By Lubna Abdel-Aziz Is the remedy worse than the malady? In search of a 'pear', have we climbed up 'an elm tree'? Throughout history, the hum and stir of society finally produced the 'perfect' form of government; but is there a perfect form of government? It was Winston Churchill, a prominent leader of one of the world's most successful democracies, who said: "No one pretends that Democracy is perfect or all- wise. Indeed it has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time". In other words, there can be no perfection among men and Democracy is as imperfect or as corrupt as the men who practice it. The chief democracies of the day, namely the US and the UK are guilty of grave errors of injustice, fraud, corruption, discrimination and persecution. But all the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy. The concept of equal rights and democratic rule is not new. Philosophers and statesmen have contemplated and practiced a democratic way of life, as in ancient Greece, but even then, there was skepticism. The power of integrity has been conferred by nature upon a select few. The power of corruption has been generously dispersed to grow wildly and abundantly, even among refined Athenian columns. "Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and un-equals alike".... thus described Plato a democracy that cannot achieve total fairness. He goes on to elaborate that a tyrant springs from a democracy, where first he appeared as a protector. Are we in similar danger? Just because men may be equally free, does not translate into absolute equality. That men are equal in some respects, does not mean they are equal in all respects. Everything is relative, so it is with democracies. History has shown that the higher the level of education, the better chance of success in a democracy. Education is the safety net that preserves democracies from crumbling. Participation is another staunch supporter of the democratic system. One man, one vote is the rule. You abandon your right as a citizen, if you do not vote. At the very least you lose your right to criticize a foul government or its rotten governor. Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. Just laws are made by those who make themselves heard, by those who vote. A gross misconception is the power of the majority rule. The minority must be heeded, their equal rights preserved. Their freedoms of speech, press, assembly, worship are untouchable, so is their right to become the majority, by all legal means. Many social thinkers shun the rule of the 'masses', as the rule of the common people, not the abler or the better educated. In which case, a thinking minority is subject to the legal force of numbers. In his play "An Enemy of the People" Henrik Ibsen asks: "Who makes the majority in any given country? Is it the wise men or the fools?" He expands:"I think we must agree that the fools are in a terrible, overwhelming majority all the wide-world over". His viewpoint may be extreme, but it does make a legitimate point....the rule of the incompetent many over the competent few. "But damn it", continues Ibsen, "it can surely never be right, that the stupid should rule over the clever". We have lived through a tyrannical, totalitarian regime, where only the government party was allowed to exist and to rule. We may have cut off the tyrant's head and ended his tyrannical rule, but could it be that we developed a taste for tyranny? Have we substituted one tyrant for another under the guise of democracy and majority rule? Are we to end up where we started? Misrepresented, misunderstood and ill-defined, Democracy is moulded, and developed by its people.. The majority, by 1 per cent or 99 per cent cannot silence the voice of the minority, if it is to preserve the total equality of all men -- and women. From its infancy, Democracy was a system of citizen participation. History credits the ancient Greeks of 600 BC with the creation of the name, 'demos' meaning 'people' and 'kratos' meaning 'authority or rule'. Only male Athenian citizens had a duty to serve in the Assembly, which passed the laws. Democracy as we know it, did not take root until the 1800s, following the American and British archetypes. Many distorted the idea into dictatorships. The Russian revolution established a Communist form of government in 1917, but the rule of the people, turned into the rule of the weak many, by the strong few. Communism halted the progress of human rights, but slowly vanished, overtaken by other forms, masquerading as democracies. Inexperience in self-rule results in a custom-made democracy, subject to the force of the powerful over the weak. Citizens are bullied and bought at the election booth. Votes are doubled and tripled, counted or miscounted. It has been said that:"it's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting". So many pitfalls, hazards and entanglements await it, it is a miracle that Democracy is able to survive at all. With no crystal ball, tea-leaves or coffee grinds the future remains obscure. Let us not end where we began. Let us never consent to be dominated by a sect or an interest. A young democracy... Yes! A little democracy... No! If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one, than the one -- if he had the power -- would be justified in silencing mankind. -- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
