The fact is, there is not one flavour to democracy. Growing up in Australia, compulsory voting seems normal to me. The standard procedure is that everyone aged 18 and over is registered to vote. On voting day, you turn up to the appropriate place and have your name marked off the electoral roll. If your name isn’t marked off by the time the polling booths close, you risk being fined. I don’t know of anyone who has been fined but we take it for granted that that is what can happen.
In Australia it is a political party that is voted in or out. The party elects its leader and, if that party is elected, it is that leader who becomes the Prime Minister. In the US it is a person who is voted for and who becomes the President. Even the voting system is very different between Australia and the US. Same democracy, different flavours.
Interestingly, it is not clear when, in our history, we decided that a democracy was the best way to organise large numbers of people and social groups. Evidence indicates that, throughout our existence, we developed numerous creative solutions to the ways in which large numbers of people might live and work together (Graeber & Wengrow, 2021). It is only in our recent history that we settled for the current arrangement which, at its core, is characterized by dominance and subordination. Inequity is an inevitable, even unquestioned consequence of this state of affairs.
Having lived in both the US and Australia, I recently had the opportunity to experience yet another flavour of democracy when I lived in Rwanda for two years. Rwanda appeared on the radar again last year when the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited. Rwanda is frequently criticized by various groups for any number of different acts and incidents both actual and imagined. It is quite a different experience living in Rwanda, however, compared with only being an observer from afar. Rwanda has made astounding progress in many different areas including economic development, health services, social policies, and information technology. Progress such as this should be considered whenever pronouncements are being delivered regarding the way in which Rwanda is presumed to be governed.
Blinken’s visit prompted a group of international scholars and thought leaders to circulate an Open Letter in which they express their hope for, among other things, a strengthening of the relationship between the US and African countries characterized by "a respectful and equal partnership worthy of 21st century international relations free of condescending and moralizing positions.” (Karuhanga, 2022).
There can be no clearer contemporary expression of the objectionable nature of modern colonialist attitudes than the sentiments in this letter. Specific examples are used to illustrate the way in which judgements are made with only a very narrow understanding of the context and the situation. Frequently, conclusions are derived from popular opinion rather than accumulated evidence. Misinformation about a supposedly repressive government regime in Rwanda is generated by Western scholars and media activists (Coulibaly, 2022) who seem largely to have no firsthand experience of living in the country.
There is no doubt that daily living is different in Rwanda than it is in other democratic countries. Different, however, does not necessarily mean worse or inferior. It is also important to remember that daily living can be very different for citizens within the same country. It would be unremarkable to assert that the uber rich in the top 1% of wealthiest people in the US have practically no comprehension of the day-to-day lived experience of the least wealthy 20% of the population.
Some ways of organizing social relationships are clearly damaging and should be removed or modified. Ongoing violence, abuse, coercion, and slavery are still far too common features of different groups, organizations, communities, and societies. Subjugation and oppression, however, can occur just as easily and detrimentally with attitudes and policies as it can with overt physical action. Attitudes and policies are perhaps even more insidious and difficult to remedy.
Different countries embody democracy differently. There is no one way to arrange social structures and programs that is right and proper so that everyone has the degrees of freedom necessary to live meaningful and satisfying lives. Any statistics that are selected indicate that every country has room to improve. The murder rate per 100,000 people for 2023, for example, is 4.96 in the US whereas in Australia it is 0.89 and in Rwanda it is 2.58. On the other hand, the infant mortality rate (the number of deaths of children under one year of age for every 1,000 live births) data for 2020, are 5 in the US, 3 in Australia, and 30 in Rwanda. And the 2021 statistics for the proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments is 28% for the US, 31% for Australia, and 61% for Rwanda.
When it comes to building a better, more sustainable world, we all have much to learn. As the authors of the Open Letter called for, we need to approach all our relationships in the spirit of respect, openness, and equity. Blinken has much to offer other countries. Some of his statements would also indicate though, that, perhaps, he also has much to learn. The US seems comfortable positioning itself at the forefront of global initiatives. Will it have the gumption on this occasion to play a leading role in forging new patterns of international relations for a global community that is genuinely and abidingly socially just?
The writer is a Professor and Chair of Country Health Research and Innovation and Director of the WACHS-Curtin Alliance at Curtin University. Previously, he worked in Rwanda as the Director of the Institute of Global Health Equity Research and the Andrew Weiss Chair of Research in Global Health at the University of Global Health Equity.