Sunday, January 16, 2005
The jungle has come full circle. KYUEMians have finally (some say a tad belatedly) descended to the law of the jungle.
Some find this the classical paradox of all time - that an ideal implementation of a democratic process virtually decrees that morality be sacrificed. Democracies mean you are allowed to switch alliance, betray, jump ship, call it what you may, it still amounts to a renouncement of all the values that have brought you where you are. And ALL in the spirit - or in the guise - of democracy.
Democracy is a privilege for the responsible. The fullscale US implementation of democracy, shoving it down the throats of terrified local inhabitants at pain of death by bayonet, simply does not work because the locals are unaccustomed to having democracy as a way of life. If a society attempts to practise democracy before it is prepared to accept democracy, it lies open to wholesale exploitation by narrow, parochial interest groups whose main agenda is NOT democracy as an end - but as a diabolic means. Witness the Iraqi insurgency where democracy may sweep in a breed of radicals under al-Zarqawi who will enforce a breed of Islamis fundamentalism that is at odds with any existing democratic tenets.
Democracy is a powerful tool; more so if we entrust the wrong people to be the vanguards of such a noble cause.
Which thus brings to mind the fundamental issue. Is KYUEM a receptive society for democracy?
The results will not supply the answer. The process will. The proof in the pudding, this time, is in the making, not in the eating.
Some find this the classical paradox of all time - that an ideal implementation of a democratic process virtually decrees that morality be sacrificed. Democracies mean you are allowed to switch alliance, betray, jump ship, call it what you may, it still amounts to a renouncement of all the values that have brought you where you are. And ALL in the spirit - or in the guise - of democracy.
Democracy is a privilege for the responsible. The fullscale US implementation of democracy, shoving it down the throats of terrified local inhabitants at pain of death by bayonet, simply does not work because the locals are unaccustomed to having democracy as a way of life. If a society attempts to practise democracy before it is prepared to accept democracy, it lies open to wholesale exploitation by narrow, parochial interest groups whose main agenda is NOT democracy as an end - but as a diabolic means. Witness the Iraqi insurgency where democracy may sweep in a breed of radicals under al-Zarqawi who will enforce a breed of Islamis fundamentalism that is at odds with any existing democratic tenets.
Democracy is a powerful tool; more so if we entrust the wrong people to be the vanguards of such a noble cause.
Which thus brings to mind the fundamental issue. Is KYUEM a receptive society for democracy?
The results will not supply the answer. The process will. The proof in the pudding, this time, is in the making, not in the eating.
