Democracy and its pitfalls...
What is Democracy?
When lying on his death bed, Grand Father Bhishma, in Mahabharata, told Yudhisthira, “In the good olden days, there were no king, no government, no crime and no law enforcing and punitive bodies. The people were extremely virtuous and they protected each other according to innate social laws called Dharma (or virtue). But Dharma gradually declined and a government, headed by a ruler or king, became necessary with definite codes of law and the law enforcing punitive authorities.” He also said that a king must not be a tyrant. He should treat his subjects as his own children and collect tax just as a bee collects honey from a flower without injuring the flower.
The same notion has been expressed by Fred Woodworth, who said, “If human beings are fundamentally good, no government is necessary; if they are fundamentally bad, any government, being composed of human beings, would be bad also.” So, to cut a long story short, various types of governments came into play, ultimately leading to monarchy, or a government headed by a king, as the ruling authority with its judiciary and law-enforcing punitive bodies and an army to protect the land from foreign invaders.
But in medieval Europe, the kings and feudal lords became extremely tyrannical; at the same time, common people became the victims of the religious tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church or the papacy. This led the common people to revolt to curb the power of kings. The power of the state divided between the king and a body elected by the people, and later also to the judiciary. In this way, the modern types of democratic governments came into existence. And after the end of the WW II, democracy became very popular. According to a study, 117 of the world’s 191 countries today are considered democratic. According to another study, there were only 40 democratic countries in the world in 1972, but 123 countries are democratic today.
Most Western authors discover the origin of democracy in its practice in the city-state of Athens in Greece and in Rome in Italy. In this regard, an author says, “Although Athenian democracy is today considered by many to have been a form of direct democracy, originally it had two distinguishing features: first the allotment (selection by lot) of ordinary citizens to government offices and courts, and secondarily the assembly of all the citizens.”
Another author says, “The term democracy comes from the Greek language and means “rule by the (simple) people”. The so-called “democracies” in classical antiquity (Athens and Rome) represent precursors of modern democracies. Like modern democracy, they were created as a reaction to a concentration and abuse of power by the rulers. Yet the theory of modern democracy was not formulated until the Age of Enlightenment (17th/18th centuries), when philosophers defined the essential elements of democracy: separation of powers, basic civil rights / human rights, religious liberty and separation of the church and state.[1]
One must also consider that in the democratic city-states of Greece and Rome, 80% of the population were slaves, who were not considered as citizens. So, the democracy of Athens and Rome were democracies of the slave owners, who constituted only 20% of the population.
In fact, some form of democracy was also practiced in parts of ancient India. The city-state of Kapilavastu, where Lord Buddha was born, was ruled by a democratic government. King Gopala in Bengal was also elected to power. In this context, the Wikipedia says, “A serious claim for early democratic institutions comes from the independent “republics” of India, sanghas and ganas, which existed as early as the 6th century BC and persisted in some areas until the 4th century AD. The evidence is scattered and no pure historical source exists for that period. In addition, Diodorus (a Greek historian at the time of Alexander the Great’s excursion of India), without offering any detail, mentions that independent and democratic states existed in India. However, modern scholars note that the word democracy at the 3rd century BC and later had been degraded and could mean any autonomous state no matter how oligarchic it was.”
Parliamentary Democracy in England
According to historians, modern democracy started in England in 1295, when King Edward I called the first official parliament. All peers – that is lords, including the bishops and some abbots – were invited individually, by name; and every city and county was asked to choose (elect) two members to represent it in parliament. An unofficial parliament had been called by the rebel baron Simon de Montfort already in 1265, and some people prefer to see that as the start of democracy in England. The purpose of calling the parliament of 1295 was to avoid undue dependence on a narrow clique of aristocrats.
Today, democracy is known to be a political system in which governing power is derived from the people, by (1) consensus (consensus democracy), by (2) direct referendum (direct democracy), or (3) by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy). The term comes from the Greek: (dēmokratía) “rule of the people”, equality and freedom have been identified as important characteristics of democracy since ancient times. These principles are reflected in all citizens being equal before the law and having equal access to power. For example, in a representative democracy, every vote has equal weight, no restrictions can apply to anyone wanting to become a representative, and the freedom of its citizens is secured by legitimized rights and liberties which are generally protected by a constitution.
Suffrage
To define suffrage, the Wikipedia says, “Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise is the civil right to vote, or the exercise of that right. In English, suffrage and its synonyms are sometimes also used to mean the right to run for office (to be a candidate), but there are no established qualifying terms to distinguish between these different meanings of the term(s). The right to run for office is sometimes called (candidate) eligibility, and the combination of both rights is sometimes called full suffrage. In many other languages, the right to vote is called the active right to vote and the right to be voted for (to run for office) is called the passive right to vote. In English, these are rarely called active suffrage and passive suffrage.”
Generally, the word 'Suffrage' stands for elections or referendums. Suffrage is used to describe not only the legal right to vote, but also to the practical question of the opportunity to vote, which is sometimes denied to those, who have a legal right. In most democracies, eligible voters can vote in the election of representatives. Voting on issues by initiative may be available in some jurisdictions but not others. Typically citizens become eligible to vote after reaching the age of legal adulthood. Most democracies no longer extend different voting rights on the basis of sex or race. Resident aliens can vote in some countries and in others exceptions are made for citizens of countries with which they have close links.
 People celebrate the establishment of universal male suffrage in France in 1848 |
Women’s suffrage is the right of women to vote on the same terms as men. But women had to fight for quite a long time for obtaining their right to vote even in European countries. Finland was the first European nation in the world to give all citizens full suffrage, in other words the right to vote and to run for office (in 1906). New Zealand was the first country in the world to grant all citizens the right to vote (in 1893), but women did not get the right to run for the New Zealand legislature until 1919. Suffrage in the United Kingdom was slowly changed over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries through the use of the Reform Acts and the Representation of the People Acts, culminating in universal suffrage, excluding children and convicted prisoners.
Moreover in many countries, people of disfavored religious denominations were denied many civil and political rights, often including the right to vote, to stand for election or to sit in parliament. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Roman Catholics were denied the right to vote from 1728 to 1793, and the right to sit in parliament until 1829. The anti-Catholic policy was justified on the grounds that the loyalty of Catholics supposedly lay with the Pope rather than the national monarch. Even the Jews had to endure a similar fate until 1828. In the next year, by the Catholic Relief Act 1829, Catholics were allowed the right to vote.
“Disenfranchising Act took away Catholics’ (Papists’) voting rights in Ireland, which were restored only in 1788. Jews could not even be naturalized. An attempt was made to change this situation, but the Jewish Naturalization Act 1753 provoked such reactions that it was repealed the next year. Nonconformists (Methodists and Presbyterians) were only allowed to run for elections to the British House of Commons in 1828, Catholics in 1829 (following the Catholic Relief Act 1829), and Jews in 1858 (with the Emancipation of the Jews in England). Benjamin Disraeli could only begin his political career in 1837 because he had been converted to Anglicanism at the age of 12”, Wikipedia adds.
In Canada, several religious groups (Mennonites, Hutterites, Doukhobors) were disenfranchised by the war-time Elections Act of 1917, mainly because they opposed military service. This disenfranchisement ended with the end of the First World War, but was renewed for Doukhobors from 1934 (Dominion Elections Act) to 1955.
It should also be mentioned here that, even though, nothing in law specifically prevents anyone from voting on account of their race, but other laws or regulations are used to exclude people of a particular race. In southern states of the U.S. before the passage of the 1965, literacy and other tests were used to disenfranchise African-Americans. Sometimes the right to vote has been limited to people who had achieved a certain level of education or passed a certain test, e.g. “literacy tests” in some states of the US. And thus emerged the democracy, with universal franchise, in the civilized world. So, at present, a democratic government is supposed to be one in which fundamental human rights of individual citizens are protected by the collective and in which the views of the population-at-large, not just the whims of ruling elites, are reflected in the actions of government.
Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865), the ex-President of USA was a great admirer of this democracy and he used to believe it as the last form of government and said, “Democracy has been called the “last form of government” and has spread considerably across the globe. …Elections belong to the people. It is their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters. …Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people. …As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. …The ballot is stronger than the bullet. …Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
“They (democracies) are more likely to respect the environment and human rights and social justice. It’s no accident that most of the terrorists come from non-democratic countries”, said Bill Clinton, the ex-President of USA. [4]
But Sir Winston Churchill, the ex-Prime Minister of the UK, held a dubious notion about democracy and said, “Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. 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 others that have been tried from time to time.” [5]
There were also other people who criticized bitterly. “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb”, said Benjamin Franklin. The most outrageous critiques of democracy were Karl Marx and his followers, known as Communists. They call this democracy as Bourgeois' Democracy, or the democracy of the capitalists and it is a machinery for exploiting the proletariat. This democracy is a political system where “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them”, said Karl Marx. [6]
It should be mentioned here that the most damaging aspect of this democracy is that, it motivates the politicians to look only up to the next election term and not beyond. It makes the politicians engrossed with the thought of winning the next election by hook or by crook and stay in power. The extreme rivalry and selfishness among the political parties is another curse of this kind of democracy.
So, William Ewart Gladstone (1809 – 1898), who served as Prime Minister of UK four times, said, “Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race.” There are so many examples in history to show how this rivalry and selfishness ruined so many nations.
It has been mentioned in first part of the article that in 711, Moors, after the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, occupied large parts of the Iberian Peninsula establishing the Al-Andalus (Moorish Spain). This Islamic rule in Spain, lasted until 1492, when the Muslims of Granada were either converted to Christianity or massacred or driven out of Spain. The most important aspect of this episode is that, the Islamic caliphate had not actually targeted Spain for conquest, but the political divisions and rivalry within the Visigothic kingdom created an opportunity that Tariq and his army exploited successfully. Or in other words, the political rivalry among the Visigoths culminated into Islamic slavery of Spain that lasted for nearly 700 years.
In India, there was bitter rivalry between Prithwiraj Chauhan, the Emperor of Delhi, and Jaichand, the king of Kannauj. This rivalry led Jaichand to invite Muhammad Ghori to invade Delhi. Jaichand is said to have provide active support to the Muslim army. Ultimately Prithwiraj was defeated and killed by the joint army of Muhammad Ghori and Jaichand. This incident initiated the Muslim rule in India that lasted for nearly 700 years. In a similar manner, Poras, the king of Punjab had rivalry with Ambhi, the king of Sindh. So, when Alexander of Macedonia invaded the kingdom of Poras, Ambhi sided with Alexander. But Alexander was badly defeated in the deciding battle and compelled Alexander to leave India. These facts led Gladstone to say, “National injustice is the surest road to national downfall.”
From the above discussions, it appears that in almost all the countries of Europe and in America, democratic governments, elected by universal suffrage, are in power. An extreme rivalry exists among political parties in those countries. On the other hand, this universal suffrage denies any discrimination on the basis of religion, race, country of origin, and so on. Obviously, the universal suffrage has provided a golden opportunity to Muslim immigrants in the European countries to realize their hidden agenda of turning the host countries into a dar-ul-Islam by just increasing their kind by rapid breeding and inviting more Muslim immigrants. This prospect has inspired the Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi to say, “There are signs that Allah will grant victory to Islam in Europe without swords, without guns, without conquest. We don’t need terrorists, we don’t need homicide bombers. The 50+ million Muslims (in Europe) will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.”
So, the moot question is: How to defeat this demographic aggression? And how the rivalry among the political parties, which is paving the way for Islamization of Europe, could be arrested? We hope to discuss these matters in the next article.
References:
[1] http://www.democracy-building.info/definition-democracy.html
[2] Democracy is people who rule the government directly, .BBC History of democracy
[3] Ancient Rome from the earliest times down to 476 A.D, Annourbis.com. Retrieved 2010-08-22
[4] http://allthebestquotes.com/theme/democracy.htm
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