The word democracy is one of those words or phrases like ‘freedom’ or ‘the public good’ which Western and East European politicians in particular are often fond of using to gain support from their people.
Indeed western politicians often make statements that are quite meaningless without giving their subjective definition of what these words or phrases mean.
How often have we heard Western leaders say, “We need to make our country great again.” Few question what they mean by ‘great’ and more worrying still is that the voters who applaud such statements often have no idea what their country being ‘great again’ means.
For English does it mean returning to the 19th Century when Britain had an Empire or does it mean when Britain was the greatest industrial power or perhaps during WW2 when Britain was victorious against the Nazis or when in 1966 England won the football World Cup?
For many Germans, neither WW2 nor losing to England in the finals of the World Cup would be regarded as great. However, such words and expressions are spoken by politicians and accepted by Western voters as being universally true.
If you were to put ten Western voters in a room and ask each of them, what the word democracy means you might find that you get ten different answers. In the UK, we are told we have ‘representative democracy.’ This form of democracy is a political system whereby voters as in England and most Western countries vote for a Political Party which is allowed to pass laws and rule on their behalf. It is not a ‘direct democracy’ whereby the citizens of a country have a right to vote for legislation before it is passed into law.
An example of direct democracy in Britain was when its citizens were given a referendum to decide whether or not we should exit or remain in the European Union.
Such an act of direct democracy is rare and many UK politicians will be wary of allowing this again. Within reason under representative democracy ruling politicians can decide to do what they want to do for a period of five years, rebutting any criticism of their actions by saying that they were elected by the people to do things on their behalf even if the people don’t like it.
No better example of this is when Tony Blair took Britain to war against Iraq in 2003. It seemed likely that had the British been allowed to vote on such an important decision they would have voted against a war that most now realise was entered into based on inaccurate information produced by Blair and his political allies.
Blair when going to war had stated that “I have made the right decision” on behalf of the British people. Blair’s decision to go to war was made in the face of widespread criticism and ignoring the hundreds of thousands of anti-war demonstrators in London. The word “I” is relevant. He didn’t use the word “we.”
Of course, legally under representative democracy Blair and his Members of Parliament were within their rights to take us into a war we disagreed with and weren’t in favour of.
Blair realised that under the UK’s political system of representative democracy, he had virtually been given a blank cheque to do as he wished. He wasn’t loathe to cash it in when it suited him using his Party’s large majority in the House of Commons.
There are many different types of democracy including Direct democracy, Representative democracy, Parliamentary democracy, Authoritarian democracy, Participator democracy, Islamic democracy, and Social democracy. And, probably quite a few more.
Winston Churchill reportedly said, possibly often mentioned out of context, “that democracy is the worst form of government except for all others.” Since I began spending much of the year in my beloved Oman, a country that is stable and peaceful and where all are given equal rights under Omani law, I have begun to question Churchill’s famous statement.
However having been brought up in England and having gotten used to its way of how we are governed, I remain hopeful that we may one day have a UK government that truly represents its people’s best interests. We have just elected a new Labour Party government which says it will do all those things for its citizens which the outgoing Party failed to do.
The trouble is that we long-suffering voters have heard such statements from countless past political Parties when they were first elected. These Parties have rarely lived up to their promises and as a result, the British voting public has become cynical. The turn-out of voters for our latest General Election was one of the lowest in history. 40 per cent of those who were eligible to vote did not. I was therefore in good company being one of those who stayed at home watching the football on TV.
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