Search this site powered by FreeFind

Quick Link

for your convenience!

 

Human Rights, Youth Voices etc.

click here


 

For Information Concerning the Crisis in Darfur

click here


 

Northern Uganda Crisis

click here


 

 Whistleblowers Need Protection

 

Democracy is not a Fairy Tale

By David Kilgour

Representatives from about 120 nations, including 73 parliamentarians and more than 200 leaders from a range of non-government organizations, recently met in parallel meetings in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to discuss the prospects and challenges for democracy worldwide.

Many of the participants were from restored and new democracies seeking ways to consolidate themselves, but those of us from traditional ones probably learned as much-or more-about the evolving cultures of democracy as anyone.

Democracy in myriad forms is ascendant these days-with more than 140 multi-party ones functioning among approximately 200 sovereign countries-compared with probably less than 35 as recently as the 1970s. A message sent by the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stressed his own personal commitment to this form of government. Never before in history has democracy enjoyed such a wide presence worldwide, he added, but then stressed that it is no time for triumphalism. Annan judges that the rule of law is essential to a properly working democracy. He worries about declining voter turnouts in some countries, asking if the cause might well be feelings of "exclusion and marginalization" among men and women choosing not to vote.

Enemies of Democracy

The delegates at the government conference appeared to be virtually unanimous that unemployment, poverty and bad governance (including the cancer of corruption) are in the first tier of the enemies of democracy today. One official drew a direct link between terrorism and unequal (or no?) opportunities for the four billion poor of the world.

There was no dissent to the expressed view-even after the news of the attack on Anna Lindt, Sweden's much admired foreign minister, who was well known to many of the ministers and diplomats present, swept through the hall-- that democratic governments in combating terrorism should not retreat a single centimetre from the best practices of open societies.

Mongolia was well placed to host the Fifth International Conference of New or Restored Democracies. Following almost two centuries of Chinese domination-long after Ghengis Khan had sacked Beijing for a full devastating month during 1211 before going on to establish a Pax Mongolica stretching from  Korea to Iran-and almost seven decades as a Soviet republic, it opted for democracy and full independence after 1990, evidently without a single pane of glass being broken during the transition.

Mongolian History

It was to the government's credit that on the premises of the conference a History of Mongolia by Baabar, published by Cambridge University, was on sale. The work covers the country from earliest times, including the phenomenon of forcing the Chinese to build their Great Wall and the conquest of half the known world by Genghis Khan and his sons, down to its independence referendum in 1945. Mongolia's years from 1924 to 1990 as a puppet republic of the Soviet Union were brutal almost beyond belief. Joseph Stalin's Great Terror at home was applied just as mindlessly - or more -  in the neighbour, with tens of thousands of Mongolians drowning in blood. The heroes were present and the book documents their difficult, usually short-lived, roles too.

Prime Minister Enkhbayar in his welcoming address said the renaissance included harmonizing the legal system with democracy, allowing about 2500 NGOs- astonishingly one for every thousand Mongols living within the country-to spring up, ending indoctrination in schools and the state-controlled media, attacking corruption, and permitting the private sector to account for nearly four fifths of the economy.

Civil Society Forum

A report heard from the civil society forum, which ended just before the other event began, noted the importance of better involving women, children and other institutionally often excluded communities in every society in democratic governance. Democratic governments must respect fully the autonomous role and nature of their respective civil societies.  The threat of terrorism, the parliamentarians stressed, must not be used by governments to stifle respective civil societies.

At a session on democratic governance and civil society, the issue of the asymmetry between the relatively affluent and well-informed members of "old" democracies and the poverty and general lack of information in many new and restored ones was raised.  Are the voices of new democracies yet being really heard in the Development Round of the WTO trade negotiations?  Proportional voting was praised as giving better representation to citizens than the first-past-the-post-winner-takes-all systems used in many democracies. Everyone appeared to concur that democracy is everywhere and always a long-term process.

Akouété Akakpo-Vidah of the Canadian NGO, Rights and Democracy, who participated in both meetings, pointed at the unfortunate tendency of new (and old?) democracies to morph from one party to several and then back  essentially to one.  The better access which parties in power have to government resources, he noted , often leaves opposition parties at a competitive disadvantage.  The qualitative difference between lobby and citizen groups, especially in the face of declining memberships in political parties, was flagged by various speeches.

Parliamentarians

The  discussions among parliamentarians was reported upon by the Speaker of the Namibian parliament.  Their recommendations were blunt: legislatures must play a vigorous role in overseeing the executive branch; women and minorities must be encouraged to play larger roles in parliaments; free and independent media are essential to providing substantive information to voters everywhere; racial and religious profiling is in practice counter-productive in combatting terror; there should be better links between parliaments and their respective civil societies; parliamentarians should help formulate democratic indicators.

The news of the attack on Anna Lindt arrived at about this point, but at least she was still alive.  Sweden's senior delegate, ambassador Bengt Save-Soderbergh, took the floor to say that his minister was a strong supporter of the democracy movement and that we should continue our work with renewed vigour.

The drafting of the final declaration and work plan was completed only after many hours with the help of about forty delegates.  The final gavel came down about two hours after the death of Ms. Lindt had been announced and a moment of silence had been observed. In a final act, delegates adopted a strong declaration about democracy and plan of action to secure it better wherever it exists. 

Sitting in the vast hall, I thought back to September 11, 2001, when, approximately two hours after the two passenger planes struck the World Trade Centre, delegates from the governments of virtually every nation in the Americas (except Cuba) unanimously adopted the Democratic Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Lima, Peru.  Despite the violence that cast such large shadows on both meetings, the participants at each seemed determined that democracy, including the well-known features of our cherished open societies, must continue to be points of inspiration across the world.

-30-

 
Home Books Photo Gallery About David Survey Results Useful Links Submit Feedback