Democracy

Human quest for adequately working, non-frictional society with the government or leaders or perhaps kings, who always think betterment of the society, can be described at best as an illusion. But, this does not mean we should not embark on this rocky road to perfection. In our times the mantra for successful society is democracy. Ironically the leitmotif of democracy had killed more than it claims to liberate.

Every system known to man had its fault. Some systems were successful at some point and utterly failure at other time. Some like communism had inherent weakness since its inception and caused untold misery. Then in such scenario what makes democracy an only viable option in current situation? Or is it what we would like to believe? I am sure no staunch democracy activist guarantee the perfection but the given the history of the world since the end of colonism creates a conundrum about democracy that almost makes it impossible to question the shortcomings of democracy.

The failure of the world to respond to hundreds of genocides around the world is a great example how democracy is manipulated around the globe. Counter argument to this statement would be that the democracy is not bad but the people who govern are bad. But at least one will have to agree that democracy presents all the tools necessary to manipulate peoples mind set. Forget about the genocide in rest of the world, the real folly here is this system manipulates itself. It creates thick fog in front of itself and then fantasizes about its beauty in the mirror.

United State of America, current torch-bearer of democracy had so many issues of itself and with current form of democracy, it seems impossible that they will ever be solved. Everything is vote oriented. Technically peoples’ opinion should set the mandate and in fact they do. But the real hitch is, public opinion is manipulated by the system itself, i.e. by the elected body itself.

The democracy supposedly did wonders to the western world. The freedom of speech, masthead of the democracy gave voice to the millions of working class people. The riches of technology, innovation, literature, art etc of western world are usually attributed to the western world’s quest for democracy. But in reality, wealth of western world can equally be attributed to its barbaric and bloody colonial past. They systematically plundered the whole world and massacred millions under the guise of ‘educating’ people. Before leaving the captured land they forcefully sowed an alien form of democracy in the conquered land. Obviously barring few exception, the democracy has been disaster to most of the world and back tracked the development of the world further.

I am not saying democracy is completely corrupt system. I am not communist either. In fact, I hate communism to my bones. I am not a great fan of socialism. But still I am questioning the form of democracy that most of the third world nations around the world are trying to follow and most of the western nations are trying to impose on them. Hopefully there will be more discussion on this topic in main stream press and among the people.