MAY 7 — As May 9 draws nearer, every Malaysian has his/her WhatsApp feeds filled with news, statistics, ”news”, electoral procedures, funny vids, sad vids, promises, threats and so on.
It’s election season and, as Australian scholar Anthony Milner quipped, Malaysians view politics as a kind of sport — and May 9 is nothing if not the World Cup Final.
At the heart of any election is, undeniably, the concept of democracy, how it’s being expressed or curtailed or “threatened” and what not.
But how many of us know the story behind democracy’s birth? I think many know that it began in ancient Athens, but I doubt many know about the bizarre events which led to this system of government we all take for granted.
So here’s the story which, of course, begins with…
Once upon a time in Athens, tyranny abounded.
The “tyrants” (see note 1) were the powerful elite who took turns ruling the city-state. They schemed against each other, they made alliances with powerful kings from other states, they exiled and were exiled — it was essentially Game of Thrones minus the dragons.
Then one year, in 510 BC, one of the tyrant’s grandsons called Clei partnered with the King of Sparta, let’s call him Cleo, to overthrow a mega-tyrant I’ll call Hip.
Hip was one of the first paranoid rulers whose regime employed Mafia-style executions and repressions as instruments of control.
His use of foreign mercenaries certainly didn’t endear him to most Athenians such that, by 510 BC, he was already on the defensive.
Clei and Cleo joined forces to kick his ass, an initiative which was sealed when he, Hip, severely underestimated the Spartan eye for detail and let his kids fall straight into their hands.
After this, it was just a matter of swapping Hip’s children’s lives for his complete surrender.
Unluckily for our hero Clei — who was hoping to lead Athens into a new and (less rigidly structured) political dawn after Hip’s fall, and do so without Spartan involvement — Cleo (the Spartan king) backed another dude, Isa (see note 2).
This was bad news for Clei who didn’t want Athens to be under the heel of Sparta, nor did he — in contrast to Isa who was as traditionally minded as he was power crazy — want Athens to revert back to the factionalism and aristocratic in-fighting that had so weakened Athenian society over the past decades.
So what did Clei do? He proposed the revolutionary idea that it should be the people, and not just rich and powerful folks, who should be responsible for government.
In 508 BC, for the first time in history, it was suggested (strongly!) that the people should have authority over the city, debate and vote on laws, implement policies i.e. Athenian power should be invested in the demos, and the city-state should be a demokratia.
It was an audacious proposal. But, crucially, it must be noted that democracy didn’t come about as a first option.
In fact, if the Spartan King Cleo hadn’t given way to his quasi-colonising aspirations and gotten into bed with Isa (and, literally, with Isa’s wife — a “gift” from one greedy Athenian to another greedy Spartan), the notion of demokratia wouldn’t have gotten the powerful shove it was eventually given. Clei only gave serious consideration to ideas of “power to the people” because Cleo & Isa were in his way.
One could say that democracy was born of tyranny and strife.
And it was almost still-born because not long after Clei made his proposals, misfortune struck. Clei, the so-called father of democracy (see note 3), had to go into exile shortly after because King Cleo of Sparta begged to differ on such a redistribution of political power (surprise surprise) and threatened Clei by citing an ancient curse against Clei’s ancestors (I know, right?).
In the purge which ensued, about 700 Athenian families were slaughtered for their opposition to Sparta. King Cleo then barricaded himself on the Acropolis and began to dictate a new constitutional order minus all that demokratia nonsense, naturally.
But — cue grand orchestral music — the people of Athens had had enough. No more colonising power. No more power-usurping elite.
Hence, began the siege cum blockade of the Acropolis in 508 BC during which the Athenian demokratia demanded an end to the Cleo & Isa show.
They basically told the Athenian tyrant and the Spartan King to give up their power-plays and let us rule instead.
What’s even more remarkable was that the angry crowds gathered without the leadership of Clei (who was in exile, remember); they self-mobilized and stood up to defend Clei’s bold new idea of “power to the people.”
If this was a Hollywood movie, this would be the perfect time for an inspirational “against the odds” speech. The sheer determination of common people against fully armed Spartan soldiers, the will of ordinary folks standing against the might of powerful politicians.
As Michael Jackson said, this is it. This is where destiny is decided. Would the corrupt guardians of a rotten system triumph? Or would the demos emerge victorious?
Lo and behold, on the third day of the blockade, Cleo surrendered. He and his solders were granted safe passage back to Sparta, but Isa and his followers? They were lynched.
Democracy had not only prevailed against the first attempt to stamp it out, it also exterminated at least one of the key parties involved. (And I’m not saying that the enemies of democracy should all be slaughtered, but it’s hell of a good warning from history, isn’t it?)
Soon, Clei returned to Athens and the transformation of the city’s governance began. From 507 BC onwards, everyone in Athens was guaranteed the freedom to speak (and not merely the rich, the smart or the powerful), policy was debated openly (and not behind closed doors) and no law was passed without the votes of all the Athenian people (as opposed to merely the elite among them).
Whilst this story is one to celebrate, we know that tyranny lives on. Over the centuries since the siege of the Acropolis, even in ours, democracy still fights tyrants for its life. I hope this retelling of the historical birth of the demokratia helps continue that fight. Power to the people — always.
* Note 1: The word “tyrant” for the ancient Greeks wasn’t a bad word at the time; it just denoted a powerful (and sufficiently popular) leader who offered stable government in return for “liberties”, e.g. illegal methods, above-average use of violence, repression of free speech and so on. Kinda like certain countries in Asean, I suppose.
* Note 2: The real names are: Hippias (the megalomaniacal leader whose reign of terror spurred people like Cleisthenes to overthrow him), Cleisthenes (the lawmaker cum rebel leader who recruited the King of Sparta in a bid to defeat Hippias, and who eventually became democracy’s daddy), Cleomenes (the Spartan King eager to get a piece of Athens) and Isagoras (ally of King Cleomenes who wanted to lead Athens back to tyranny but who was eventually killed for wanting to kill democracy).
* Note 3: In this vein, the grand-father (if we could use this term) of democracy is Solon, the Athenian law-maker, who in 594 BC drafted new laws which granted freedom from slavery and redistributed political rights to all social and economics classes in the state. Whilst these were serious reforms, it is without doubt that even Solon would’ve been astonished by the reality of the demokratia almost 90 years later.
** This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
