Wikipedia defines democracy as, “a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally—either directly or through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and creation of laws. It encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self –determination.” While one of my favourite Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, defines it in his own words and defines it very right that it is “a govt of the people, by the people, for the people.”
Living in a democratic system means living in a country with a system that has its origin in ancient Greek i.e. about 2500 years old. Feeling old, out dated, eh? I’d rather feel proud. Athenian democracy took the form of a direct democracy, and it had two distinguishing features: the random selection of ordinary citizens to fill the few existing government administrative and judicial offices, and a legislative assembly consisting of all Athenian citizens. All eligible citizens were all to speak and vote in the assembly, which set the laws of the city state. However, Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves, foreigners, non-landowners, and males under 20 years old. But before we talk of democracy or democratic system, we do need to ask ourselves; do we really deserve this system? Are our values ‘democratic enough’ to deserve this system? Every country and nation has its own cultural and moral values but when it comes to democratic values, they are all the very same. These values are, basically, fundamental beliefs and constitutional principles of society which unite that very society. These values lay the very foundations and act as a soul for a democratic system in a country, without them democracy is a dead man. A democratic system without democratic value does not exist at all. Throughout the twentieth century, American scholars and political pundits have argued that the survival of democratic and political institutions and an ethic of concern for the welfare of other in the political community depended on ensuring all citizens received high quality civic education. Despite repeated efforts to act on this concern, empirical evidence suggests that a substantial number of Americans continue to be ignorant of how best to express their political demands, lack essential factual knowledge about political institutions and policies, and fail to acquire more information about politics and policy. A survey done on Chinese democratic system by Zweig and David of United States Institute of Peace (USIP) argues that high levels of popular democratic consciousness and strong demands for participation, in the absence of legitimate democratic institutions, lead citizens to resort to non-formal political strategies, including civil disobedience, to meet their needs. This show no matter how democratically conscious we are if there exist no democratic values then the democratic system is always under fire. In a society where justice is scarce, in a society where integrity is so cheap that money can buy it, a society where liberty is limited to a class of elites and the poor is bound in shackles, where the saviors of law rapes it away with no regret at all can never be democratically stable. We have the likes of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Syria in our current era, where the democratic values of both the ruling and lower class touched the lowest ebb and we saw the downfall of the ruling class and adding further misery to lower and middle class. The bloody events in Egypt have
placed American policymakers precisely where they least like to be—torn between American strategic interests and ideals. Reconciling the exigencies of realpolitik with support for democracy and human rights has always proven difficult. Both the rulers and ruled preferred interests over moral and democratic values. Morsi was elected in his country's first free elections, but Egypt, under the thrall of the Muslim Brotherhood, was undergoing democratization only in the sense that Germany was after free elections gave rise to the Nazis in 1932, the mullahs in Iran in 1979, or Hamas in Gaza in 2006. It is not by chance that the liberal camp in Egypt strongly supported the military's ouster of Morsi and the harsh measures adopted since then to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentally anti-democratic organization. Let’s hold ourselves accountable to our self, let’s ask our self; do we want to be treated like animals? Do we want our government to lie to us? Would any of us support an unjust society? Do we want a live a life where we are not sure of it?-of course nobody wants that, equal educational rights and access to high quality education to every citizen, rule of law and justice accessible to common man, will eventually lead up to a society that upholds it democratic values and is at democratically at peace inside out.
Living in a democratic system means living in a country with a system that has its origin in ancient Greek i.e. about 2500 years old. Feeling old, out dated, eh? I’d rather feel proud. Athenian democracy took the form of a direct democracy, and it had two distinguishing features: the random selection of ordinary citizens to fill the few existing government administrative and judicial offices, and a legislative assembly consisting of all Athenian citizens. All eligible citizens were all to speak and vote in the assembly, which set the laws of the city state. However, Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves, foreigners, non-landowners, and males under 20 years old. But before we talk of democracy or democratic system, we do need to ask ourselves; do we really deserve this system? Are our values ‘democratic enough’ to deserve this system? Every country and nation has its own cultural and moral values but when it comes to democratic values, they are all the very same. These values are, basically, fundamental beliefs and constitutional principles of society which unite that very society. These values lay the very foundations and act as a soul for a democratic system in a country, without them democracy is a dead man. A democratic system without democratic value does not exist at all. Throughout the twentieth century, American scholars and political pundits have argued that the survival of democratic and political institutions and an ethic of concern for the welfare of other in the political community depended on ensuring all citizens received high quality civic education. Despite repeated efforts to act on this concern, empirical evidence suggests that a substantial number of Americans continue to be ignorant of how best to express their political demands, lack essential factual knowledge about political institutions and policies, and fail to acquire more information about politics and policy. A survey done on Chinese democratic system by Zweig and David of United States Institute of Peace (USIP) argues that high levels of popular democratic consciousness and strong demands for participation, in the absence of legitimate democratic institutions, lead citizens to resort to non-formal political strategies, including civil disobedience, to meet their needs. This show no matter how democratically conscious we are if there exist no democratic values then the democratic system is always under fire. In a society where justice is scarce, in a society where integrity is so cheap that money can buy it, a society where liberty is limited to a class of elites and the poor is bound in shackles, where the saviors of law rapes it away with no regret at all can never be democratically stable. We have the likes of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Syria in our current era, where the democratic values of both the ruling and lower class touched the lowest ebb and we saw the downfall of the ruling class and adding further misery to lower and middle class. The bloody events in Egypt have
placed American policymakers precisely where they least like to be—torn between American strategic interests and ideals. Reconciling the exigencies of realpolitik with support for democracy and human rights has always proven difficult. Both the rulers and ruled preferred interests over moral and democratic values. Morsi was elected in his country's first free elections, but Egypt, under the thrall of the Muslim Brotherhood, was undergoing democratization only in the sense that Germany was after free elections gave rise to the Nazis in 1932, the mullahs in Iran in 1979, or Hamas in Gaza in 2006. It is not by chance that the liberal camp in Egypt strongly supported the military's ouster of Morsi and the harsh measures adopted since then to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentally anti-democratic organization. Let’s hold ourselves accountable to our self, let’s ask our self; do we want to be treated like animals? Do we want our government to lie to us? Would any of us support an unjust society? Do we want a live a life where we are not sure of it?-of course nobody wants that, equal educational rights and access to high quality education to every citizen, rule of law and justice accessible to common man, will eventually lead up to a society that upholds it democratic values and is at democratically at peace inside out.
