The concept of freedom of expression is well accepted as a fundamental to the democratic process. It is guaranteed in the Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR). The idea is that people will take their own decisions not only during election but also in all major issues of the country. In fact, diversity of opinions and democracy are inter-related because multiplicity of opinion is a defining feature of democracy and increasingly it is also recognised as a force for social good, something to be nourished and celebrated rather than feared or pushed to the margins.
For democracy to work, there needs to be a difference in opinions. Expecting everyone and everything to think exactly how you think is unrealistic and a society cannot progress that way. But with democracy, everyone has a chance to have an opinion.
Democracy without diversity is simple. If everyone is equal and has the same perspective then the majority will be nearly unanimous. Adding people with different perspectives will make the majority opinion less of a landslide. This makes things more complicated, but it does not hurt democracy. One could even say that diversity enhances democracy. That is when diversity serves democracy, differences are actively explored.
Democracy, then, is committed to equality of power; it is also well-suited to exposing points of opinion to each other in a way that leads to identifying better solutions. This is because democracy also involves debate. In competitive elections and in more intimate discussions, democratic actors argue over which proposals are better or worse, exposing their different perspectives to each other.
Experts in politics argue that politics is a matter of seeking to harness diversity so as to generate useful knowledge. As they describe it, democratic decision processes make better use of the distributed knowledge that exists in a society than do their rivals.
In addition, a separate line of research in experimental social psychology found that a variety of attitudes instead of a single view produce more solutions, which outsiders assess as better and more innovative.
To make a good case for democracy, we need to bring diverse points of outlook to the table that will show the specific ways in which they are exposed to each other and have beneficial consequences for problem solving. Moreover, democratic societies rely on diversity of viewpoints and ideas for the intelligence, engagement, enthusiasm and wisdom that they need to stay alive.
Ensuring that our democracy reflects the diversity of views and opinions of the people it represents is essential to the health and vibrancy of our democratic system - everyone should have the opportunity to make their voices heard. The more voices and ideas that contribute to democracy - whether in elections, parliament, local government or anywhere else - the better and more legitimate our collective decisions.
On the contrary, if only a few people are engaged in the discussion, we are missing out on a wealth of information that could help decision makers find better answers to problems. For this reason, the world's most populous democracy has successfully housed the extraordinary diversity of its peoples under the umbrella of a multi-party constitutional democracy. It would be nice to think that diversity does indeed enhance democracy here.
The writer is a lecturer in Social Work, Northern University Bangladesh helalabdullah@gmail.com
Diversity of opinions enriches democracy
Md Abdullah Al Helal | Published: February 21, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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