Scouting Skirmish

Hey all,

Just to kick start the discussion here goes :)

Democracy fails to bring about stability in most societies,
and only works in an already civil society.

This occurs for two reasons,
firstly only a civil society has the perspective to divide between personal
and national interests. An example would be the democracy in afghanistan where
the populace is forced to vote for their own tribal leaders and parties are delineated
clearly by tribe. This is where personal interests and national interests fail to be seperated
and democracy merely serves as an officialised platform for strife. This is especially true in
countries like Iraq where democracy is a farce cracking down the middle along ethnic
and religious lines. Both groups have their own parties which each continuously have
what is according to themselves too little power. Strife is forced to occur for them to gain power
and therefore democracy breeds strife in non-civil societies.

Secondly, Democracy relies very much on a seperation of powers model already being put in place or it would be no different for a dictatorship. Seperation of powers can only occur when the people are informed enough or politically interested enough to serve as a check and balance as well as when the government is open enough to recognise the people's right to protest. Therefore democracy in a nation where these civil rights are not respected or where the people are apathetic merely results in a close meshing of powers fundamentally defeating itself. This is seen in Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe is unabashedly abusing voters who have not voted for him. Where protests on the streets results in open firing of live rounds into the innocent people. Democracy in a non-civil society merely builds a facadal stability with turmoil eventually surfacing as the people grow increasing restless as is happening in Tibet.