Democracy! A wonderful enlightening word that seems to encompass all that is good in our society, it symbolises fairness, equality and freedom. It seems to me that democracy has become a buzzword; as soon as a politician utters the word democracy they will have the audience eating out of the palm of their hand. Nobody in their right mind would question democracy, everybody now assumes that the only way a country can be run is by democracy, and yet it seems that democracy is such a vague term. Originally democracy was intended to mean, "The rule of the people", however there is nowhere in the world where the people actually rule the country. Yes! We have a minor say in how our country is run. Yes! Every few years we can vote in an election. And Yes! There are very rare occasions when something called a referendum is held. But on the whole the population acts as little more than an advisor to the government; often the government will have to pay attention to public opinion, and especially when an election looms the government will have to use any measures necessary, including advertising, trickery and downright lying, in order to harvest votes. However at the end of the day the government acts like a complaints department, always having to humour the old woman who can't get her television to work, in order to keep up good public relations but nonetheless they still think of her as an unfortunate but necessary nuisance.
As I take a look at the other side of the world at the farcical democracy in Iraq, I wonder whether there isn't a better way of running the country. Although the occupation by foreign forces doesn't help the situation, when you have so many different factions who loathe each other with an absolute passion, I get the feeling that a democracy is going to be mightily inefficient and mightily weak even if it is eventually given a chance to govern. Surely a benign dictator who would be firm but fair would hold such a splintering nation together much better than any democracy would. But no, it is not right for me to say this. Dictators are bad and democracies are good, that is the way the world views these two bodies. But I don't see it as being such a black and white issue. Don't forget that Hitler was democratically elected in Germany, don't forget that it is the great American democracy that has inexplicably chosen George.W.Bush as their President, twice! We have this idea that the majority of the people will always be right, but this is a distinctly naive view. There are large numbers of the electorate who do not know enough about the major issues and therefore are unable to make an informed choice about what needs to be done. That is the reason that we do not have a proper democracy, the government doesn't trust us, and in my opinion rightly so. A few months ago a poll was published in the guardian, the poll asked which party was putting forward the best policies on health; the poll came back with a two point lead for the Conservative party. Great! You might think, or not depending on your party allegiance. However you have to be slightly worried by the fact that the Conservatives don't actually have a health policy. Is it any wonder why we are not given more power and why the idea of a pure democracy will never be reached?
