Contradictions in democracy no more wanted
Wednesday, 4 July 2007
Abul Ehsan
SOME of the leading western democratic countries including the United States have recognised gay-rights and legitimised the same sex marriages accepting the involved weird habit as a matter of biological orientation. When they have gone to such an extreme of legitimising gay marriages as a matter of individuals' right under a democracy, why should some of them then arrogantly reject pan-Islamic or some other popular views?
The real democrats in the east and the west are baffled by this intriguing behaviour of many of the so-called democrats. Their varying attitudes and antagonistic stands on matters that they don't agree with are a perversion of the democratic values, which say that "I may not agree with your views but I will defend to the last your right to propagate your views". This anti-democracy and unacceptable perversion is a reminder of past authoritarian dogmatic dictatorships, which prevailed for long but ultimately crumbled with a lot of noises.
Democracies and democrats must tolerate all views and platforms to prove that what they profess they do actually uphold. Otherwise, the latent crises in any unsound democracy will gather strength from unabated frictions and will eventually explode at some stage like a volcano erupting fire and fumes. Constructive engagement or passivity is useful in thinning out any unsound opinion or political platform. The alternative course against it is confrontation or war. But democracies, which believe in the power of words, should hate and avoid wars -- both internal and external.
You may then ask: Why did Abraham Lincoln, the angel of democracy, fight the American Civil War? Well, he fought it to end the oppression of one group of people upon another. He fought it to establish equality of men and women, and not to establish the supremacy of his or anyone's partisan views.
While party reforms are being discussed by many political elements in this country, they may resist from dictating what others should or should not do. Being strictly faithful to the democratic values, they should only say what they themselves would or would not do. They must not seek to dictate what political views they would not tolerate and how others should politically behave within the limits of the democratic values.
Every political party and its leaders in this country should remind themselves that earthquakes take place when the earth's two or more tectonic plates collide. A society slides into chaos when political opinions within itself become volatile and intolerant to opposing views. The pluralistic democracy is the brainchild of those noble people who sought to promote peace by promoting and pursuing co-existence and mutual respect. This meritorious system was actually innovated as a political arrangement to accommodate diverse views in a society and not to encourage fighting between the supporters of different opinions. It is based on a belief that the best opinion would not take too long to ultimately prevail. Democracy thus puts its unreserved trust in the ultimate wisdom of men and women.
Diktats come only from those who are actually dictators or potential dictators wearing cunningly the guises of democrats or democracy lovers. All of us, the non-political silent majority, should be alert about and guard against them.
SOME of the leading western democratic countries including the United States have recognised gay-rights and legitimised the same sex marriages accepting the involved weird habit as a matter of biological orientation. When they have gone to such an extreme of legitimising gay marriages as a matter of individuals' right under a democracy, why should some of them then arrogantly reject pan-Islamic or some other popular views?
The real democrats in the east and the west are baffled by this intriguing behaviour of many of the so-called democrats. Their varying attitudes and antagonistic stands on matters that they don't agree with are a perversion of the democratic values, which say that "I may not agree with your views but I will defend to the last your right to propagate your views". This anti-democracy and unacceptable perversion is a reminder of past authoritarian dogmatic dictatorships, which prevailed for long but ultimately crumbled with a lot of noises.
Democracies and democrats must tolerate all views and platforms to prove that what they profess they do actually uphold. Otherwise, the latent crises in any unsound democracy will gather strength from unabated frictions and will eventually explode at some stage like a volcano erupting fire and fumes. Constructive engagement or passivity is useful in thinning out any unsound opinion or political platform. The alternative course against it is confrontation or war. But democracies, which believe in the power of words, should hate and avoid wars -- both internal and external.
You may then ask: Why did Abraham Lincoln, the angel of democracy, fight the American Civil War? Well, he fought it to end the oppression of one group of people upon another. He fought it to establish equality of men and women, and not to establish the supremacy of his or anyone's partisan views.
While party reforms are being discussed by many political elements in this country, they may resist from dictating what others should or should not do. Being strictly faithful to the democratic values, they should only say what they themselves would or would not do. They must not seek to dictate what political views they would not tolerate and how others should politically behave within the limits of the democratic values.
Every political party and its leaders in this country should remind themselves that earthquakes take place when the earth's two or more tectonic plates collide. A society slides into chaos when political opinions within itself become volatile and intolerant to opposing views. The pluralistic democracy is the brainchild of those noble people who sought to promote peace by promoting and pursuing co-existence and mutual respect. This meritorious system was actually innovated as a political arrangement to accommodate diverse views in a society and not to encourage fighting between the supporters of different opinions. It is based on a belief that the best opinion would not take too long to ultimately prevail. Democracy thus puts its unreserved trust in the ultimate wisdom of men and women.
Diktats come only from those who are actually dictators or potential dictators wearing cunningly the guises of democrats or democracy lovers. All of us, the non-political silent majority, should be alert about and guard against them.