The latest local council election results seem to confirm that the exposure of politicians to aggressive questioning on the part of the electorate has, to no small extent, changed the temper of the times.

Today, more electors can, and do, stand up and question politicians. Some of them ask hostile questions without the fear of being victimised. They expect straight answers to straight questions.

It is a moot point whether all the answers are satisfactory. More often than not, they are evasive or heavily wrapped in circumlocution.

None of this militates in the service of transparency, and is clearly unsatisfactory. It opens a space for dissent which is the spark that gives life to democracy. The upcoming young generation is not satisfied by merely showing its dissent when politicians do not provide it with satisfactory answers, and it sustains its argument by making use of its vote.

New ideas, after all, can arise only in discussion, in the face of objections. Dissent presupposes the right of expressing not only true, but also dubious, ideas. Democracy thrives on basic principles such as freedom to speak, however hatefully, freedom to dissent, to assemble, and to believe in one’s convictions.

Sweep of History

From the sixth century before Christ – the century of Confucius and Lao-Tze, of Pythagoras and the Ionian philosophers – man seems to have stirred into awareness and embarked on a Promethean quest for natural explanations and rational causes. Yet, after centuries of controversy and conflict, there are still serious people who fear even allusions to free discussion.

Through the sweep of history, great battles have been waged over the issue of the right of dissent. There have been murderous wars, the latest being the war against Nazism and Fascism. There have been psychological wars – the most outstanding was that against Marxism-Leninism, ending with the fall of the Berlin wall and the crumbling of the monolith manipulated from the Kremlin.

And, although the Catholic Church and its monasteries was the last oasis of learning in a desert of ignorance throughout the Dark Ages, the Galileo scandal, representing a conflict between religion and science, cannot be overlooked. Neither can the atrocities during the Reformation be expunged

Persisting Intolerance

One would have thought that, in the first years of this millennium, democracy has won the day and that democracies everywhere have assimilated the one big lesson that matters – namely that one cannot enjoy the fruits of freedom without freedom or its efficiencies without its discomforts.

On paper, this is fair enough and clearly right. In reality, intolerance still stalks many an anguished country, and this is not limited to the lands of the ayatollahs and bloodthirsty fundamentalists.

In more extreme cases, religious and ethnic conflagrations are burning with intensity. In a milder form, the right of dissent is being denied in the name of petty political partisanship – even in the name of democracy.

Entrenched interests have their own selfish reasons to foul the mildest atmosphere of free and audacious inquiry.

Every so often, they crawl out of the woodwork, even in Malta. And they go to the extent of assailing the ombudsman and the auditor-general when they express opinions that go against their grain.

These are officers of Parliament, specifically appointed watchdogs of the public interest. And, surely, the institutions they represent are not meant to play the role of wallpaper to embellish the Maltese democratic scenario.

To challenge their right of free expression – by denigration, by challenging their motives or otherwise by insinuating ulterior motives – is the ultimate form of suppression.

New Dawn

It is time to press home the thought that truth is not established by a majority vote at a general election. There is a place for constructive questioning and, in particular, for the scrutiny of the exercise of authority by way of independent investigation.

It is also worth stressing that pluralism has introduced a new dawn which is not always sunny. In politics, truth cannot be known in advance. It can be discussed and verified through a struggle of contradictions.

Truth should for ever be able to withstand the play of dissenting waves, however persistent. Electors need complete, truthful information and the truth should not depend on whom it is to serve. There is a “realm within” where conscience is sovereign and fully entitled to respect and dignity.

In the sphere of political thought, there are no dogmas, although there is a place for faith in matters of the spirit.

By all accounts, faith is a positive attribute – but, in relation to other beliefs it, too, is an act of dissent and deserves respect on democratic grounds over and above spiritual considerations.

In the final analysis, whatever men are willing to die for deserves a certain honour. This is one reason why the right of dissent has been embodied in the canonic texts of western culture.

It is at once self-defeating and a big mistake to smother dissent in a democracy.

Democracy needs the participation of intellectuals with fire-power to uphold the right of dissent in the spirit of Voltaire, to whom is attributed the saying: “I do not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.

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