, accountable and transparent. But none of these seems to have broken through the deep and growing cynicism we and citizens in many countries hold towards democracy.

Despite the great improvements that we have made to our electoral administration; the recent passage of the Charter of Rights; the growth and coalitions of civil-society groups; and good governance standards through public-sector modernisation, along with freedom of access to information, cynicism towards government and politics seems to have increased. Some quarters have now come to call the parliamentary parties 'gangs', as troubling an insinuation in such a violent society as ours as when a university professor in Barbados refers to Chris Gayle as a 'don' of West Indies cricket.

The evidence for truth-telling is gathering. Portia Simpson Miller recently used her Budget presentation to beseech her parliamentary colleagues to rise above the usual partisanship and tribal mentality so that no one would have reason to refer to them as gangs. Scholars are citing the recent publication of the Latin American Public Opinion Project survey showing once again that Jamaicans express great distrust towards their political institutions.

Over the past year, there has been more demand for truth-telling than at any other time that I can remember. The Manatt-Dudus affair has caused the PNP, a coalition of civil-society organisations, an umbrella of church organisations, private-sector organisations and the society, as a whole, to demand the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Out of curiosity, we have witnessed the most-watched commission of enquiry in our history.

There might be no wind of change blowing, but it was instructive that Cuba's Raul Castro told his National Assembly last December about the need to tell the truth about Cuba's economic situation. He seemed to want a new socialism, a truth-telling socialism. Our own democracy, too, must move on. It must judiciously go beyond dogma to more evidence-based policies; beyond secrecy to transparency; beyond elitist control of the traditional media to determine what we ought to know to a democratic right to know. It must go beyond Budget Debates and commissions of enquiry that put more on spin, deception and propaganda than on truth.

Wiki-Truths

When all else has failed, we seem to have come down to Wiki-truths. WikiLeaks has given insights into goings-on that our usual power structures have failed to expose. WikiLeaks, mind you, doesn't itself tell the truth. It provides information upon which we must make judgements. Some of that information is based on the not-infallible judgements of diplomats who are sending information home. Even those 'facts', such as in the Hay-Webster's dual-citizenship case, have to be interpreted against other information and the law. We still need to make the truth our truth.

It seems as though we have made a start. Probably a new paradigm for democracy is indeed emerging, a truth-telling paradigm. Dr Jermaine McCalpin of the Department of Government at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies presented a report to a public gathering on May 19. There is something called a Truth and Justice Action Group driving a truth-telling initiative, and the research that went into this report was supported by the United Nations Development Programme.

It is a modest step in the beginning stages of this movement but it has important partners among a coalition of civil-society organisations and the churches. Dr McCalpin stressed that truth commissions, of which there have been about 40 around the world, are not panaceas for all the problems we ascribe to politics and governments. For example, there would be many technical- administrative-political issues that would have to be resolved in setting up and proceeding with a truth commission. These include: terms of reference, funding, choice of commissioners, apportioning liability, securing criminal prosecution, determining violations to be examined, and winning confidence in its work.

Many of these issues actually arise in commissions of enquiry; and other forms of enquiries are also subject to questions of confidence in the investigations and the findings, such as enquiries by Parliament, the director of public prosecutions, the public defender, the contractor general and the courts. In fact, Dr McCalpin and his partner organisations revealed that only 57 per cent of those who they interviewed - a majority but not an overwhelming one - thought that truth commissions were the appropriate form of truth-seeking.

Also, and Dr McCalpin was right to emphasise this, getting the truth out does not automatically amount to reconciliation between the divided and antagonistic partisans. Truth and reconciliation do not automatically go together. And, as the lecturer noted, there is no direct path from truth to reconciliation anyway. To get from one to the other requires a justice system or justice procedures that settle anger and compensate for loss fairly and proportionately. So, Jamaican democracy will need more than just truth commissions. It will need a better justice system and effective arrangements for reconciliation. It might even need these to suit each case and each community.

Democracy as Industry

Democracy, in fact, needs a range of professionals trained in research and development of new ideas, models and methods; and new knowledge of how things work or don't work (institutions, communities, societies); across a range of disciplines like political science, law, administration, sociology and psychology. However, we have never approached the study and the project of democracy this way.

Yet, these new professionals could make a big difference. Truth, justice and reconciliation could build trust, tolerance, and solidarity which, in turn, would lead to peace and the conditions for working together in business, sports, religion, family, and all those aspects of living that make society more productive. Without this, we get what we now have - overwhelming cynicism, apathy, powerlessness, and escapism (including violence, migration, and getting rich quickly).

The Jamaican Justice System Reform Task Force reported in 2007 that the most common complaint by Jamaicans was the inequality existing in the justice system between the rich and the poor, and the powerful and the powerless. As long as this continues, Jamaicans will remain cynical. They are cynical towards the Manatt-Dudus enquiry. Will cynicism get worse in the aftermath of what the US Embassy calls a two-faced prime minister? Did that enquiry serve the rich and the powerful, or the search for truth? Is or would this be the problem with enquiries into FINSAC, Olint, cancellation of a minister's visa, dual citizenship, Sandals Whitehouse, the Tivoli incursion, or any number of scandals going on now?

It is to external sources that we seem to have to turn to get the truth. We must not believe those sources blindly. But we must go where they lead.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.