Bring back ostracism

The word ostracism comes from the Greek ostrakos, a shard of pottery. Ancient Athens was ruled by its nobles before it became a democracy, and even during the democracy, the noble landlords held considerable political power. In order to control them, the Athenians built several checks and balances into their laws, the most famous of which was ostracism.

The procedure was simple. All citizens eligible to vote would gather in the Agora, pick up a shard of pottery provided for this purpose, and write the name of an Athenian they wanted ostracised on it. After everyone had deposited their shards, the votes were counted, and the person who got the highest number of votes was exiled. He was forced to leave the city and not return for ten years.

Ostracism was used as a powerful weapon to control strongmen in Athenian politics. Whenever any leader got too powerful or influential, he would eventually find himself ostracised. After a ten-year absence he could freely return to Athens and to politics; he did not forfeit his property or his civil rights, but he was not permitted to reside in the city or participate in politics.

I say bring ostracism back. One of the biggest problems currently facing all Western representative democracies is the democrary deficit. In most countries, certainly here in the Nordic countries, there is simply no way for citizens to get their voices heard. We really have no effective means of protest. In a multi-party representative democracy, there's almost no way to vote against a politician or their party; even if you vote for their mortal enemy, they might still form a coalition government. In Finland, we've now had the same prime minister for far too long, because even though a rival party won the last election, he was still appointed prime minister.

If we could ostracize politicians by popular vote, it would introduce a very real check to their activities. I would suggest holding an ostracism vote every year or every two years. The politician who receives the most votes must resign all their offices and leave politics for, say, five years.

I have literally thought about this for minutes, and it seems like a fantastic idea. I'd like to see Finland implement this. Would there be a more reliable way of getting rid of corrupt politicians who abuse their position? As it stands, it is virtually impossible for a Finnish politician to be impeached. Lately, the only way to get rid of a minister is to get them to send dirty text messages to an ugly blonde. I'm not sure what kind of a check or balance that technically is, but as near as I can tell, it's all we've got at the moment.

So I say bring ostracism back. Let every person of voting age go to the polls each year and ostracize one prominent politician for five years at a time. I actually think that if we did it, it might bring about something unthinkable: politicians might actually have to listen to people. If a popular movement of some thousands of people would be enough to vote a minister or MP out, they would actually have to pay attention to minority opinions.

It would put more power into the hands of the people. That's what this is supposed to be, a democracy. Ancient Athens had a far more effective way of checking political ambition and hubris than we do. Isn't it time we changed that?