‘He was one of those civilised individuals who did not insist upon agreement with his political principles as a precondition for conversation or friendship’
These are the words Edward R. Murrow used to describe Professor Harold Laski, when responding to the accusations of Senator Joseph McCarthy. They should be cherished, especially considering recent events.
A glance at history shows us that political violence sits right around the corner of our democracies. That may sound pessimistic, but it’s true. Consider the act of assassination, of which four US Presidents, one British Prime Minister and over 30 candidates in Mexico’s recent elections have been victims. This list is far from complete and doesn’t even consider failed attempts, but it is enough to make an observation. Political violence is appalling, abhorrent and contradictory to the idea of a democratic system. The rejection of it, and outrage at it, exhibited by so many is important, but it remains a fact that democracies have not escaped the use of violence. Let’s consider David Stuttard’s observation in his 2023 publication Parthenon, in which he says, ‘in the centuries which followed, the murder of Hipparchus at the great Panathenaic Festival of 514 BC would be hailed almost universally as the seed from which Athenian democracy would flower’. Considering this, violence and murder have a clear place in the history of democracy that predates even its first founding.
Any list of assassinations or acts of political violence that I can offer would obviously be incomplete, but recent events have helped shine more light on it. Former President Trump has been injured in an attempted assassination. My fellow Europinion writer, Joshua Edwicker, said on the 15th of July, ‘Yesterday was a dark day for America, the world and democracy.’ He’s right, and given that the recent election in the UK has seen reports of intimidation, tyres being slashed and the window of a candidate's office being attacked, we have our own darkness lingering over us, right here in the UK. The fact that recent years have seen the murder of two MPs, Jo Cox and Sir David Amess only goes to show that such darkness is not new. Our history, and the lives of those victims of political violence are marked by it, and it is no insignificant mark. The brutal way in which the Presidency of John F. Kennedy ended in Dallas, Texas is not a footnote, glanced over on the way to the next page. Think for a moment, how long could a conversation about JFK go before Lee Harvey Oswald is mentioned?
Outrage at such events has its place, and I hope my opposition to what has transpired in recent history is clear. However, I want to hit pause, for the remainder of the article, on the relationship between violence and democracy.
Consensus and agreement might sound nice, but I think ultimately they come at the cost of the core of democracy; pluralism. Alternative and differing opinions, contrast and disagreement are all important, and if carried out peacefully, can all exist within the democratic process. In fact we could say that without these, if everybody agreed, then there would be no choice. Or at least, there probably wouldn’t be a choice that anybody would want to make. And if there is no choice, is there a democracy? With universal agreement, comes the absence of choice, and with that, the absence of democracy. Yes, you could argue that if everybody agreed then the lack of an alternative might not seem important to us, but if we want democracy to exist, then we need choice. It’s a base and conceptual requirement. You cannot have the former, without the latter. Even if the only person who votes for a position is the person who stood for it.
That is the democratic system and ideal, or at least how I see it, distilled down to its base elements. I wanted to establish this so I can add one more detail. In making decisions, determining who is to govern and what policies are promoted and implemented, peace and non-violence are integral. Otherwise, coercion and intimidation risk becoming the important and determinant tools of the trade. Acts of political violence then, while present within democracies, sit beyond their bounds. In other words, wherever democratic civil society extends to, violence is absent. If it is true, in the words of Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, that ‘The function of government is to calm, rather than excite agitation.’ Then should not the function of democracy be to conduct disputes and air grievances without violence?
Political violence is a reality, embedded in the history of democracy. But each instance of it is a rejection of the choice, that contrast of opinion, that is vital to democracy. I am not the first person to invoke the idea of things being done beyond ‘the democratic process’, David Dunn speaking to Times Radio, being an example of this. But I want to conclude with a different thought from Mr Dunn, ‘democracy works if you respect the process no matter the result, the process is more important than the result’.
Image: Colin Lloyd / Unsplash
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