Purposeful vs. Tyrannical Democracy
/The history of Democracy is taking new
turns. For the first time, an aggressor used its might and the label of
democracy to legitimize a puppet it imposed on Afghan nation. At the
same time two more "free" and "fair" elections will happen in 2005, in
Iraq, under the auspices of the American occupation, and in Palestine,
under the auspices of the Israeli occupation. The emphasis everywhere
is on holding elections, which are declared either rigged (Ukraine) or
null and void if winners are presumed to be anti-Europe or
Anti-Americans. Elections are glorified if they happen to give direct
or indirect legitimacy to dictators like Musharraf and Mubarak.
Elections!! Is this what democracy entails, or it has been reduced only
to holding elections? Are elections a magic bullet that legitimizes
occupations in occupied lands, legalizes human right violations at home
and abroad and allows concentration camps to keep thriving? Or
democracy is reduced to a fig leaf of elections used for covering the
lies behind consolidating a police state at home and invasions of
sovereign states and butchery of more than 100,000 people abroad?
Although voices in the US are muted, and while there are not yet
demonstrations, as on the streets of Kiev, demanding free, honest, and
general elections in the US, many nevertheless sense a changing tone in
public discourse. There is a new curiosity; at least, about what
democracy might entail as many realize that elections are not the end.
The world's oldest democracy today stands as a model of extremism and
intolerance. It presents to the world a model of the most effective
police state ever existed. Its two party dictatorship is universally
recognized fact. With the help of its military might and the use of
veto power at the UN, it has ignored international will, violated
almost all international laws and norms of decency. A look at American
democracy forces one to ask: Is this the ultimately refined form of
governance and way of life that the rest of the world has to adopt
under the barrel of a gun? [more]
