Dismantling Democracy

It's time to dismantle democracy because obviously no one knows what it is. For some reason we (that's the Western "we") revere this political concept as the equivalent to freedom. Whenever freedom is in question, it is a challenge to democracy, and the word "Nazis" inevitably gets pulled into the equation regardless of the of the situation.


On the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, the beginning of the end of the Cold War and the Soviet regime, the question of what democracy is becomes increasingly valid. The material shared by Batty and Erasmus during September discussing the protests in Washington against health care pose as the poster-child of western political and historical ignorance. And now that the American president Obama hasokayed the health care process, will these Americans now find themselves in an undemocratic situation? Has freedom been unfairly yanked from their grasp? Are they now slaves to their country?


The nearly forgotten Canadian Coalition discussion [link to follow] of this past winter was an event which challenged the taken-for-granted political and historical intelligence ofCanadians . As Canadians we revere ourselves as vastly more intelligent and politically aware than our southern neighbours, which doesn't say a whole lot. It also gives a country, where the majority of the population cannot name the first Prime Minister, more credit than it deserves (hint: he's on the ten-dollar bill, yes, that's the purple one).


The arguments you'd hear in the halls of one of Canada's top universities following this political debate were astounding. The disgust openly voiced by those supporting the Conservative government, identifying the dissatisfied Canadians who were questioning Prime Minister Harper's adequacy as nothing more than leftist pot-smoking hippies who simply couldn't deal with the fact that Harper was voted in and that's simply how democracy works, was excruciatingly ignorant. Yes. That is how democracy works. But not how a Constitutional Monarchy works. Guess which one Canada is.


And finally we have the Iranian protests following the summer election. To think that Westerners, especially Americans, have the audacity to claim that a country with rigged elections is simply not prepared for democracy. Does George Bush ring any bells? George Bush in 2000? Florida recount? Anything?! Yes - the Iranian situation is a fantastic example of inhumane andunhumanitarian behaviour. But can we safely deduce that part of the Western reaction to this has been clearly led by our safe assumption that anything Middle-eastern has been cleverly concocted to deny the rights of individuals while we sit in the Free West?


Now I'm not a political scientist. I hate politics. But I will try to give an accurate definition of democracy. Democracy is built around the freedom to have knowledge of who you are voting for ... but a democracy is also run by a tyrant. It's a "one-man" show and it doesn't mean personal freedom under a regime.


The Cold War is over and yet we continue to divide the world into two parts which contrast one another. But this continuation of duality is a figment of our imaginations. The world can no longer be divided in two - it's like a playground where one bully picks out its foe. It worked during the Cold War because the playground was equally divided out of fear - the smaller countries where threatened into giving their lunch money and cookies to the two superpowers. But once one of the bullies fell to the other, the playground has become a colossal mess. Some of the countries still hand over the lunch money, but they can't really figure out who to give it to. There are no longer two superpowers - there is a contest as to who will reach this status among the previously minor countries, while other countries have become bored with the whole game and are playing four-square and fooling around with the tether ball.


The west still insists on dividing the world according to democratic and undemocratic nations. But how long will it take for us to understand that perhaps what the west is advocating isn't exactly democracy, and that this definition of democracy is actually applying to other political concepts. The point is that we need to properly define what we are and what we want, and to cease concocting definitions when we find it suitable.