from green to black

democracy this democracy that.

my lecturer's interest is to apply democracy to different
states, and not surprisingly he comes from the west. jk
i dont mean to imply western disenchantment . now, i like
democracy too but i'm kindda wary of the way he
thinks democracy should be implemented everywhere.
snap, presto, just like that!

i hate to say this but let us look at the conditions in
thriving western democracies to see what conditions
resulted in this change of government.

firstly, war and oppression or oppression then war.
the united states fought a war against british imperialism
before they could institute democracy to govern themselves.
and that was only after they had enough of the brits which
culminated in the boston tea party. so firstly, life has
to be really crappy till you're cheesed off enough to
to say aha, i want independence and i want a say in governing
myself because the self interested elites just want to
enrich themselves.

oppression in england because of the petition of right
where the king could not tax without parliament's
permission.

oppression in france by the monarchy which resulted
in the revolution.

the end of world war 1 before democracy started in
germany.

and the list goes on. i could (toungue in cheek)
claim that we are all in democratic transition because
we are just waiting for conditions to be bad enough
before we get sufficiently fed up and try to put more
effort in governing ourselves. so ingredient no. 1
is oppression, why blame non-democratic governments
they are on the path to democracy if cycles can be
predicted by history.

the second reason (and more importantly) why i feel
democracy should not be implemented everywhere is
because of the premature formation of the state.
authoritarian territorial consolidation had to be
established before democracy can begin. because only
with established structures such as a sufficient
military and police force can states keep order.
also there is a need for a centrally established
judiciary that is acknowledged by the people to
have jurisdiction over them that a state may be
peaceably be administered.

when territorial boundaries which made up what
constituted states were abruptly demarcated, the
central government did not always have the means
to subjugate the whole population. this lead the
government to be more authoritarian in response
to the disorder in their country so that they
can achieve order.

so ironically, you need order and stability in
a state before you can have creative disorder
through democracy, so that you do not undermine
the initial order. (lol, by that argument isnt
it implicit that we are maintaining the old
power structure by other means? i didnt see the
aristocracy losing power when the citizenry
were enfranchised in england)

so democracy this and democracy that. i'm just
thankful my country is ruled by an enlightened
despot, so i'll wait for him to go and then
ensure that i motion to have enough rights so
that we can all ensure that this place never
lapses into despotism.

heh. like the premise or the intention can be
accomplished by the actions of one person. bleah

posted by green unseen @ 1:44 AM