Democracy

Democracy or Hypocrisy?

Democracy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary is described as:

Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

Democracy (literally "rule by the people", from the Greek demos, "people", and krateo, "rule"[1]) is a form of government.

These statements seem to be quite straight forward. It’s just like in the movies, a country or state that is run “by the people and for the people”.

Logic tells me that a democratic government is a fair and just way of ruling.
The population votes for a party who is willing to fulfil certain objectives and once in power, they are answerable to the people.
This, in reality, is far from the truth. If we look throughout history, these so-called democratic states have been ruled by tyrants and dictators, whose only objective is to reap as much wealth as possible.

Throughout the world lands have been “liberated” with democracy by the West. It is a widely accepted method of rule; however it is only one method. Why then have countries such as Britain and America imposed this system on other countries?

Countries like Turkey, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, Algeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the list is endless. Many of these countries were, if you haven’t already guessed, under Islamic Rule. Now whether or not this had anything to do with the West’s propagation of Democracy is another matter. My concerns are the methods in which this ideology was spread and is still being spread.

The irony is that this just and liberal ruling system is being implemented by force. These lands are being “liberated down the barrel of a gun” so to speak. Just look at Iraq. The people were previously ruled under a dictator and yet had a better standard of living than they do now. Innocent civilians are killed on a daily basis due to U.S LIBERATION tactics.

Even in countries where democracy prevails and has done for many years we see all kinds of contradictions. Turkey has been in the limelight this week for their democratic support. Apparently, a candidate running for President, Abdullah Gul has Islamic ideals and his wife wears a headscarf.



For this reason 750,000 people protested on the streets of Istanbul for him to step out of the race. In support of this the Turkish military announced that if he was to win the elections Mr Gul would be removed by force in order to defend democracy and secularism! Is this democracy or hypocrisy?

A similar case occurred in Palestine. They agreed to have elections at the request of the West. Hamas and Fatha were the two main contenders. Hamas wanted Palestine to be free of Israeli occupation and refused to recognise Israel as a legitimate State.

As a result of this they won the elections by a landslide. Let’s face it, who wants to be occupied and forced out of their homeland? For all of their efforts America declared them as a terrorist organisation and thus refused to recognise them as the ruling body of Palestine.

This is a no win situation. If you don’t play by their rules you’re regarded as an uncivilised and barbaric society. If you do submit to their rules they still have precautions in place to stop any party who disagrees with Western policy to come into power.

Again, I ask, is this democracy or hypocrisy. If we look a little deeper into Britain’s democratic process it is clear that this country is certainly not governed by the people or even for the people.

The only aspect of democracy that the people play a role in is electing the government. They cannot even elect a Prime Minister as this is done by the winning Party. Just look at Gordon Brown. He hasn’t been chosen by the people but by his peers, as was John Major.

The host population has no say in the passing of laws or in any decisions made with regards to national and foreign policy. The system is designed to give the people very little power. No-one in the country wanted the Poll Tax introduced in 1990 but it was done anyway. The Iraq war was massively unpopular but we went in anyway. Not to mention a fundamental principle of a “civilised democracy”, innocent until proven guilty, scrapped with the new detention without trial laws.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that we do not live in a democratic society. The whole election process is a farce, with all the cash for honours scandals, which have been going on long before Blair and Lord Levy. The ones with the real power and the decision makers are those corporate companies that have the money to buy off politicians.

For this reason, Britain truly is a Capitalist State, or what I like to call an elected dictatorship.