Power, hitherto held by parties, governments and parliaments, is passing into the hands of citizens’ movements of every stripe. Is this Hannah Arendt’s dream come true in which everyone participates in public affairs? asks historian Marek Beylin.
The revolutions under way in Europe have an enormous impact on everyone’s life. And yet precious few observers notice their influence. That stands to reason: in our revolutionary landscape there are no revolutionary parties around, no enraged leaders, barricades, or storming of the Bastille. Nobody wants to eliminate or replace the state. These revolutions don’t explode, they evolve over time. They are most conspicuous in the increased pressure citizens are bringing to bear on the state apparatus, particularly when they feel threatened or passed over. Then they gather together to flash-mob outside the offices of the political perpetrators. There are thousands of such movements in Europe, particularly in Poland, the most well-known being the environmentalist and feminist movements.
The environmentalists first went into action decades ago in small scattered groups, outside the centres of political power. In the 1990s, they began forming alliances in several European countries and, more importantly, creating a worldwide network of associations and initiatives of every sort. Women’s movements and their struggles against discrimination have seen similar growth. Deemed marginal, even ridiculous, just a few decades ago and until quite recently in Poland, women’s movements have since imposed a whole new paradigm of political and social conduct.
Free access to public debate
All the political parties in Europe exhibit an “autocratic and oligarchic structure, a lack of internal democracy and freedom, a tendency to ‘become totalitarian’, a claim to infallibility”, wrote Hannah Arendt in her 1963 book On Revolution. The system does not promote citizens’ participation in public life: they are merely represented, and what is represented is “interest, or the welfare of the constituents”, not their “actions or opinions”.
Arendt passed severe judgment on the state of democracy in her age, but her condemnation also applies to our contemporary democracy, which is at the mercy of current trends and party machines. The solution Arendt prescribed to inject more freedom into politics is outmoded: it derives from the lost tradition of revolutionary councils, the debate forums that gave rise to the most important decisions. But free access to public debate, that first prerequisite for politics in the noble sense espoused by Arendt, is now undergoing a renaissance in a different form.
Laying the foundations for a nobler politics
We are currently seeing a revolution in public participation and a revolutionary change in the way élites are formed. This revolution is neither of the left nor of the right, and rises far above the classic political ideologies born of the 19th century that are increasingly ill-adapted to the present era. Citizens now freely choose their involvement in private and public affairs, independently of the State. Thanks to modern-day communication, they create a wide range of networks and interest groups. “Even athletes have strong organisations. The same goes for homosexuals, weapons dealers, drivers, the handicapped, parents, divorcees, environmentalists, terrorists, you name it,” commented the German intellectual Hans Magnus Enzensberger almost 20 years ago. And this phenomenon has intensified since then.
No-one knows what these revolutions will bring. Will they be a source of boundless particularism, even violence? The threat does exist. But maybe instead they will heal democracy and its parties, whilst laying the foundations for a nobler politics based on free participation in public affairs. As Hannah Arendt put it, freedom is only possible between equals.