Aby The Liberal

Aby April 19th, 2007

Democracy - the rule of the people is now of the most popular systems of government in the world. In the recent times, the United States has started a global marketing campaign and PR excuses for wars using the idea of spreading democracy all over the world. This led a majority of Americans to believe democracy (ancient or modern) is one of their great ideas and needs to be forced on the unwilling countries of the world. Except the few Americans who are aware of world politics and history, most remain blissfully ignorant that democracy actually originated and developed in Europe. Democracy is a Greek idea implied by history and the Greek words demos meaning “people”, and kratos meaning “rule. The modern ideals of democracy were emblemed in the Declaration of Rights of Man in 1789 in France long before Abraham Lincoln was born.

The French Declaration of the Rights of Man, 1789 (Click on image to enlarge)

Ancient History of Democratic Governments
The Sumerian city states of 2500 BC are believed to have had some form of Democratic setup initially. Today Sumer is known as Southern Iraq, a country carpet bombed by US to market democracy. Back to history, 2000 years later (around 500BC) during the Greek civilisation the system of direct democracy cropped up in Athens. The Athenian democracy was based on direct representation by the people who decided and pass resolutions on state policies. After Athens, democracy spread to many city states of Greece and Italy. Rome in around 700 B.C had a representative democracy like modern France or USA where the elected members of the senate vested state decisions. Democracy also existed in some form in India during the ancient ages but limited to cities and villages like in Rome or Greece.

The French National Assembly of 1789 which laid the foundation of modern democracy.

Democracy in Western Europe and Britain
Modern democracy had a lot of inspiration from the ancient Greek systems of democracy. The revival of the studies of Greek and Roman civilastions during the period of renaissance led to the hightened interest in democracy and the sciences in Europe during the middle ages (1000 AD to 1700 AD) . One of the ealiest parliament of elected representatives, the English Parliament of 1265 which was established by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester. The introduction of the Bill of Rights in Britian in 1689 provided freedom of speech and banned cruel or unusual punishment. The Bill of Rights resulted in strengthening the parliament and reduction of authority of the monarchy in Britain. Though it was not a comprehensive democratic setup, itpaved the way for major later developments in representative democracy. Meanwhile the cantons (districts) of Swiss federation formed a direct system of democracy in around 1200 AD which continued till date.

Modern Democracy and Contributions of Locke and Rosseau
The ideas of modern democracy was given by a British philosopher name John Locke in Two Treatises (1690 AD). He stated the government’s job was the protect the natural rights of a person like rights to liberty and protection of property. The French philosopher named Jean Jacques Rousseau in his book The Social Contract (1762) expanded and added more ideas to Locke’s ideals. After the French Revolution of 1789 the National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The ideals liberty, prosperity, security, equality and resistence to oppression were stressed. In the French Revolution thinkers like Rosseau and Voltaire also stressed on the seperation of religion and state and the right to resistence against opression. The French revolution laid the foundation of modern democracy based on universal equality of all citizens. In the following years after 1789, all over Europe revolutions began to spring up against monarchy and most states like Poland and Netherlands became constitutional democracies.

Democracy In America
In the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, Thomas Jefferson borrowed the ideals of equality and liberty from Locke and Rosseau. Compared to the French democracy based on equality, the American democracy at that time had limited franchise which denied women, natives and blacks the right to vote or form governments. The leading politicians were all from the rich and slave owning class, most distinguishably George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Women and blacks gained the right to vote after 1870 when 16th Amendment in United States was passed. Despite the Amendment, gender and racial discrimination was widespread which prevented them from exercising this right till the end of World War I when women’s status went higher. The rights to resistence against oppression was never stressed or stated which was condutive to modern oppressive laws like Patriot Act and Department of Homeland Security (in the lines of German Gestapo of pre-World War 2)

Women in Democratic Governments
Despite all these progresses in government by the people, women were still many leaps away in Europe, US or Australia from becoming heads of government or state. It was assumed in these countries, “Women were incapable to handle the power to run a nation.” But in Asia, due to lack of racist or gender bias, the story was different. In 1960, Sirimavo Bandaranaike was democratically elected as the president of Sri Lanka. The first female head of state in western countries came to power two decades later in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became prime minister of Great Britain. In the later decades Turkey, Poland, Norway and Panama had women leaders. Yet three quarters of a century after winning the right to vote, women in America still haven’t had the choice of a single female candidate for president from any of the major parties. Asia continues to be the hub of female leaders with famous leaders like Indira Ghandi, Benazir Bhutto, Sheik Hasina and Khaleda Zia who transformed their countries in major strides.

Democracy in Recent Times
By the 1950s most of Europe and the rest of the world adopted democracy as their government system. Most of the current democracies except Switzerland, have a representative democracy where the people elect representatives on their behalf to run the government. Compared to Europe or Asia, US is yet to have a woman or non-caucasian president despite all claims of equality. In the present state of democracy in United States if Hilary Clinton becomes a presdential favourite in the United States, her presidency will be close to miraculous. The nation which boasts of equality and freedom is yet to change its mindset and arrive to the level of intellectual open mindedness in Europe or Asia.

• World Politics , Historical Bias , Internationalism
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