Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Democracy is in recession. All over the world, we are losing our precious
democracy to totalitarianism, nationalism and populism. We even hear some
Lankans talk about the need for a benevolent dictator! But are those the only
options we have? They all look for a solution in the past: returning to where we
were before democracy was won. But is there a way to look for a solution in the
future? A solution that utilises the best of our technological developments to
create a better democracy and eliminate the plague of corruption that has taken
over it?
We all want to change the flawed political system in our country. We all know the
current flawed system of governance must be changed. We all talk everyday
about the need to change this corrupt system of power. But political “change” is
just moving around different players in the same system, which we all know
doesn’t work. We need political “innovation” to build a new system altogether.
As the visionary architect Buckminster Fuller once said: “You never change things
by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that
makes the existing model obsolete.” To change our political system, we must
innovate how we practice democracy from bottom up. Here’s how we can do
that:
That’s our constitutional name, and those words have special meanings. “We the
people equally own this land and everything in it, and us the people equally
decide how we use our resources as means of production.” I’ll let you ponder if
that’s what’s really happening?
We also see the feudal noble cast mentality still remnant in some Sinhala Kandyan
clans and in certain Jaffna Tamils as they look down upon others as their subjects.
There is also a Colombo-centric, English speaking, high-net-worth community
which assumes nobility over others. These are all anti-democratic sentiments.
But my generation, the millennials and the generation after us are not subjects of
any person or institution. We are born free and we think free. And that
generation of digital natives is only coming to power now. The time is now to
innovate democracy in Sri Lanka.
2. Practical challenges
of direct democracy
“Democracy is the rule of the people, by the people, for the people.” And
democracy is built upon the principles of equality, freedom and rule-of-law. It’s
the ultimate victory of the human society which enabled us to move beyond
slavery, monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy and their derivative systems of power.
3. Human flaws of
representative democracy
We often hear people blaming democracy as a failed concept. But what they are
really blaming is how we “practice” democracy. The most popular way we enforce
democracy is called ‘representative’ democracy where the people appoint a
group of representatives to operate on behalf of the people. It is important we
understand that representing is different from ruling. Representatives are not the
rulers of the people. There are no individual or group of rulers in democracy, just
the people themselves governing themselves. Representatives are appointed by
the people for a specific period, to work on behalf of the people. They are
supposed to serve the people and only the people. The people pay for their
salaries plus for everything else from their first-class air tickets, to their luxury
vehicles, to their posh houses, to their lavish dinners all the way down to their
toilet paper rolls. And that’s not all, the people bear their office costs, staff costs,
operational costs, project costs and basically all their costs.
But most representatives do not “represent” the people and instead abuse the
people’s power due to human weaknesses such as greed, corruption, ignorance
and arrogance. All they need is your vote and that’s it. After that they serve
themselves and their cronies at the expense of the people. Their decisions are
driven only by their self-interests, and not for the people’s benefit. They create
more problems for the people, than there were before.
The difference is instead of one queen or one king, we now have a group of kings,
queens, princes, princesses and aristocrats who see the people as their subjects.
And instead of acting on behalf of the people and for the benefit of the people,
those representatives strive to amass personal power and wealth through politics,
corruption, influence, violence, conspiracy and collusion. Eventually it’s the
people who serve the politicians and beg for their mercy.
Citizens are given complete access to all information relevant to governance, thus
are able to propose, question, discuss and debate about every matter of public
interest. We see this happen every day on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter where
people share information, discuss, debate and even cast their votes through tools
such as “Likes” or “Favourites”.
Web 2.0 has broken the traditional barriers of free and open society. Liquid
democracy use technology to solve the first problem of direct democracy by
allowing even millions of people to create, access, discuss and share information
freely and openly on matters of public interest.
This is different from representative democracy because the owner of the vote
has the absolute sovereign right of his/her vote and can change their decision,
cancel the delegation or even take back the vote at any time. This gives you the
fullest control of your votes.
Liquid democracy is in fact true democracy and more. It’s built on the same
principles such as equality, freedom and rule of law. And together with a
decentralised digital ID, implemented cryptographically, liquid democracy
becomes a system that makes possible, and simple, the implementation Universal
Basic Income (UBI).
We believe that every citizen has the right not just to his or her vote, but to a
basic income. Having a basic income, in other words, financial “liquidity” removes
the barrier for most citizens to participate in democracy. When you have food to
eat, a decent home and safety, people are more engaged in governance, so they
can maintain their economic freedom.
All this is now possible due to the technological revolution called the
“Blockchain”. The incorruptible, immutable, decentralised technology which
made safe and secure cryptocurrency a reality. Web 3.0 is being built on
blockchain. The new decentralised apps are being built on blockchain. Banking
and finance is being built on blockchain. Legal structures are being built on
Blockchain. And democracy is being built on blockchain by a pioneering
organisation of modern revolutionists called “Democracy Earth”
(www.democracy.earth).
5. Implementing sovereign blockchain
Isn’t this the change we’ve all been waiting for? Isn’t it time we the people take
back the control to our hands? Decide on how to manage, grow and distribute our
common resources? Decide on our common freedoms and duties? Decide our
relationship with the rest of the world? And decide the future of our nation? We
can’t do that by appointing the same bunch of corrupt politicians to power every
four to five years.
Instead of just changing poster heads, party symbols and their manifestos, we
now have a practical way to fundamentally change the “system” from bottom up.
Instead of addressing the symptoms, we are now able to change the very
foundation of the system. There is no doubt that liquid democracy is the future of
global governance.
We know you have many questions. Please ask us those questions and we will
start a meaningful and useful discussion. We are also planning to organise an
open meet up in the coming weeks. We openly invite everybody who wants to
innovate democracy in Sri Lanka to join us. For more information please send an
email to eranda@democracy.earth.
(Eranda Ginige is the Ambassador for Democracy Earth to Sri Lanka and the
Founder of Social Enterprise Lanka. He is the former Head of Partnerships and
Innovation at the British Council Sri Lanka. Eranda pioneered the introduction of
Graduate Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship to Sri Lanka, and is
currently working on introducing Liquid Democracy to Sri Lanka.)
Posted by Thavam