"You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion."
- Julian Assange
Is western democracy failing us because of rejecting ethics, morality and universal values and replacing them with selfishness, glorifying consumption and greed? Can we find any model from human history which was democratic and at the same time ensuring welfare to all people in truly democratic way, reduced gap between extremes and promoted real peace by embracing diversity and plurality?
At times things can become so upside down and we become extremely habituated with the dysfunctional system that we hardly can see through the fogs of delusions, confusions and systemic violation of values. When it comes to what is happening in the name of democracy around the world in extremely greedy and selfish capitalist societies, those of conscience can see and feel that something is seriously wrong. Either the system is faulty or the system is seriously misused. Although on the face it is called democracy, yet it is being morphed into a system that supports only the rich elite, pumps tax payers money into military-security industrial complex, serves only the interest of the rich and ignore mass opinions, be it against war or bailing out large banks and corporates.
Things does not get rotten in one day. There are certainly very specific tendency in a society that leads collectively to colossal failure. What is alarming, specially in the context of United States is how the whole system is swallowed into a vicious tsunami of total lack of accountability.
To my personal understanding, how democracy is bring practiced in United States is bound to fail in the given system of money driven political campaigns. And sadly this same tendency is being copied elsewhere in the name of democracy where only those who can spend millions can only win, and those who win, because of raising the funds, are sold even before they are elected. So once they are in their post, they begin to serve, not the people and the nation, but those corporates and interest group who sponsored them by pumping extravagant money in the political campaigns.
Is democracy turning to be an idiotcracy? According to Urban Dictionary idiotcracy is "a government run by politicians that is designed to benefit and enrich the politician's big business contributors at the expense of the middle and lower class citizens." I bet it has and alarmingly this is the case everywhere in the world. Western Democracy in the present fashion is very idiotic as well. We knew better than this, but before we go there, lets illustrate some example why our process of election is bound to fail.
Let’s say there is a vacancy in the post of a high school principal and the school needs to appoint someone who can lead, run and manage the school. How would that appointment process be? Would they ask all the students of the high school, from the lowest class to the highest, to cast their vote among some random people? Worse even if the voting population (or the students in this case) never knew the person before, have no idea about his previous roles or performance? Even if there was a vote among the students, is it right to assume that these young, inexperienced students will have the sound judgment as what qualifies a good principal, or what previous track record or experience that person must possess?
For argument sake even if we think that all potential candidates are asked to present themselves in front of the students and showcase their talents, to explain how they will run the school – that would also be a wrong thing to do, because: firstly the inexperienced students will not be able to judge, secondly in order to win the vote, some candidates will say or promise things which might be popular among the students, but would be disaster for the school system or education process. In front of such unqualified voters, Lady Gaga has more chance of winning in popular vote than a real principal who might have a proper track record of many years.
That’s why in a school or any sound organization, we don’t see such voting system where those who have no idea about the requirements of a post, are not called to vote or elect in a post of very serious responsibility. This is simply because these mass people have almost no idea about this, so it would be counterproductive to place the competition based on cheap popularity. No bank will ask it’s clients to vote for selecting its Chief Executive or Chief Financial Officer. No university will ask its students to vote to select its Vice Chancellor. No Chief of Staff of military is elected by casting votes from the general soldiers, but in all these cases qualification is seriously judged, their track record is evaluated, their personal strength and previous performance in other capacity is taken into consideration, only then a person is given a responsibility in a responsible post.
Now lets go back to the first example of selecting a candidate of a high school principal. For such selection process, generally a board consisting of specialized people, people of experience and sound judgment and also people who exactly know what kind of qualification this particular candidate must possess in order to do justice to the post and these people in the board of selection have similar kind of experience that helps them judge a good candidate from a bad one. That is precisely why in a high school or a college have a board comprising of highly experienced, qualified, wise people who does a thorough checking of the qualification and interviews the candidate and finally decide who can be the best person for the post.
When a high school or a college can not afford to elect a random guy without any qualification check, how a country can afford that by asking all of its people to vote a random person who have (in most cases) neither the experience, nor the qualification? In the context of electing a president or prime minister of a country by simply electing based on popularity measured by people who are no better than inexperienced school boys or girls when it comes to leading a nation, nation building, the most delicate foreign policy decisions, long term vision or executive decisions at the highest level.
How we ended up in the present day scenario of modern (!) democracy is really mind boggling! We let random people stand for the highest post, let them say whatever they want in order to prove themselves popular, tell thousand lies to cover up their inexperience and disqualification and then ask common people to vote and choose. And the scenario becomes even more worse when money enters the equation.
Dr. Cornel West said, "If your success is defined as being well adjusted to injustice and well adapted to indifference, then we don't want successful leaders. We want great leaders who love the people enough and respect the people enough to be unbought, unbound, unafraid and unintimidated to tell the truth."
Now under these circumstances the existing model of democracy is doomed to fail. There will be more fake dollars printed, price of things will go high, more tax and austerity measure will be imposed to make life miserable, law and justice will be reserved for those who can afford, corporates and banks will continue to cheat and loot people and the politicians will continue to serve the interest groups. So anyone can ask, are there any better model of governance than democracy? What is missing and how can that be reincorporated or reintroduced?
"If a law is unjust a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obliged to do so."
- George Washington
The highly secularized and selfish consumption driven western democracy system is failing us big time. On the face of it, just asking, what an alternate would look like? Are there any model guided and inspired and also tested on earth at any point in human history that was proven to ensure leaders of highest ethical and moral values, the system was designed to promote peace, just and competent people in the leadership and overarching goal of attaining democratic peace and stability by transforming society into a truly welfare state?
God willing, in
- Sadiq M. Alam
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