Ada ironi besar dalam banyak pembicaraan tentang demokrasi.
Orang sibuk membangun mekanisme pemilihan. Membuat aturan. Membagi kekuasaan. Membentuk lembaga.
Tetapi lupa pada satu hal paling mendasar: perekat manusia.
Padahal, demokrasi tanpa perekat sosial hanya akan menjadi gedung megah yang retak dari dalam.
Mendiang Will Watkins, mantan Direktur International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) periode 1951-1963, pernah mengatakan bahwa persatuan adalah prinsip koperasi yang paling penting, bahkan melampaui demokrasi itu sendiri.
Pernyataan itu terdengar sederhana. Tetapi sesungguhnya seperti petir yang menyambar jantung peradaban modern.
Sebab demokrasi sering dianggap tujuan akhir. Padahal demokrasi hanyalah alat.
Ia seperti kapal. Agar kapal itu berlayar, orang-orang di dalamnya harus percaya satu sama lain. Harus merasa senasib. Harus memiliki solidaritas.
Tanpa itu, demokrasi berubah menjadi arena rebutan kursi.
Kita bisa melihatnya di banyak negara. Pemilu berlangsung rutin. Partai politik tumbuh subur. Gedung parlemen berdiri megah.
Tetapi korupsi merajalela. Ketidakadilan melebar. Elite saling memangsa. Rakyat tetap miskin.
Mengapa?
Karena demokrasi dibangun tanpa jiwa persahabatan kewargaan.
Demokrasi akhirnya seperti pasar malam: ramai, berisik, penuh lampu, tetapi kehilangan arah.
Britania abad ke-19 memberi pelajaran penting. Demokrasi di sana tidak lahir mendadak seperti jamur setelah hujan. Ia tumbuh perlahan bersama berkembangnya masyarakat sipil: serikat pekerja, koperasi, organisasi sosial, kelompok pendidikan rakyat, komunitas gereja, dan berbagai perkumpulan warga.
Di situlah orang belajar percaya. Di situlah orang belajar berbeda pendapat tanpa saling membunuh. Di situlah orang belajar bahwa kebebasan pribadi harus berjalan bersama tanggung jawab sosial.
Demokrasi ternyata tidak lahir pertama-tama dari kotak suara. Ia lahir dari meja-meja kecil tempat orang biasa belajar duduk bersama.
Koperasi memahami rahasia itu sejak awal.
Koperasi bukan sekadar lembaga simpan pinjam. Ia bukan hanya toko bersama. Bukan hanya kumpulan modal. Koperasi sesungguhnya adalah sekolah persaudaraan ekonomi.
Di dalam koperasi, orang dilatih untuk berpikir “kita”, bukan hanya “saya”.
Itulah sebabnya prinsip persatuan menjadi sangat penting.
Karena tanpa persatuan, koperasi tinggal bangunan administratif. Ada kantor. Ada rapat anggota. Ada laporan keuangan. Tetapi kehilangan roh.
Persatuan dalam koperasi bukan berarti semua orang harus selalu sepakat. Bukan itu.
Persatuan adalah kemampuan untuk tetap berjalan bersama meskipun berbeda kepentingan.
Ia seperti rumah panjang Dayak.
Tiang-tiangnya banyak. Penghuninya banyak. Karakternya berbeda-beda. Tetapi seluruh rumah berdiri di atas satu fondasi bersama.
Kalau satu tiang utama lapuk, seluruh rumah ikut goyah.
Begitulah masyarakat. Ketika solidaritas runtuh, demokrasi mulai rapuh.
Kita melihat banyak negara pascakolonial mengalami kegagalan bukan semata karena kurang sumber daya alam. Bukan pula hanya karena campur tangan neo-kolonial atau perdagangan global yang tidak adil (meskipun itu nyata adanya).
Masalah yang sering lebih dalam adalah belum tumbuhnya masyarakat sipil yang matang. Kemerdekaan politik datang terlalu cepat, sementara budaya demokrasi belum sempat berakar.
Akibatnya, negara seperti pohon besar yang dipaksa tumbuh tanpa akar yang kuat. Dari luar tampak berdiri. Tetapi sedikit badai langsung tumbang.
Masyarakat yang belum memiliki tradisi kerja sama mudah terpecah oleh suku, agama, kelompok politik, atau kepentingan elite.
Jabatan berubah menjadi alat memperkaya diri. Kekuasaan menjadi kendaraan keluarga. Hukum dapat dibeli.
Dan demokrasi perlahan berubah menjadi panggung oligarki.
Di sinilah pentingnya membangun masyarakat sipil yang sehat. Dan koperasi sesungguhnya memiliki posisi yang sangat strategis.
Karena koperasi melatih manusia untuk mengalami demokrasi secara konkret. Bukan teori. Bukan slogan.
Di koperasi, orang belajar bahwa suara petani kecil sama berharganya dengan suara pengurus. Orang belajar bahwa keputusan bersama membutuhkan kesabaran. Orang belajar bahwa kesejahteraan tidak dibangun dengan menjatuhkan sesama.
Ini pendidikan politik paling mendasar.
Sayangnya, banyak koperasi modern justru kehilangan arah ini. Mereka terlalu sibuk mengejar aset. Mengejar gedung. Mengejar pertumbuhan angka.
Tetapi lupa menumbuhkan solidaritas.
Padahal koperasi tanpa solidaritas ibarat pohon besar yang akarnya keropos. Mungkin tampak kokoh hari ini. Tetapi diam-diam sedang menunggu tumbang.
Persatuan tidak bisa dibangun secara instan. Ia seperti menanam hutan.
Perlu waktu panjang. Perlu pendidikan. Perlu keteladanan. Perlu pengorbanan kecil yang dilakukan terus-menerus.
Dan yang paling sulit: perlu kemampuan menahan ego.
Karena ancaman terbesar persatuan sering bukan musuh dari luar. Tetapi kesombongan dari dalam.
Ketika orang lebih mencintai posisi daripada misi, persatuan mulai retak.
Ketika organisasi lebih sibuk mempertahankan kelompoknya daripada memperjuangkan kepentingan bersama, solidaritas mulai mati.
Padahal masa depan dunia justru membutuhkan lebih banyak kerja sama.
Krisis ekonomi global. Kerusakan lingkungan. Ketimpangan sosial. Semua itu tidak mungkin diselesaikan oleh manusia-manusia yang hanya memikirkan dirinya sendiri.
Dunia membutuhkan lebih banyak “rumah panjang”. Lebih banyak ruang di mana manusia belajar hidup sebagai sesama.
Mungkin itulah sebabnya Will Watkins menempatkan persatuan di atas demokrasi. Karena demokrasi tanpa persatuan hanya melahirkan kompetisi tanpa hati. Sedangkan persatuan yang sehat akan melahirkan demokrasi yang bermartabat.
Dan koperasi, ketika tetap setia pada rohnya, sesungguhnya bukan sekadar gerakan ekonomi.
Ia adalah latihan panjang untuk menjadi manusia yang mampu hidup bersama.
Refleksi Munaldus, Penasihat inKUR, 22 Mei 2026.
There is a great irony in much of the talk about democracy.
People are busy building electoral mechanisms. Making rules. Dividing power. Forming institutions.
But they forget the one most fundamental thing: the glue that holds human beings together.
Yet democracy without a social bond will only become a magnificent building cracked from within.
The late Will Watkins, former Director of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) from 1951 to 1963, once said that unity is the most important cooperative principle, even surpassing democracy itself.
The statement sounds simple. But in truth it strikes the heart of modern civilization like a bolt of lightning.
For democracy is often regarded as the final goal. Yet democracy is merely a tool.
It is like a ship. For that ship to sail, the people on board must trust one another. They must feel a shared fate. They must possess solidarity.
Without that, democracy turns into an arena for scrambling after seats.
We can see it in many countries. Elections are held regularly. Political parties flourish. Parliament buildings stand grand.
But corruption runs rampant. Injustice widens. Elites prey upon one another. The people remain poor.
Why?
Because democracy was built without the soul of civic friendship.
Democracy ends up like a night market: crowded, noisy, full of lights, but having lost its way.
Nineteenth-century Britain offers an important lesson. Democracy there was not born suddenly like mushrooms after rain. It grew slowly together with the rise of civil society: trade unions, cooperatives, social organizations, popular education groups, church communities, and various citizens' associations.
There people learned to trust. There people learned to disagree without killing one another. There people learned that personal freedom must walk together with social responsibility.
It turns out that democracy was not born first from the ballot box. It was born at small tables where ordinary people learned to sit together.
The cooperative understood that secret from the beginning.
A cooperative is not merely a savings and loan institution. It is not only a shared store. Not only a pool of capital. The cooperative is in truth a school of economic brotherhood.
Within the cooperative, people are trained to think in terms of “we,” not only “I.”
That is why the principle of unity becomes so important.
Because without unity, the cooperative is left as an administrative building. There is an office. There are member meetings. There are financial reports. But the soul is gone.
Unity in the cooperative does not mean that everyone must always agree. That is not it.
Unity is the ability to keep walking together even when interests differ.
It is like a Dayak longhouse.
Its posts are many. Its inhabitants are many. Their characters differ. Yet the whole house stands on one common foundation.
If one main post grows rotten, the whole house begins to sway.
So it is with a society. When solidarity collapses, democracy begins to grow fragile.
We see many post-colonial nations failing not solely because they lack natural resources. Nor only because of neo-colonial interference or unjust global trade (though these too are real).
The deeper problem is often that a mature civil society has not yet grown. Political independence arrived too quickly, while the culture of democracy had not had time to take root.
As a result, the nation is like a great tree forced to grow without strong roots. From outside it seems to stand. But a small storm topples it at once.
A society that has yet to build a tradition of cooperation is easily torn apart by ethnicity, religion, political groupings, or elite interests.
Public office turns into a tool for self-enrichment. Power becomes a family vehicle. The law can be bought.
And democracy slowly turns into a stage for oligarchy.
This is where building a healthy civil society becomes essential. And the cooperative in fact holds a deeply strategic position.
Because the cooperative trains human beings to experience democracy concretely. Not as theory. Not as slogan.
In a cooperative, people learn that the voice of a small farmer is just as precious as that of a board member. People learn that shared decisions require patience. People learn that well-being is not built by bringing others down.
This is the most fundamental political education.
Sadly, many modern cooperatives have lost this direction. They are too busy chasing assets. Chasing buildings. Chasing growth figures.
But they have forgotten to cultivate solidarity.
Yet a cooperative without solidarity is like a great tree with hollow roots. It may seem sturdy today. But quietly it is waiting to fall.
Unity cannot be built instantly. It is like planting a forest.
It needs long time. It needs education. It needs example. It needs small sacrifices made again and again.
And the hardest of all: it needs the ability to hold back the ego.
Because the greatest threat to unity is often not the enemy outside. But arrogance from within.
When people love position more than mission, unity begins to crack.
When an organization grows busier defending its own group than fighting for the common interest, solidarity begins to die.
Yet the future of the world needs far more cooperation, not less.
Global economic crises. Environmental destruction. Social inequality. None of these can be resolved by human beings who think only of themselves.
The world needs more “longhouses.” More spaces where human beings learn to live as fellow beings.
Perhaps that is why Will Watkins placed unity above democracy. Because democracy without unity gives birth only to competition without heart. While a healthy unity gives birth to a democracy with dignity.
And the cooperative, when it remains faithful to its soul, is in truth not merely an economic movement.
It is a long apprenticeship in becoming human beings capable of living together.
A reflection by Munaldus, inKUR Adviser, May 22, 2026.
