Democracy

In a recent news bulletin it was mentioned that a bomb went of at an election meeting in Iraq. In the byline it said that 30 people are killed every day in Iraq. The number of casualties of the 9/11 attack are estimated to 2,996 people. Divide that by 30 and you get a hundred days. Iraq was invaded the 19th of March 2003. So. What is democracy? It is the gift that we in the west gave to Iraq and Afghanistan. Is it a way of governing a country that gives the power into the hands of the people? Perhaps the liberation from despotic leaders (and establishment of easier to handle regimes) in some very geo-political significant countries? When we speak of democracy, are we talking about the same thing when we talk about democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq or when we talk about it is the western countries?

What is it not

I own a book named "What is democracy?" it is (more or less) a 240 page long essay with some sentences that in themselves are real brain twisters. For obvious reasons I haven't read the complete book. Being as that is, I'd rather discuss what democracy is not. From my standpoint:

Democracy is not a system where the people of a country vote in an informed manner based on their own position and needs and hence attain a government that will look after the interests that are closest at heart to the majority of the voters.

Now, why on earth would it be that? Well, the reason why I mention it is because this seems to be the somewhat fuzzy idea most people have about democracy. Now, why wouldn't it be like that? First of all. Humans are not rational beings. Psychological experiments have proven again and again that by placing people in specific situations you can make them internalize values, or act in a manner that would seem contradictory to the values you (and the victim) thought he had. The biggest such experiment perhaps being Nazi-germany. The brain is much better at trying to argue for why the choices you make are rational than to indeed make rational choices. This is why political advertisement is a good idea for politicians. And a horrible idea for what we could call democratic "ideals". There is one famous add put in by the republicans that just had the text "democRATS", with RATS being written in red color. Informing the citizen? No. Affecting the citizen? Yes. It has been said that the party backed by Ruport Murdoch has won the british election since a long time back. I can't find a source confirming this, but it would make sense.

Failed States

What is said to divide the so called failed states (countries that apply the democratic principle but that we in general acknowledge aren't working very well anyway) are the institutions. If a country has strong democratic institutions the democracy will function well even when not so democratic forces gets elected. Of course, many of wests former colonies, as well as newly created countries where we, or the people themselves, have overthrown inconvenient leaders, have not had time to form strong institutions that are independent enough to withstand undemocratic forces. If I look at my own country, Sweden, one such institution would be the parlament (riksdagen). As part of the democratic process the proceedings from riksdagen are made available both online or through TV-broadcasting during the working hours. Riksdagen is the institution that among other things voted yes to the FRA-law, allowing an institution directly tied to the government, with no public control organ and hence no transparency, to spy on all swedish citizens. This voting process was performed in the beginning of the summer when usually no interesting things happen in the government. The prime minister was not even present for the vote and there didn't seem to be much will to raise an open debate about this, from the democratic ideal, rather important question. Now, many members of the parlament opposed the idea of the FRA-law, why not.. If you opposed the Soviet union spying on their citizens, why wouldn't you oppose your own country doing the same thing? In practice though? Many of the people that opposed the law, still voted for it when the vote was performed. Only two or three people actually voted according to their own integrity and not according to the demands put forward by their party. So, if riksdagen can pass such a law? Completely bypassing the democratic ideals, would this mean that it is also a failed institution? I would say yes. Still, we won't call Sweden a failed state, because people aren't being killed daily by political motivated violence. In truth, in between having a job, a family, a house to take care of and some spare time, very very few people actually engage in society as political entities. And when you look at the democratic ideal, it assumes that all or most members of a country are political entities.
As a by-note here I would encourage anyone to look at the proceedings from riksdagen, if you do you will quickly realize that it is more or less a theatre. No one will change his standpoint or even acknowledge if good arguments are put forward by the other side. Usually just a core message more often than not rooted in a catchy slogan is hammered through in the debates.

Good Old Churchill

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

you might recognize the above quote from Churchill. It is the one we can comfort us with to think that there is no problem. When criticism of democracy arrises it might sometimes feel uncomfortable, we might acknowledge that there are some shortcomings. Maybe we watched one or two of those hearings from the parlament and realized that being led by those people doesn't really make you feel safe. Then you can use Churchill's quote and draw the conclusion that there is no other solution. In fact you might think that there really isn't any problem either. Of course the government must be allowed to put surveillance on everyone without transparency. How would we otherwise be able to protect ourselves from becoming a totalitarian regime? I believe that Churchills quote really puts little to no faith in humanity. To really think that with all the creativity that exists in us. With all our ability to cooperate and create great things. It wouldn't be possible to create a human centered way of governing a country. A way that wouldn't need beggars in the streets, or that wouldn't make the amount of subscribed drugs to continue to sky rocket. Even the native americans have been quoted surprised by seeing begging children in the streets of the western cities. According to the quote this was something they didn't have, and couldn't imagine since they cherished their children. And now we are talking more than a hundred years ago (!). We have never been able to produce as much as we can now. Yet still we are, according to the reporters, in a global crisis. How did that happen?