Conclusion: Differing Definitions of Demcoracy

Dahlan told me that in 2006 a village woman discovered mercury underground when she was digging with her hoe.  She called her children to collect the shiny “miracle water” in a used water bottle, and they drank it. It wasn’t made public until 2010, but the mercury had leaked into the surrounding villages from an abandoned ExxonMobil’s warehouse, and was highly cancerous.

Acehnese conceptions of concrete-laden pembangunan follow a similar pattern. Eckersly notes: “Globalization is supposed to lift all boats, but what we’ve seen is actually increasing disparities not only in incomes between countries, but actually within countries” (2009). There is a chasm-like difference between the glistening skyscrapers of Jakarta and the feudalistic expansion of primary sector over Aceh’s territory. Peace brought French cement factories manned by Chinese prison labor, unemployed rebel ex-combatants selling illegally logged timber to military networks, enormous mining concessions and sweeping ranges of palm oil plantations.  The Acehnese experience with democracy only decentralized and expanded exploitation. However, with conservative economists positioned to advise insurgents as well as the state, the corruption within GAM’s leadership should been seen as a tool to push a conservative economic agenda, not the sole cause of that agenda’s failure to achieve equality and sustainability. An instructive study by Yale economist Miles Kahler (1992) noted that those countries that implemented the World Bank’s Washington Consensus strategies to the letter suffered economically, while those countries that took policy matters into their own hands succeeded. There are possibilities for successful development, assuming democratic governments can be persuaded to listen to critical voices. Apart from authoritarianism, Charles Lindblom famously explained: “the greatest distinction between one government and another is in the degree to which the market replaces government or government replaces market” (1977).

With the right political alignments, good choices can be made. Yahya and a collection of environmental activists were able to convince Governor Zaini to revoke the illegal license that Irwandi had granted the palm oil plantation, Kalista Alam.  However, this is only one concession: the economic and ecological future of Aceh look bleak.

Eckersly strikes at the core of issue:

 

 

What we actually ultimately have here is a crisis of accountability... It arises from this spectacularly inverse relationship between responsibility for our ecological ills our collective ones, and vulnerability to those problems and capacity to adjust. This is the nub of the problem, and this is a spectacular environmental injustice (2009).

 

            Much of Eckersly’s Green State, much like democratization programs in practice, focuses on the procedures and characteristics of a fully discursive global democracy. In contrast, for the bulk of the pro-democracy activists I’ve interviewed, the word “democracy” evokes much more than technical standards for electoral procedures. When social movements and CSOs make calls for participatory democracy, they usually imagine democracy to mean something reminiscent of John Dewey’s conception:  “Regarded as an idea democracy is not an alternative to other principles of associated life.  It is the idea of community life itself” (1927:148).  They lament the “unrootedness,” ala Simone Weil, of the state and society, and seek integration into political decision-making.

            I would argue that democracy is only the medium in which power relations operate.  Correcting those imbalances requires more than just reformed governance systems. Participation, decentralization and democracy are can be very important tools, but they are not an answer in themselves. Reversing colonialism and its unsustainable environmental consequences is not just about finding the perfect democratic procedures, but addressing the power relations behind them.  As we speak, watchdog CSOs like SAHARA often find themselves out-funded and out-maneuvered by transnational networks of capital and power.  Still, Suharto’s brutal dictatorship did not stop them from trying, and neither will the disappointments of democracy.