09-02-2003, 05:26 PM
I found the following article in a past edition of the Herald Tribune and I liked it. It was written from Athens by John McK. Camp, director of the Agora excavations of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. He is also a professor of classics at Randolph-Malcolm college in Ashland, Va.<br>
<br>
"Ancient Greeks knew how to dump bad pols.<br>
<br>
The United States had borrowed lots from the ancient Greeks, including such bedrock items as architecture, the Olympics, coinage, theater, but most important is the concept of democracy.<br>
Visitors to Athens can still view the official drinking cups and tableware used in the Vth century BC, when legislators were wined and dined at state expense. Not much, in fact has changed since antiquity except the technology.<br>
One aspect of ancient political life has not been adopted however and perhaps it's time to bring it back: ostracism.<br>
Once a year, the Athenians would meet and vote on a simple question: is anyone aiming at a tyranny, is anyone becoming a threat to democracy? If a simple majority voted yes, then they dispersed and reassembled two months later. They brought with them their "ostracon" (a fragment of pottery) on which they had scratched the name of the person they thought represented a threat.<br>
The man with the most votes lost. He was exiled for ten years, and this was thought to calm any anti-democratic leanings he might have. In other words, the Athenians not only voted people into office, but they had a regular procedure for voting one person per year out of office.<br>
It was an option that could be exercised but did not have to be. The exile did not involve confiscation or other punitive measures; it was designed only to remove an individual from the poltical arena.<br>
So, we're watching a lenghty, costly and highly politicized recall atttempt to remove Gary Davis from the governor's office in California. Would it not be easier to have an ostracism mechanism in place? How much simpler, less expensive and less wearying it would have been a few years ago simply to write either the name "Clinton" or "Starr" on a piece of paper, and have one of those two exiled outside the Beltway for the next ten years. What would we have lost except a media circus?<br>
The Athenians were better than we are at enforcing the accountability of their public officials. They had an examination to check the qualities of an individual before entering office (dokimasia), but they also had a formal rendering of accounts at the end of a term of office (euthynai) and ostracism in the meantime.<br>
And they were not afraid to use it: almost every prominent statesman of Athens in the early Vth century BC took one of these 10 year vacations, courtesy of the Athenian people. Pericles was one of the few not to be ostracized, though he was a candidate. Opposition to his grandiose building plans for the Acropolis were the subject of a controversy which only ceased when his chief opponent, Thucydides (the son of Milesias, not the historian) was ostracized and removed. The People had spoken.<br>
We owe the Parthenon to Pericles' ability to persuade the Athenians this was a goal worth pursuing.<br>
There is no reason why we could not apply ostracism on the national, state, and even local levels; an annual opportunity to remove someone whose performance, for whatever reason, has not been acceptable. We have the option now only when terms are up. But, in a fast-moving world, why not more frequently? Better weed out bad apples sooner than later. There may be pitfalls, but no worse than what we are used to or what the Athenians faced. We would have to trust the electorate to make responsible decisions, and in times of crisis an ostracism could be nullified.<br>
During the Persian Wars the Athenians summoned home all their exiles, especially Aristeides, to help in the struggle.       <br>
Nor should anyone naively think that political skullduggery would not rear its head, though we can perhaps take heart in the fact that it's been with us for years.<br>
One batch of 190 ostraca found in Athens, all with the name of Themistocles, the architect of athenian naval power, turned to be all written by only 13 individuals...<br>
Images of "cemetery votes" spring immediately to mind, as do "Florida" and "hanging chads".<br>
The other danger is that if a leading statesman is powerful enough and has the votes, ostracism is a great way to eliminate a weaker, but annoying, rival. That is in effect what Pericles did to Thucydides in 443 BC.<br>
In 417 BC, when the outcome was uncertain, the two top dogs, Alcibiades and Nikias, ganged up on Hyperpolos, a hapless number three. This was such an obvious misuse of the system that the Athenians never used it again.<br>
If they hadn't abandoned it, perhaps that gadfly Socrates would have been exiled, rather than put to death in 399. Hundreds of ostraca have come to light in the excavations of ancient Athens, compelling witnesses to the turbulence and vitality of the political system known as democracy and powerful reminders that in Athens, the people really did rule. For all its flaws, the procedure was used from 487 to 417 BC, and it is perhaps no coincidence that those 70 years correspond almost precisely to the acme of Athenian prominence in virtually every field of endeavour.<br>
Those in office might not like it, but a return to ostracism would certainly return power to the people and ensure that their voices were heard and heeded".        <br>
<br>
Lest we forget what democracy is about, and whence it came from. <p></p><i></i>
<br>
"Ancient Greeks knew how to dump bad pols.<br>
<br>
The United States had borrowed lots from the ancient Greeks, including such bedrock items as architecture, the Olympics, coinage, theater, but most important is the concept of democracy.<br>
Visitors to Athens can still view the official drinking cups and tableware used in the Vth century BC, when legislators were wined and dined at state expense. Not much, in fact has changed since antiquity except the technology.<br>
One aspect of ancient political life has not been adopted however and perhaps it's time to bring it back: ostracism.<br>
Once a year, the Athenians would meet and vote on a simple question: is anyone aiming at a tyranny, is anyone becoming a threat to democracy? If a simple majority voted yes, then they dispersed and reassembled two months later. They brought with them their "ostracon" (a fragment of pottery) on which they had scratched the name of the person they thought represented a threat.<br>
The man with the most votes lost. He was exiled for ten years, and this was thought to calm any anti-democratic leanings he might have. In other words, the Athenians not only voted people into office, but they had a regular procedure for voting one person per year out of office.<br>
It was an option that could be exercised but did not have to be. The exile did not involve confiscation or other punitive measures; it was designed only to remove an individual from the poltical arena.<br>
So, we're watching a lenghty, costly and highly politicized recall atttempt to remove Gary Davis from the governor's office in California. Would it not be easier to have an ostracism mechanism in place? How much simpler, less expensive and less wearying it would have been a few years ago simply to write either the name "Clinton" or "Starr" on a piece of paper, and have one of those two exiled outside the Beltway for the next ten years. What would we have lost except a media circus?<br>
The Athenians were better than we are at enforcing the accountability of their public officials. They had an examination to check the qualities of an individual before entering office (dokimasia), but they also had a formal rendering of accounts at the end of a term of office (euthynai) and ostracism in the meantime.<br>
And they were not afraid to use it: almost every prominent statesman of Athens in the early Vth century BC took one of these 10 year vacations, courtesy of the Athenian people. Pericles was one of the few not to be ostracized, though he was a candidate. Opposition to his grandiose building plans for the Acropolis were the subject of a controversy which only ceased when his chief opponent, Thucydides (the son of Milesias, not the historian) was ostracized and removed. The People had spoken.<br>
We owe the Parthenon to Pericles' ability to persuade the Athenians this was a goal worth pursuing.<br>
There is no reason why we could not apply ostracism on the national, state, and even local levels; an annual opportunity to remove someone whose performance, for whatever reason, has not been acceptable. We have the option now only when terms are up. But, in a fast-moving world, why not more frequently? Better weed out bad apples sooner than later. There may be pitfalls, but no worse than what we are used to or what the Athenians faced. We would have to trust the electorate to make responsible decisions, and in times of crisis an ostracism could be nullified.<br>
During the Persian Wars the Athenians summoned home all their exiles, especially Aristeides, to help in the struggle.       <br>
Nor should anyone naively think that political skullduggery would not rear its head, though we can perhaps take heart in the fact that it's been with us for years.<br>
One batch of 190 ostraca found in Athens, all with the name of Themistocles, the architect of athenian naval power, turned to be all written by only 13 individuals...<br>
Images of "cemetery votes" spring immediately to mind, as do "Florida" and "hanging chads".<br>
The other danger is that if a leading statesman is powerful enough and has the votes, ostracism is a great way to eliminate a weaker, but annoying, rival. That is in effect what Pericles did to Thucydides in 443 BC.<br>
In 417 BC, when the outcome was uncertain, the two top dogs, Alcibiades and Nikias, ganged up on Hyperpolos, a hapless number three. This was such an obvious misuse of the system that the Athenians never used it again.<br>
If they hadn't abandoned it, perhaps that gadfly Socrates would have been exiled, rather than put to death in 399. Hundreds of ostraca have come to light in the excavations of ancient Athens, compelling witnesses to the turbulence and vitality of the political system known as democracy and powerful reminders that in Athens, the people really did rule. For all its flaws, the procedure was used from 487 to 417 BC, and it is perhaps no coincidence that those 70 years correspond almost precisely to the acme of Athenian prominence in virtually every field of endeavour.<br>
Those in office might not like it, but a return to ostracism would certainly return power to the people and ensure that their voices were heard and heeded".        <br>
<br>
Lest we forget what democracy is about, and whence it came from. <p></p><i></i>
