Monday, June 16, 2008

Democracy Creates Stability

I feel that democracy might create stability in society to a certain extent.
Firstly, we must define a few terms. Democracy is ‘a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections'. In other words, it is a system where citizens control their own affairs, and are given the power to do so. They either do this directly, by voting to pass bills and laws, or indirectly, voting for people to represent them who will make it their jobs to pass such bills and laws.
Stability refers to how peaceful the society is. A stable society would probably not have riots or unrest.
Key beliefs of democracy include freedom and equality, as well as human rights. If a truly democratic state existed, it would embody all of these in its laws and enforce them. Therefore, all people, included minority groups, would be treated equally. As they are happy, there will not be tension between different groups of the community such as the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, or the Tamils and the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka. This will help to prevent unrest, and thus promote stability.
However, this would be difficult to achieve. In order to gain such a state, the people’s thinking must be in line with this concept of equality across races, religion, ethnic groups, gender, and other differences within society. This is where education should come in to teach the people. They should be taught about equality and human rights and have such values instilled in them.
This brings up another problem – freedom. Such ‘brainwashing’ could be considered limiting the people’s freedom, which is no longer the democratic way. One could argue that people have the right to think what they want. In such a case, the people might start discriminating against others in their minds, leading to discriminatory actions. If the majority press for it, there will be no option but to pass such discriminatory laws, due to the voting system which guarantees an overwhelming majority the right to decide.
Therefore, it can be seen that democracy will create stability in a society, only if they are open to its ideas and concepts. This condition creates problems, and thus, stability might never be achieved.

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