Sylvia Mara de Jess VALLS, Los Ailes en El Fresno, Valle de Bravo, Edo.

de Mxico, 51200 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TENTATIVE PROFILE OF A LEGITIMATE DEMOCRACY

This tentative profile of a legitimate democracy was prepared upon the occasion of the 4th Biarritiz Encounters that convened in Valle de Bravo, State of Mexico, Republic of Mexico, during the days of 29-31 October, 2003, as a Forum for the European and Latin American countries. A more detailed exposition, Guide Towards a New Model of Citizenship Mindful of the Earthly Needs of the Body and the Soul outlines this idea which here comes somewhat closer to completion and also, hopefully, a bit closer to eventual realization. To get to it try: www.prodiversitas.org/des20.htm (English) www.prodiversitas.org/des21.htm (Espaol) Or write to me for these and other related text to: sylviamvalls@yahoo.com Subject: ECOLOGICAL MODEL OF CITIZENSHIP.

ATTENTION: Your commentaries, coincidences, dissidences, questions, suggestions as much as your enthusiasm and support will be thankfully received and considered with utmost attention. THIS TEXT REMAINS OPEN TO PERTINENT CHANGES. I OFFER IT AS PART OF THE RESULTS OF MY INVESTIGATIONS AND REFLEXIONS AND AS A CONTINUATION OF THE ACTIVITIES OF THE SIMONE WEIL INSTITUTE, Valle de Bravo, Edo. De Mxico (1989-1994)

TENTATIVE PROFILE OF A LEGITIMATE DEMOCRACY To the memory of Simone Weil (1909-1943), Ivan Illich (1926-2002) and Celia Cruz (19 -2003), for her indomitably libertarian spirit --as festive at is Cuban and at the same time global. (Hurray! for the good type of globalization and hang the other kind!)
Democracy is good if it has good results, otherwise not so. Simone Weil. For democracy to have good results, it is necessary that it be legitimate. The better results it obtains, the more legitimate it will appear. For it to be legitimate the first condition is that all the necessary information be available to the population along with every opportunity to participate in the decision making process. Whosoever will have to live with the results of such and such a decision should have the final say in regard to it. For the latter to be the case, it is important that all citizens have the opportunity to deposit their confidence in those individuals within their proximity and acquaintance whose abilities and moral fiber appear to be most trustworthy. 1 A legitimate democracy is one in which only the most apt to govern with justice and knowledge in behalf of the well-being of all would tend to be elected. For only the best to reach positions of responsibility, it is necessary that the selection of candidates result from the most transparent process possible and that it be exercised in the absence of passions stirred by partisanship. It means that the contribution of political parties (PPs) to the selection of whosoever the candidates will be and who the elected would tend to be null. The PPs would receive no budget from the public domain: the public funds that they receive at present would be assigned to schools in order to help them with the costs of putting into action programs apt to guarantee the most impartial selection possible of representatives, judges and administrators within the communities in which our schools serve. 2 A legitimate democracy is one in which the composition of the government reflects faithfully that of the entire population.

For a hierarchy to be seen as legitimate it is important that for every man elected there also be a woman. At election time, women would vote for women 2

and men for men. The legislatures (50% men and 50% women) might decide, in relation to executive decisions, for example, which will be left to the male side of the Presidency and which to the female side; also, what specific matters such a two-headed, bi-cephalous, Presidency would be required to decide in common --and, equally, when a decision must be submitted to direct popular consultation etc The prime purpose of such a disposition would be to ensure that womens peculiar point of view, as much as mens, makes itself manifest fully and equitably. The idea is not so much to create a more balanced competition between the two genders as to make sure that the most complete perspectives will be shared, discussed and understood by those citizens most responsible for seeing to it that the common good is brought about for both men and women, equally. 3 A legitimate democracy in todays world --considering the vast wealth of our knowledge and experience, technologies, needs and possibilities-would respect municipal autonomy or self- government, in deed as much as in word; every municipality would grant sovereignty to the bio-region within which it finds itself wedged but only in relation to those matters of interest to it: Water, air, communications among the different regions, the regulation of commerce with a view to ensuring nutritional self-sufficiency (starting with water) of the different localities --along with everything for which intermunicipal and interbioregional cooperation may be required: plague control, fires, epidemic etc, sources of energy and other matters requiring intermunicipal cooperation. Starting with a preliminary selection in each locality or municipality of individuals considered trustworthy and fit for service, a selection of candidates would take place towards the integration of bioregional governments. The interbiorregional governments would be organized with all the bioregions as a base and with greater powers than the United Nations has at present: The interbiorregional government would be a global government whose mandate would result from an intimate connection with the base of the pyramid, constituted by the localities, communities or neighborhoods that make up each municipality. 4 A legitimate democracy would be a democracy able to take into consideration the real health and security of the governing-governed and of realizing those values that have been associated with the idea of democracy. Only a legitimate hierarchy will decide matters of war and peace taking into consideration the true earthly needs of the body and the soul (S.Weil). Its members would feel no obligation whatsoever towards those who enrich themselves thanks to the black market, the exercise of war and the exploitation of human misery (arms and pharmaceutical industries, for example). It will be capable of distinguishing between the valid and fair use of words and a deceptive, 3

manipulative, that is to say, dishonest and unfair, use of them. It will not allow itself to be deceived by propaganda and will discard it, in the greatest measure possible, from the contents of its deliberations. 5 A legitimate democracy would find transparent ways for the exercise of citizenship: of our rights and obligations.

In a democracy worthy of its name --that is to say, legitimate-- citizens would never feel in need of hiding from fellow citizens in order to emit their own judgment, or vote, pertaining to matters important to good government. The secret vote, in combination with the new technologies designed to aid in the voting process, lends itself to the greatest frauds. At the very least, each citizen should have the freedom to decide whether he/she prefers to cast his vote openly, in public, or not so; secret voting would be backed-up by a methodology able to protect it, as much as possible, from fraudulence. The percentage of citizens who choose to cast their vote in public would indicate the measure of voter confidence in the prevalence of the rule of law. 6 In a democracy worthy of its name, personal freedom would not be compromised by governmental actions that have little or nothing to do with the protection of its citizens.

Any law that renders criminal an activity that by its nature must be considered consensual, whatever this activity may be, would be considered unconstitutional. The corollary to this principle is that the Constitution or Fundamental Law would prohibit explicitly that such laws be approved. Only those actions that imply harm to others would be subject to penal action. Thus, Justice would lose no time whatsoever persecuting persons for their personal habits and would thereby be all the more empowered to dedicate all its efforts to the task of preventing and persecuting real crimes. The latter means that it would not be possible to go after anyone for his/her sexual preferences nor for his/her ingestion of any type of mind-altering drugs. The right to privacy would receive the greatest guarantees. The relationship between sex-servers and clients would be considered as a certain type of service contract enabling both sides to feel protected, within certain limits, by the Law. 7 A legitimate hierarchy would legislate so that the interests of childhood and old age would be authentically favored and, with them, those of women: It would leave behind false notions pertaining to the nature and the needs of the most oppressed.

The Biblical prejudice of work as punishment would give way instead to a search for economic activity that is potentially playful, productive not only of objects and services but of physical, mental and spiritual satisfactions along with the material ones: the expansion of the human spirit and the more wholesome realization of our vital aspirations would rule human enterprise. 4

The corollary here would be that everyone would be protected against the crassest exploitation. In this sense, it does not seem fair to pretend to establish any very great differences among the various ages. Prohibitions relative to child employment, for example, not only fail to protect the young from extreme exploitation, but --to the contrary-- guarantee that the very young will be enslaved even more ferociously. At the same time, the employment of unprotected persons of all ages is given a blank check, with the adult population seemingly not worthy of consideration. *
* In fact, social anthropology indicates that the most unrestrained population growth resulted from the possibility of employing ones children and, thus, improving ones own situation by having more of them, rather than less. The alternative was always infanticide, especially of girls. To prohibit the work of children may help parents decide to have less children, but: only when contraception is a universal possibility will such a purpose be truly served. In the meantime, to prevent any human being from employing him/herself without having to do so under the abusive conditions that the black market imposes --when, besides, real alternatives for the satisfaction of ones aspirations are being denied-- seems like a total irresponsibility and absolute cruelty. Only a legitimate democracy would avoid such an illegitimate purpose. Naturally, infanticide against both genders, as much as the unhindered murder of women, both grow daily; and, it is the economic policies that are contributing the most, today, to the suffering and annihilation of children and adults alike. The same counter-productive dynamics is observed in the case of laws that attempt to prevent the population from enjoying certain types of pass-times or, even, from ingesting plants the use of which has been part of our cultural patrimony for thousands of years. This is being done at the same time that the necessary conditions are created for the proliferation of designer drugs that only through a black market mechanism can ensure the handsomest profits. In the meantime, that peoples health should have to rely on the powerful pharmaceutical industry, both legal and illegal, only guarantees that the health of the vast majority of humanity will continue to deteriorate at greater and greater speed. Equally, just as rape and sexual harassment will continue to be considered crimes, when it comes to the expression of their sexuality childhood might aspire to the same rights and obligations recognized for the more mature (second age) or for the aged (third age). At the present time, an intolerable tension prevails between what a child is, or should be, and its true nature. As if hormones began to exert its demands on the very day when one turns eighteen. Nothing more difficult to attain than a responsible sexuality in both the young and the more mature, but: lying to ourselves regarding human sexuality is not the best way of promoting either sound mores or a responsible sexuality. Many human beings, by force, must resort to prostitution in order to feed their children and themselves as well. It is the economic system that dictates the practice. Blaming the victim is no fair game!

Through the exercise of a legitimate democracy, the separation of the three branches of government would be a reality instead of pure fiction and all constitutional freedoms basically guaranteed.

Only a legitimate hierarchy selected thanks to the widest participation by citizens and in absence of social passion fueled by factional interests, will guarantee the true independence of the three branches of government: legislative, executive (or administrative) and judicial. The observance of all constitutional mandates would thereby be more fully guaranteed in all ways. A vast number of decisions would take into consideration the direct scrutiny of the 5

local population through the agency of assemblies and of fraud-proof inquiries into specifically local, regional and interregional matters. The new technology would be at the service of the electoral process for the sake of transparency in the scrutiny, instead of servicing the subversion of the will of the citizenship. The environment created by political parties --the PPs-- only guarantees that propaganda will dominate the news and much of the information, check-mating a transparently democratic process beneficial to society at large. This is why absenteeism today manifests, not a lack of interest among the citizenship, but rather the total exasperation provoked by institutions that are incapable of coming up with a selection of leadership truly promising for the nation and fitfully matched to our circumstances and possibilities (the talent out there going to waste!). The consensus against policies compromised beforehand with more of the same is what has been so very eloquently manifested by voter absenteeism. 9 Only a legitimate democracy will guarantee freedom of religion as much as it will guarantee the free circulation of ideas, seeing to it that propaganda will not stifle, hide or twist information important to the realization of the common good. The atmosphere created by political parties only guarantees that propaganda will dominate the news and communications generally, check mating what might be considered a transparently and beneficial democratic process for society on the whole. This is why absenteeism today manifests, not so much a lack of interest by the citizenship for what goes on but, rather, the exasperation caused by institutions incapable of ensuring the selection of a leadership that is truly promising for the nation and up to par with the momentous circumstances that are ours today. 10 In a legitimate democracy, thousands of language commonwealths, organized throughout the population by means of the multiple kinds of association that are surging forth from day to day across civil society*, would have in their charge the task of facilitating the free circulation of information in each language and promoting the practice of, and respect for, the spaces due to the languages and cultures dwelling in any specific place. * By civil society I understand the totality of: trade and religious associations,
schools, natural or extended families, cultural/linguistic associations (language commonwealths), enterprises producing goods and services and, among the latter, associations related to food production, with their specific requirements for the wellbeing of all and, of which, the degree of alimentary self-sufficiency in food supply for each community would provide the most important measure. Corporations as such have been excluded in view of their proven psychopathic nature.

Towards the realization of such tasks of protection and enhancement of the different cultures, within the context of a legitimate democracy, one of the most interesting topics to discuss and propose would seem to be the installation of a possible variant of the institution of the monarchy. One might then speak of legitimate monarchies whose role would tend towards the ceremonial expression of specific cultural identities and towards the administration of programs designed to bring together and reaffirm the cultural bonds of the different linguistic groups, locally and throughout the globe. This scheme, more supple and realistic than is the nationalistic-republican framework, would allow us a way out of the contradiction between identity (cultural, linguistic) and citizenship (municipal, intermunicipal; regional, interregional --rather than nationalist in the nineteenth century sense still prevailing today ).[* ]To distinguish among ethnic groups by considering what is cultural in nature rather than racial (or racist) considerations, would be a first step towards the separation between what constitutes a certain national identity, more fictitious than real, and what in reality is made up of a multiplicity of ethno-linguistic identities with rooting in a certain number of regional and interregional municipalities, or inter-biorregional entities. Let it be said, in passing, that our individual participation in the cultural matrix of various linguistic associations would not be conflicted in any way, just as the individual participation throughout ones life in a variety of municipalities, need never enter into conflict. The possibility of individual citizenship curricula is something that the new technologies propitiate. It is equally the basis of a well founded hope for the creation of economies of peace within the global/interregional context, instead of the nefarious war economy globally imposed through the nation states and their national armies. To the false and much proclaimed sovereignty of the various states would fallow a more wholesome, true sovereignty of all peoples capable of looking upwards and not just downward.
[* ] The biosphere being a determinant of those exchanges that sustain nourishment, yet not necessarily of the links among those who speak the same language or in relation to their rights and obligations as members of such and such linguistic commonwealths, one is inclined to speak of linguistic regions: the latter, in the cybernetic world, truly would have no frontiers except those that self-interest might elect to recognize --but, from the practical point of view, it might be more convenient to tend to administrative matters through the agency of the bioregion in which the different members of the language commonwealths live, rather than independently from the latter. In any case, here it is pertinent to advance the notion that bioregions in time will suffer alterations as a result of climatic and technological innovations. Such innovations, as long as legitimate democracies becomes a reality, could lead us, in time, towards a world in which the majority of the communities would be eminently selfsufficient --at least as pertains to basic nutrition, energy sources and pharmaceuticals: the three main areas of transnational financial interests outside of the arms industry, the

latter destined, under this model, to reorient its vision in the direction of the struggle against contamination and in behalf of the kind of fellowship and support that emergencies caused by natural disasters will require --locally, regionally, and globally.

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A legitimate democracy would limit the action of the state to those matters in which their action may have a desirable outcome, that is to say, one that is as efficient (practical criterion) as it may be efficacious (moral criterion).

It would recognize constitutional limits to the action of the state and protect human beings from policies that gravely endanger the very survival of the species, taking into consideration the great truth that the state, in its efforts to control beyond where it can effectively impose itself, ultimately destroys everything (S.Weil). The infinite war against terrorism, quite like the war against these socalled drugs (but which and why?!) are incontrovertible examples of this singular truth, which explains why they are UNSUSTAINABLE . If its our health thats at stake, then would it not be much better to spend so much of the budget on a war against pollution and polluters instead of against drug addicts(!?). Equally unsustainable, the chaos and misery inflicted upon human beings by the migratory regulations of centralized national governments, totally incapable of taking into consideration the earthly needs of the body and of the soul (S.Weil) : incapable of knowing very well who is who for the purpose of good government, but quite capable of meddling into anything and everything as long as the reinforcement of illegitimate power remains at stake. This is why it becomes necessary to see to it that families and civil associations --such as trade associations, schools etc-- be the ones charged with establishing, in each municipality, citizens' legal residence, as much for those born in place as for migrants, collaborating with one another in order to see to it that each human being who works, studies or resides in a certain place for a period of time, will be promptly recognized citizen in full rights and obligations. That obligations would help determine ones rights in ones place would turn the balance towards greater justice for all.. Temporary visitors would travel as members of allied municipalities and be identified as such within a context of intermunicipal reciprocity subject to agreements freely entered among municipalities, bio-regionally and interbiorregionally. 12 For being perceived as such, a legitimate democracy would elicit the participation of its citizens to the greatest extent, with brilliant results ensuing in the conception and execution of public policies leading towards the creation of a convivial society (I.Illich) [*]

It would not allow itself to fall into the irresponsible use of words that characterizes an illegitimate democracy. The propagandistic attitude that generates the manipulative use of words would give way to critical analyses, honest and disinterested, by free consciences exclusively interested in seeing to it that the earthly needs of the body and the soul be satisfied [**]. It would not confuse low case life with high case Life, for example: that is to say, it would know enough to distinguish what constitutes only a means towards an end from that which may be considered, legitimately, an end itself --legislating and executing so that the end we are after may be realized, instead of the means becoming the end of it all: this involves, among other things, never allowing a financial system to operate in which money has turned into the end-all of most transactions, thereby relinquishing the power to satisfy the very purpose for which it is supposed to exist: i.e., to facilitate bartering, or the fair exchange of goods and services. [*] For a first sketch of the depth and greatness of Ivan Illich, please visit his site www.ivanillich.org. The least and the most that I may be able to say about such a society, at this point, would be that we are speaking in terms of a social and physical environment in which human beings will be able to realize themselves more fully thanks to a peaceful conviviality --imaginative, creative-- in which the end in itself of everything will not be dismissed in favor of turning what is pure means into idols to be worshipped: the Party, Money, Life in the sense of small case life rather than truly high case Life. This would be a society in which the most legitimate and universal aspirations of human beings count and in which the economy is considered in terms of the true earthly needs of the body and the soul. [**] In relation to the earthly needs of the body and the soul see in particular her Study for a Declaration of Obligations towards Humanity, a foundational text of the Instituto Simone Weil, A.C., created in Valle de Bravo, Mxico, in 1989. For English speakers, the American Weil Association provides nourishment. The Need for Roots is a lengthier treatment of her Profession of Faith that appears in the 1943 collection of her London writings and last letters.

Sylvia Mara Valls, Ph.D. (Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 1977, Modern Languages and Literatures) was born in Havana, Cuba, May 24, 1939. A graduate of Ruston Academy in Havana, 1957, she attended the College of Wooster in Ohio as an ex-change student and scholarship recipient and was elected to the National Romance Languages Honorary Society in 1958. Between
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the Fall of 1959 and 1960 she was a student of Social Sciences and Public Law and of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Havana, where she participated in activities of the FEU (University Students Federation) until family matters took her to live in Detroit. There she obtained the B.A. (French and Social Studies), M.A. (French language), and the Ph.D. which was granted for her work in the area of surrealism. Throughout her teaching and writing career in the United States and Mexico, she has endeavored to maintain a multidisciplinarian perspective highly reliant on personal experience and on her extensive/intensive multi-cultural roots. In 1989 she created the Civil Association Instituto Simone Weil A.C. whose objective is to make known the works of Simone Weil and other writers whose thought seems most crucial to our survival as human beings. Her most persistent topic: the need for a new model of citizenship able to satisfy mens earthly needs: the needs of the body as much as of the soul. ABSTRACT: This tentative profile of a legitimate democracy attempts to give directives towards the procurement of a democracy that will be worthy of its name. It sets forth the possibilities that communications technologies and our increasing interconnectedness offer to create new realities more in keeping with human aspirations. This Utopian perspective does not pretend that Perfection is a must or even attainable in human matters, but does sketch the outline of what still might be in the offing with simple good faith and solidarity. The legitimate/illegitimate distinction touches upon the sustainability of a democracy (a plutocracy, in fact) that relies on the destructive competition among political parties for the inflated funds that will make winning possible. Alternatives to the insecurity produced by the war economy are outlined as part of the boons of creating a truly
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legitimate democracy able to give every human being the status of citizen (of belonging) in the places where one lives, works, studies, throughout ones lifetime. The peaceful dismantling of the nation state in favor of bio-regional and inter-bioregional organization is hereby proposed with unprecedented insights regarding a possible solution to the contradictions implicit in the hybrid nature of the modern (nationalistic) state. The need for equitable participation by women in the decision making process is stressed as is the unsustainability of the criminalization of any and all consensual activity that does not manifestly harm third parties. Other common practices and attitudes whose usefulness is questioned, in passing, include the habitual imposition of secret voting as democratic and the goodnessor wisdom of prohibiting child labor. At the center, the obligation to distinguish between means and ends...

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