Democracy is not the Panacea for Every Ills that is Afflicting this World

The question of just government has been one of the eternal themes of philosophy from Plato and Aristotle to Emanuel Kant and Karl Marx.

Pilate asked Jesus "What is truth?" (John 18:38). Behind the question of Pilate arises another still more important and more profound question, the eternal question of humankind: "What is justice?"

Legal Philosopher Hanse Kelsen comments: "No other question has been discussed so passionately; no other question has caused so much precious blood and so many bitter tears to be shed; no other question has been the object of so much intensive thinking by the most illustrious thinkers from Plato to Kant; and yet, this question is today as unanswered as it ever was. It seems that it is one of those questions to which the resigned wisdom applies that man cannot find the definitive answer, but only try to improve the question."*

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Some philosophers have considered democracy to be the most just form of government, others theocracy.

Democracy, with its inherent principle of equality, is just insofar as every citizen can be called upon to share in responsibility for the exercise of state power, is the best system. On the other hand, that it has the potential to degenerate into ochlocracy (the mob rule), however, was recognized by thinkers as early as Aristotle.

The problem of today's multi-party democracy consists in a fundamental contradiction:

how is it possible for a party to be impartial? Can a ruling party seek only the common good without being disloyal to its role as representative of the interest groups that have elected it? An impartial party is in fact a contradiction in terms. This unsolved problem today remains as topical as ever.

Another problem in a multi-party democracy is that there is always somebody else to blame for one’s own failures. Nobody takes the full responsibility.

The worst corruption of justice is apparent in two extremes: tyranny and anarchy. Tyranny of the totalitarian state is unjust government. A Philosopher, Pieper, emphasizes that in the human world there can hardly be a worse or more hopeless disaster than unjust rule . . . Everything in the world depends on rulers being just.

Yet, although the despot has no will to do justice, tyranny is still preferable than anarchy because there is at least a central political will, a monopoly on force that prevents the outbreak of individual violence. Life and death decisions are made by just one (albeit arbitrary) power, rather than by the chaos of mob violence.

In contrast, in the other form, anarchy, the law ceases to be valid because there is no power to uphold it. It results in mob rule, the law of the jungle; it is fittingly described by the key phrase in Thomas Hobbes': "Man is a wolf to man".

The recent history of Somalia, a failed state, is a good example. The political conditions, under the rule of the despot Siad Barre, were despicable enough. Following his downfall, however, State structures collapsed totally, so that anarchy and chaos prevail to this day.

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In India, particularly, which had been under Muslim rule for six centuries, there was a Hindu population of 41 million, against a Muslim population of 7 million, (according to the Census of 1931).

During the six centuries, when Muslims ruled India, they ruled it with Theocracy. Hindus and Muslims had lived side-by-side together as fellow-citizens for all these centuries.

When British ruled India (c.1600-1947), they ruled it with Monarchy. British did not disturb the existing order of Theocracy. Then, again, Indians were still living peacefully under British.

Before the Brits left, however, they introduced Democracy into the country.

As a result of the pursuit of Democracy, that 900 years of peaceful co-existence of Muslims and Hindus was completely shattered. The Muslims (minority) refused to be ruled by the Hindus (majority). Consequently, Indians were divided against each other until India and Pakistan were divided. The partition was the largest mass migrations in human history and violence on a scale that had never been seen before. The partition displaced between 14 and18 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises in the newly constituted dominions; there was large-scale of violence, with estimates of loss of life about 2 million people. This chain of events has eventually resulted in perpetual conflicts between India and Pakistan with the threats of weapons of mass destruction is still continuing to this day.

What happened in Iraq was very similar. The minority (Sunnis --35%) refused to be ruled by the majority (the Shias --65%).

Sometimes, the majority means that all of the fools are on the same side. Hitler was elected democratically. When he was running for election with the Nazi program, the overwhelming majority of Germans elected him and his Nazi party --including most doctors, scientists, and engineers. He convinced his people that if the Europeans could be the masters of the colonized people, we could also colonize the Europeans and become the masters of the Europeans. He said, once we win the war against the Europeans, we, Germans, will become the masters of the masters or, briefly, "the master race." That was his argument. How could the Europeans argue against that? When Europeans colonized Africa, they were not racist. But when they became victims of colonization, suddenly, the Nazi ideology is racist.

In 2000, when the American re-election George W. Bush by a narrow margin for the second term, one European journalist commented: "How could fifty million people be wrong at the same time?" In USA, when they have candidates that are Doctors, Professors and Political experts, they elect Entertainers, Wrestlers, and Witches. It is a very strange world.

The root cause of the civil war in Somalia is competition for resources. James Bishop, the United States' last ambassador to Somalia, explained that there is "competition for water, pasturage, and... cattle. It is a competition that used to be fought out with arrows and sabers... Now it is fought out with AK-47s." The lack of water is the cause of pasturage and food; and the lack of pasturage and food is the cause of continued violence and the humanitarian disaster.

Be that as it may, now that Somalia is a failed state, ruled by endless violence of all against all, what is the solution? Dictatorship is the only solution. Democracy could not work in Somalia.

The root cause of all the civil and uncivil wars in Iraq, Pakistan, and India, has been declaring democracy in places where people were divided by religious sectarianism.

The wide cleavage between the conservatives and liberals in Egypt has made democracy untenable. If the liberals take power, the conservatives cannot wait 4 years; and if the conservatives take power, the liberals cannot wait 4 years. Thus, the military (dictatorship) has been forced to intervene; and, thus far, it has been found the best alternative.

For the creation and preservation of democratic political formula in Iraq, over half a million Iraqis have lost their lives (most of whom innocent), 4,459 Americans have died, 33,080 Americans have been wounded, there are over 100,000 suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, and the staggering cost (at $2 billion per week), has reached to 2.4 trillion dollars -- evidences such as these have caused the congress of the U.S., the American people, and the rest of the world to ask the critical question "is democracy worthy of all these human and financial cost?" Is democracy supposed to serve humanity or humanity has to be crucified for democracy?

Most observers now estimate that the cost of Iraq war has reached some 3 trillion dollars and beyond. That money is irretrievably lost. The Iraq war was directly responsible to cause the Great Recession of USA (2008) and, consequently, in upsetting the global economic equilibrium.

In Libya, we had 1 dictator. Now we have 1000 dictators. The American interest (as well as Libyan interest) is better served with 1 dictator than with 1000 dictators.

In order to get elected, President Obama said “I did NOT vote for the Iraq war”. . Once elected, he created another anarchy state in Libya. His failed "Arab Spring" propaganda has also encouraged other Muslim nations to fall into that mess. Egypt was on the brink of Anarchy before it was saved by Dictatorship. If the conservative get the power, the liberals cannot wait 4 years; if the liberals get the power, the conservatives cannot wait 4 years.

Since September 11, 2011, USA has squandered over 6 trillion dollars to fight terrorism and spread "Democracy". Has terrorism increased or decreased? If USA had spent the 6 trillion dollars for building schools, hospitals, and highways for these nations, they would have won the hearts and minds of its people and their "Democracy" would have found acceptance. Bombing Democracy has miserably failed.

First, the US borrowed billions of dollars from China and other nations. Then, they gambled with that money in the Iraq war. Just as a gambler tries to recover his loss and loses more and more money, they attempted to recover their loss by prolonging the war. But, the longer the war continued, the more they borrowed money; and, eventually, they lost all their money. The gross amount that the Treasury can borrow is limited by the United States debt ceiling. The US must pay back the money with Interest. Thus, the central bank was forced to raise the Interest rates. With the sudden hike of the Interest Rate, people started losing their homes. Consequently, nearly 10 million homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure sales in the U.S.

That the 2008 economic collapse of the American economy is the direct result of the war in Iraq is an unquestionable fact which no impartial observer can ignore or deny. All the other reasons given for the recession are just excuses.

The media's too much emphasis on the Hedge funds, the housing market, the Wall Street, and Subprime Meltdown without even mentioning the war in Iraq are simply excuses.

Be that as it may, if a man transfers his money from one of his pockets to the other, it will not make him poor. But, in this case, the money has been taken out of the American pockets and moved to pockets of Chinese. How did the money go there? It went there because the US had to borrow money from the Chinese to finance the war in Iraq.

In the animal world, the big fish eats the small fish; and so is also true in the human world. The only difference is that in the animal world, the animals do not look for justification of their behavior. However, in the human world, in order to appease their own feeling and the feeling of their observers, they desperately look for justifications for "why?" such an evil act. And, usually, their justifications are non-rational and emotional.

Without unity, there is no peace. Peace is the result of unity. Therefore, we must first pursue unity; and as a result of that unity, peace will come out. Therefore, any organization, whether it is political or religious, must be designed to bring unity. If it fails to bring unity, it must be avoided. Therefore, Democracy could only be used in a case-by-case situation.

First of all, if democracy automatically brings unity and, consequently as a result of that unity, peace and prosperity comes out, none of that exists in Iraq. Secondly, when people are divided and, consequently, fight against each other, they create a fertile ground for external forces to manipulate them. These external forces now can sell them guns, bullets, and bombs. The results of all of these is nothing but disintegration, turmoil and bankruptcy. It only shows a picture of a total failure of a total democracy.

Without a doubt, anarchy is the greatest threat to human society. It means the loss of any kind of security, the end of civilization, chaos, a war of all against all.

With these train of ideas, we have arrived at the point that democracy can only function where there is already at least a minimum of order. Where order has completely broken down and social relations have practically ceased to exist --in short, where there is chaos -- democracy is very difficult to establish, as recent historical experience has shown. In such cases, a firm hand may be required as an interim solution and as a way of bringing the situation under control. Then, there remains the problem that such 'interim' situations tend to degenerate into tyranny or despotism.

Salutations!

End Notes:

The section that is between ****** and **** is gleaned from a book by Dr. Udo Schaefer "Bahai Ethics" Volume I.

*This paragraph is a paraphrase from Hans Kelsen, "What 's Justice?", p. 1.