The right to be heard

In the famous painting, people raise their hands and swear not to disperse until they have reached agreement. Nothing heroic at first glance — just an argument, just votes. But this very moment — when people decided to argue rather than kill one another — is one of humanity’s greatest achievements, paid for in great blood.

Words instead of blood

Throughout history people settled disputes over power in one way — by force: whoever is stronger is right. A parliament is an audacious attempt to replace the fist with the word, and war with a vote. It was devised for a simple but great purpose: that a change of power happen through the ballot box rather than through blood; that the loser go home, not to prison or the grave. This looks mundane only until you see what its absence looks like.

A bad parliament is better than a good silence

It is easy to despise a parliament: it is slow, noisy, full of arguing and bargaining. But these flaws are the flip side of its virtue. Silence in the hall of power signifies not agreement but fear; when everyone votes the same way, that is not unity but muteness. The noisy quarrel of deputies, however ugly, is a quarrel brought out of the underground into the light, where it can be seen and judged. Better that people bicker in the assembly hall than shoot in the streets.

“The ballot is stronger than the bullet.”
— Abraham Lincoln

My opinion: the right to be heard is not a trifle nor a luxury, but the thing that separates a citizen from a subject. It is easy to neglect while you have it, and impossible to recover without sacrifice once it is lost. So value the dull, imperfect mechanisms that let people argue peacefully: elections, courts, a free newspaper, the right to say “I disagree” and not pay for it. Behind each of them are centuries when dissenters were simply killed. A vote is one of the few things that turns a crowd into a people. Do not give yours away in silence.

Cover: Jacques-Louis David, “The Tennis Court Oath” (1791).