Lebanon is not a Democratic country!

According to the quotaproject.org, Lebanon has one of the lowest political representation rates for women on a global scale, and especially in decision making positions and high ranking political positions. 3.1% of women in the Lebanese Parliament… Can anyone dare saying that Lebanon is a democratic country, when a large part of its population – 56% – is ‘missing’ of its social-political diversity management?!!

Would you like to know what are the ‘democratic’ or ‘close to be democratic’ countries? Refer to the list below and you would definitely be surprised – with Rwanda at the top of the list: 56.3% !!!

Democracy is literally, rule by the people. The term is derived from the Greek dēmokratiā, which was coined from dēmos (“people”) and kratos (“rule”). A contemporary democrat could reasonably argue that Athens, because it excluded so many adults from the dēmos, was not really a democracy—even though the term democracy was invented and first applied in Athens.

Why should “the people” rule? Is democracy really superior to any other form of government? Although a full exploration of this issue is beyond the scope of this article, history—particularly 20th-century history— demonstrates that democracy uniquely possesses a number of features that most people, whatever their basic political beliefs, would consider desirable:

“(1) democracy helps to prevent rule by cruel and vicious autocrats;

(2) modern representative democracies do not fight wars with one another;

(3) countries with democratic governments tend to be more prosperous than countries with nondemocratic governments;

(4) democracy tends to foster human development—as measured by health, education, personal income, and other indicators—more fully than other forms of government do.

(5) democracy helps people to protect their fundamental interests;

(6) democracy guarantees its citizens fundamental rights that nondemocratic systems do not, and cannot, grant;

(7) democracy ensures its citizens a broader range of personal freedoms than other forms of government do.

(8) only democracy provides people with a maximum opportunity to live under laws of their own choosing;

(9) only democracy provides people with a maximum opportunity to take moral responsibility for their choices and decisions about government policies;

(10) only in a democracy can there be a relatively high level of political equality”. (www.britannica.com)

These advantages notwithstanding, there have been critics of democracy since ancient times. Perhaps the most enduring of their charges is that most people are incapable of participating in government in a meaningful or competent way because they lack the necessary knowledge, intelligence, wisdom, experience, or character. Still, when many Lebanese men – particularly Lebanese political and religious “experts” – and unfortunately many women, vehemently and openly affirm that “women lack the necessary attributes to become political leaders”, I wouldn’t describe the ruling culture, mentality and system in Lebanon as democratic, but surely, a Phallocracy!

I often hear “This is not a good time for Lebanese to talk about gender issues”, “There are more important issues to tackle”, “Women… Again? Why don’t you just stick to raising your children and taking care of your husbands?”…

If Lebanese want to build a democratic country, they cannot dismiss women’s full participation in decision-making. The vision for women’s political participation in empowerment-lite is entirely consistent with its counterpart, democracy-lite. The bold move taken by Women in Front association by inviting political parties in the country to increase the participation of women’s political representation ahead of the forthcoming parliamentary and government elections should indeed be commended as a step in the right direction. Politicians have to remember that gone are the days when women are only given the role of clapping for their usually male political leaders, instead of empowering them to take leadership roles in their political parties, including encouraging them to fully contest elections.

Opening up the debate on women’s political participation calls for us to question the 30% quota, even if asked to be temporarily implemented. Why settle for less when we can ask for more, in fact, for equality? Why not ask for 56%?

I do not agree with the quota systems. Why? One major question is whether quotas are able to go beyond descriptive or numerical representation to afford women real substantive representation in politics or real influence over decision-making processes. It is argued that, in some countries, the introduction of quotas, especially in the form of reserved or appointed seats, has not led to real empowerment of women. Rather, since women lack an independent electoral or organizational base, reserved seats have typically benefited the dominant party and have served to reinforce patronage networks and to strengthen allegiance to political leaders. In addition, reserved seats can create an ‘easy’ avenue for the election of women and can take the responsibility off the parties to address gender concerns and to nominate women as electoral candidates.

“Equal representation of women can result from incremental change or from fast-tracking. The relatively high rate of representation of women in Scandinavia has come about through incremental change – it has taken 60 years to achieve over 30 percent representation. In contrast, some African countries have achieved a high rate of representation of women in a short time, notably Mozambique, Rwanda and South Africa. This has occurred as a consequence of the introduction of quotas and women’s mobilization. Yet quotas remain highly controversial in many countries” (Refer to Drude Dahlerup’s work, Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University, Sweden).

I know for a fact that increasing women’s participation and representation in political life cannot be the only solution to the numerous problems we are facing as women and citizens in Lebanon.  We have to ask new questions about what is needed to democratize our country. We have to begin a process of questioning whether demanding greater representation of women within flawed and dysfunctional political orders is what will do the trick.  We need to initiate public debates and applied researches on what kind of Diversity Management we would like to have. We need to address political, economic, social, cultural and religious constraints within both formal and informal public and private spheres. Making political institutions more responsive and accountable should be our first priority, along with getting more women into politics. That is simply a first step to address a basic inequity, in order to amplify the influence of advocates for justice and equality within the political arena.