This Is What Democracy Feels Like

These are terribly trying times in our part of the world.  The underhanded techniques being used by the government and the sense of self-righteousness that allows and justifies these techniques, makes dialogue seem impossible and violence the only alternative.  I understand why violence seems inevitable on all sides.

The only alternative that gives me hope is the one I have been certain about since I became an educator over sixty years ago.  Democracy can only work if people are taught to think for themselves and be able to defend their conclusions.  Teaching about democracy isn’t more of a part of the educational system of Israel then it is in other countries, but it does seem to be a part of the way of life here.  It doesn’t always look good to strangers, but part of the culture of Israel is based on questioning and argument.  Here are some examples. 

“It says here,” the pharmacist leans over the counter to say quietly, “that you should take a tablespoon every four hours.  But if I were you…” he lowers his voice further, “I’d try half a tablespoon and see what happens.” 

He is not the same pharmacist who laughed when I complained that I needed a medication that was out of stock because I was on my way to Egypt and was running out.  “You can buy it over the counter there!” 

“No, no. The shirt doesn’t fit him right,” the kerchiefed saleswoman in the clothing store of the religious neighborhood tells me. “For his Bar Mitzvah he should look his best. Just get the pants. For the shirt go to the mall a few blocks away.  On the second floor they have a range of sizes that would make him look cool.”  

One pharmacist was Muslim, one was Christian, and the woman who gave us great advice for the Bar Mitzvah was Haredi.  Everyone is always giving advice because everyone thinks they know better.  Long ago I was told that people don’t make love in the streets because everyone would be explaining to the couple how to do it right.

Most of us never really believe everything we’re told, and when we’re informed by politicians that the new laws to be instituted will improve democracy, we go back and look at the proposals themselves.  The only time words are decisive are in magic.  That phrase, abracadabra, comes from two words in Aramaic – avra (it will be) cadivra (as it is said).  Words make enchantment. 

I stand in a crowd of over two hundred thousand people every week and I shout with the others – at the cue – De mo cra tia.  Just saying the word Democracy emboldens me.  But at the same time I feel I have to examine the word, to reconsider what democracy entails, to think of how it has to be inclusive, and how this inclusivity can be achieved.

I would give anything to be able to imagine a viable alternative, and I can’t.  It’s weird because I always believed it is better to give in than to endanger lives.  I would have been one of the first conversos in the Spanish Inquisition, but here I fear that enlightened protest is the only way that a dialogue can begin and lives can be saved.