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Date Posted: 01:27:02 01/15/00 Sat
Author: W.H.
Subject: Re: MUTUALISM -- Part 1
In reply to: SwimmingUpstream 's message, "Re: MUTUALISM -- Part 1" on 11:14:06 01/14/00 Fri

This is a very pertinent question. There are many in our direct democratic movement both here in Athens and internationally who have this "issue by issue" attitude to democracy and who in my opinion ignore the question of sovereignty: the question of "who is to be master", as Lewis Carroll put it.

The co-existence of population groups with different loyalties cannot always be managed through a fragmenting "issue by issue" strategy. Moreover I would say such a strategy is always the disingenuous ideology of a dominant minority or those who identify with that minority. The forms of domination it promotes are manipulative, unacknowledged, extra-institutional and in general unacceptable. It is a "divide and rule" strategy.

If a majority allows a minority to dispute the validity of a law which applies (or should apply) for all, an important principle of democracy is violated: the principle of equality.

The minority which disputes in this way the right of the majority to rule is placing itself both in a position of superiority, in that it is demanding a privilege: a law which is to apply only to itself, and in a position of inferiority: it cannot or will not confront the majority "man to man" (or citizen-to-citizen if this is seen as a phallocratic formulation).

This amounts to a declaration of war. War can only be avoided if there is a negotiated settlement in terms of which geographical separation or some other form of separation and (initially at least) unfriendly co-existence is agreed upon.

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