"Young Democracy."
I cannot stand the sound of that obnoxious phrase. Iraq is not a "democracy." It never has been and never will be. The same holds for Afghanistan. Neither are even functional states, let alone democratic states. These governments lack the attributes of sovereignty and statehood. We do not see the emergence of relatively permanent and impersonal political institutions, and most certainly no fundamental transfer of loyalty from tribe, faction, religion or locality to the new state, and it will never happen.
Elections do not make a democracy. In Iraq, the so-called "elections" were nothing more than an ethnic census. Democracy is organic. It emerges not from staged elections but from the commitment and desire of a people with a respect for and an understanding of both the positive and negative aspects of "demos kratous."
These aren't young democracies. That is an old lie.
1 comment:
My vote: "people gotta understand."
There is nothing, not one thing in the entire realm of human knowledge, that I don't understand better than him. I am smarter than him in every dimension. The same is true for 90% of Americans: we're almost all smarter than him.
Fills me with rage every time he implies he understands anything better than me.
Post a Comment