Democracy for slaves

Everytime I watch or read some news about demonstrations in Lebanon, I am astonished at the number of people that the Lebanese political leaders manage to pull out on the streets, and by how they swear by those numbers as a testimony to their popularity. "Democracy" they say. Demonstration here, mass movement there... it's democracy talking, the will of the people. And I am even more astonished at the fact that some people do indulge in the belief that this is democracy... French style "manifestation". Democracy here, democracy there... democracy everywhere! Good!

But has it occurred to anyone taking place in these "manifestations" that manifesting something means showing a will? And that a demonstration or a "manifestation", in order to be truly democratic, has to come from the self-conscious will of the people to express or to act, without being told to?

In Lebanon, this process is actually... reversed! It is the will of one person, a leader, which is expressed by the people, who are told to demonstrate that they support the will of this person. It is the will of a person, a leader, which is dictated on the people, making them believe that it is theirs. In fact, the people are only using their freedom of expression in order to support this leader's will, not their own's . By a tweak of words, they are made believe that they are expressing themselves freely using "democratic means" like demonstrating. But what is a democratic mean? Is a demonstration democracy?

In ancient Greece, Rome and other societies, the slaves, who were not masters of their destinies, had the right to speak their minds but could not impose their wills on their masters, who were their leaders. They had freedom of speech and of thought, but were not free to control their destinies. They could tell their leaders that they were not happy, or that they did not want to be slaves (their masters knew it, anyway), but they could not change the set of rules by which they lived, to their advantage, or according to their own beliefs. Slaves they were, although free to express themselves, even to write their thoughts, or to claim their rights in front of courts!

Self-expression, or the freedom of it, is not democracy. It is a right, given or not, but it is not democracy. And he who thinks that speaking his mind and shouting it in the street is free, while unable to make his leaders follow suit, or even to change his leaders if they don't follow suit, providing the majority of the people share his views about his life and destiny, is not free. He is a slave.

And it seems to me that in Lebanon, as long as the people are unable to face the leaders and make them go if they are not pleased with their performances, they will remain the slaves that they are. And this also applies to other Middle-Eastern countries where "democracy" is a la mode.