Not
only does American democracy rank a miserable 17th on the list of the world's
modern democracies (according to the
Economist Intelligence Unit's index of democracy); it also
doesn't fare well when compared with traditional Native American democracies,
in particular, with the Iroquois Confederacy--the Haudenosaunee--"the oldest living participatory democracy
on earth."
In "Perceptions of America's Native Democracies,"
Donald A. Grinde Jr. and Bruce E. Johansen point out
that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, among others, could benefit--and
did benefit to some extent--from Native Americans' experience in designing
functional democracies. Unfortunately, being racist and
sexist as well as mostly contemptuous of direct democracy, our Founding Fathers
failed to take full advantage of the political genius of the Six Nations of the
Iroquois Confederacy: The Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, the Senecas, and the Tuscaroras. Among the Iroquois provisions absent
from the U.S. Constitution is the law that allows Iroquois clan mothers to
initiate impeachment against incompetent or criminal political leaders, or
"sachems":
The
rights, duties, and qualifications of sachems were explicitly outlined, and the
clan mothers could remove (or impeach) a sachem who was found guilty of any of
a number of abuses of office--from missed meetings to murder.
Had our Founding Fathers been less prejudiced and more
inclined to study Native American political philosophy seriously, they would
have learned a valuable political lesson from the Iroquois. Today the mothers
of U.S. soldiers killed in wars started by the neocon
armchair warriors in the White House would have the moral and legal authority
to initiate impeachment of these immoral "sachems." In the case of
the worst crime of the 21st century--the U.S. war on Iraq--the Iroquois law
would give Cindy Sheehan and thousands of American mothers the legal power to
force impeachment proceedings in the Supreme Court by bypassing an
irresponsible or incompetent Congress.
Once removed from office, Bush and other warlords like Cheney
and Rumsfeld would be subject to our criminal laws--no pardon or parole being
available to officials thus impeached. (Consider the advantage of this
provision if Nixon had been sent to prison, instead of being pardoned by
President Gerald Ford, an immoral decision that has had tragic consequences.)
The genius of Iroquois democracy to empower mothers, "the
Lifegivers of our Mother Earth," with
impeachment authority is that such a law restrains expedient political power
with apolitical moral judgment. Iroquois women were not part of the
political/military elites and did not feel compelled to compromise moral
principles under political pressure. Not our elected representatives in
Congress, not our career female politicians like Clinton or Pelosi--but
ordinary American citizens, mothers of U.S. soldiers, should ultimately keep executive
power in check.
It may be that the Iroquois impeachment law is the only
efficient way for modern democracies to balance political expediency with moral
responsibility.