FAILING DEMOCRACIES- FAILED DEMOCRATS

There are a large number of highly defective democracies in world today- so flawed that they are close to failed states or autocracies. Anecdotal examples ranges from Russia to Venezuela to Thailand to Philippines- those once considered to be developing democracies are now in the hands of autocrats. In 2005 more than half of world’s population was living under democratic system but the case worsened when leaders turned into an elected autocrats. Hugo Chavez. Vladimir Chelminski, former director of the Venezuela’s Chamber of Commerce, described the situation in the Wall Street Journal:

For decades, the quality of life had been deteriorating. The democratic process seemed to function well only for the benefit of politicians and their friends. The political parties that had alternated in power since 1958, Social Democrats and Social Christians, were very much the same. Both offered socialism with political freedom. Their policies paid lip service to the poor but always proved counterproductive. Private property and contracts meant little in their laws. Two-thirds of willing workers could not find employment in the formal economy

Democracy means far more than majority rule. It involves constraints and delays on majority rule, protection for minority rights, diffusion of power, free speech, free assembly, and accountability for elected officials. This means clear lines of authority. Politicians everywhere do all they can to avoid accountability for their actions. Interestingly, there is not even a word for “accountability” in the Latin languages French, Spanish, or Italian. It is always translated in dictionaries as “responsibility.”

Role of media has also hampered the bitterness in times of economic slowdown or social stress that occurs in masses when democracies start failing, or have failed. Here the culprit is the power of media images and breaking news blinking at every second- caricatures that deeply offences the leaders.

In addition defects in our electoral system bring unresponsive and irresponsible governments. The leaders who are corrupt and inefficient not even eligible to qualify for taking part in elections become representative of the people working as democrats. Definitely a large segment of people lose trust and so become uninterested in liberal democracy. Specially middle class who are supposed to act as agents of democratization in every part of the world then start supporting military coups as happened in many countries.

There is high time when we all must start to understand the causes leading to failing of these democracies and find new remedies. Here are few solutions that seem to me essential in creating, stabilizing and strengthening democracies around the world:

1. Those leaders should be given support who are true representatives of masses
2. People especially our youth must be educated about democracy. The Aga Khan IV said “if people don’t understand the opportunities and choices that they have to make in the forms of government they want, they cannot take rational decisions, and therefore we have to educate our youth and the youth of others to learn about modern forms of government.”
3. Establishment of federal system with wide dispersion of powers so local citizens govern
4. Rectification of our electoral system
5. And fifth the most diverse but the least well understood is civil society. Aga Khan IV said in the annual conference of German Ambassadors Berlin, Germany, September 06, 2004: “Civil society acts as a stabilizer or buttress in times of economic slowdown or social stress. When democracies are failing, or have failed, it is the institutions of civil society that can carry an added burden to help sustain improvements in quality of life.” Civil society makes an enormous contribution to human development, filling the gaps between government, business sector and common people. It boosts people confidence in country’s economy and harness the will to confront and to quote more appropriately “development is sustainable only if the beneficiaries become, gradually, the masters of the process.” Therefore when masses have confidence in economy, governments will receive more attention and support.

I deeply believe that our collective conscience must accept to do whatever is needed to give a democracy a fighting chance.

FAILING DEMOCRACIES- FAILED DEMOCRATS

There are a large number of highly defective democracies in world today- so flawed that they are close to failed states or autocracies. Anecdotal examples ranges from Russia to Venezuela to Thailand to Philippines- those once considered to be developing democracies are now in the hands of autocrats. In 2005 more than half of world’s population was living under democratic system but the case worsened when leaders turned into an elected autocrats. Hugo Chavez. Vladimir Chelminski, former director of the Venezuela’s Chamber of Commerce, described the situation in the Wall Street Journal:

For decades, the quality of life had been deteriorating. The democratic process seemed to function well only for the benefit of politicians and their friends. The political parties that had alternated in power since 1958, Social Democrats and Social Christians, were very much the same. Both offered socialism with political freedom. Their policies paid lip service to the poor but always proved counterproductive. Private property and contracts meant little in their laws. Two-thirds of willing workers could not find employment in the formal economy

Democracy means far more than majority rule. It involves constraints and delays on majority rule, protection for minority rights, diffusion of power, free speech, free assembly, and accountability for elected officials. This means clear lines of authority. Politicians everywhere do all they can to avoid accountability for their actions. Interestingly, there is not even a word for “accountability” in the Latin languages French, Spanish, or Italian. It is always translated in dictionaries as “responsibility.”

Role of media has also hampered the bitterness in times of economic slowdown or social stress that occurs in masses when democracies start failing, or have failed. Here the culprit is the power of media images and breaking news blinking at every second- caricatures that deeply offences the leaders.

In addition defects in our electoral system bring unresponsive and irresponsible governments. The leaders who are corrupt and inefficient not even eligible to qualify for taking part in elections become representative of the people working as democrats. Definitely a large segment of people lose trust and so become uninterested in liberal democracy. Specially middle class who are supposed to act as agents of democratization in every part of the world then start supporting military coups as happened in many countries.

There is high time when we all must start to understand the causes leading to failing of these democracies and find new remedies. Here are few solutions that seem to me essential in creating, stabilizing and strengthening democracies around the world:

1. Those leaders should be given support who are true representatives of masses
2. People especially our youth must be educated about democracy. The Aga Khan IV said “if people don’t understand the opportunities and choices that they have to make in the forms of government they want, they cannot take rational decisions, and therefore we have to educate our youth and the youth of others to learn about modern forms of government.”
3. Establishment of federal system with wide dispersion of powers so local citizens govern
4. Rectification of our electoral system
5. And fifth the most diverse but the least well understood is civil society. Aga Khan IV said in the annual conference of German Ambassadors Berlin, Germany, September 06, 2004: “Civil society acts as a stabilizer or buttress in times of economic slowdown or social stress. When democracies are failing, or have failed, it is the institutions of civil society that can carry an added burden to help sustain improvements in quality of life.” Civil society makes an enormous contribution to human development, filling the gaps between government, business sector and common people. It boosts people confidence in country’s economy and harness the will to confront the situation. To quote more appropriately “development is sustainable only if the beneficiaries become, gradually, the masters of the process.” Therefore when masses have confidence in economy, governments will receive more attention and support.

I deeply believe that our collective conscience must accept to do whatever is needed to give democracy a fighting chance.

CONNECTIVITY INCREASED BUT WE ARE NOT CONNECTED!!

The daily routine of our family, gathering up on the dining table, everyone sitting in the same room but all holding their own smart phones or tablets and busy in texting and posting- more appropriately glue to their devices.

Busy in posing and taking pictures, we often forget to live those wonderful moments together with families and friends.

Marking tick on the whole list of contacts and forwarding sends greetings to everyone in the contacts but no emotion attached for anyone.

Setting the template for birthday greeting  and setting  birthday dates send everyone greeting on the scheduled one and we don’t even know about it until we get a message saying THANKS from the person reminding us ‘oh yeah today is his birthday’.

Our own family needs to check our Facebook statuses to know where we are and what we are doing.

Yes, CONNECTIVITY HAS BEEN INCREASED BUT WE ARE NOT CONNECTED

It is rightly said by Albert Einstein: “I fear the day when we surpass our human interaction. The world will become generations of idiots.”

It is true we are living in the era… so connected that we are disconnected. There is more and more misinformation and ignorance and partisanship but less of intelligent conversations and debates. What we look at social networking sites Facebook, Twitter and others, are more and more hate-fests, redundant or generic talking points and absence of more serious and sustentative conversations. How many likes and comments and ratings are we getting seem more important than the substance itself. It is good to be technology driven updating ourselves and making use of it for fun, entertainment, socialization, business, studies but this digital saturation is loosening up our relation bonds and our creative faculties. Devices have replaced humans for companionship but in the process we are detaching ourselves from the emotions of love, care, compassion and sense of being togetherness.

Winston Churchill said once ‘We shape our buildings, and then they shape us’.  The same is being true for our digital technologies. Driven by the illusion of companionship we are missing direct human contact and connection.

Let’s get our attention and attraction out of our smart phones and tablets let them shut quiet for some time, get on outings with our friends and family a bit more, let them know what’s happening in our lives and know their world and the world at large. Let us read books or magazines, hunt and work on our creative talents and our loved ones’. Let us feel more and attached less to our devices.

It is a high time to recall ourselves that we have human purposes and perhaps to rediscover what they are.

Let us CONNECT again

DEBATE BETWEEN TWO MOST POWERFUL FACULTIES WITHIN US: LOVE AND INTELLECT

When I thought of writing on this interesting topic, I decided to open it up with a verse by Maulana Rumi who writes in his Diwan:

Every morning, out of love for you, this intellect becomes crazy,

 Climbs upon the roof of the brain and plays the lute.

Of course, we cannot sum up the whole question of reason and love in some lines but let’s have an idea about the interesting debate that goes on between intellect and love- two spiritual powers within the human being.

Maulana Rumi in his mathnawi portrays a lovely scene of a family argument, intellect being the father and nafs, the lower soul, the mother. The mother wants to spoil the child, the human being, keeping it at home, close to her bosom, in order to avoid all kinds of hardships in life; but intellect, the father teaches her to send the boy to school to prepare him for a decent life.

Intellect has a very important role in human development; however it has no right to enter in the bridal chamber of love. It is told that when prophet was taken on his Mai’raj into the immediate presence of God, the angel Gabriel had to remain at the Sidrat-i-muntaha, the lotus tree of the farthest distance, because he can reach only borders of the created universe, while the loving heart can enter the presence of God. Gabriel is equated with the leading intellect which can bring Prophet Mohammad and everyone who follows him to the borders of this universe, but only love can take the seeker further.

Intellect is necessary to give us khabar (information), but what the heart craves is nazr, the direct vision. When prophet was asked once how to behave in a certain case, he replied: ‘ask your heart for fatwa,’ because it is the heart that gives us the answer to the problems with best human intellect.

Given it different names Reason and Love, fikr and dhikr, ilm and ishq, falsafa and intuition; no doubt both are the two great powers within a human and can work together better rather than in contrast or without condemning one for the other. As Iqbal mentioned in Payam –i- Mashriq so beautifully, he makes love say to science:

We are two tunes of one melody, we belong together, we were born together, let us get together again,

Let us not work against each other, but rather together turn the world into a paradise.

If ilm is separated from ishq- something we may translate as love or intuition or the innermost experience- then it become satanic, it become dangerous, it become destructive.

This isn’t telling you to shut your brain off and ride emotion, but it’s encouraging taking a risk and figuring things out along the way. Let both faculties play together and do wonders.

WOMEN- HALF THE MEN?

In patriarchal society, the status of women has always been in question. Whether it is traditional society or modern, developing or developed society, it is considered largely male-oriented and male- dominated societies who disregarded female voices in the emerging discourse connected with women’s rights. Now here comes the wrong approach whenever we debate for or against women rights. Actually debate is on human rights and all rights those of men as being human are automatically qualify for women unless we disregard women to be human. Therefore any discourse related to women rights is of no relevance. No doubt Allah has created men and women different on physical, mental and emotional grounds and that is the beauty of His creation. There is no need at all to compare these two beautiful yet different creations or compete for same roles in society. Man is usually considered physically stronger whereas women on emotional grounds. Both perform different roles more appropriately but to use it as to imply the inferiority of women in any sense is absolutely no sense.

Basing on some religious rules to extrapolate unqualified stipulations regardless of situational factors associated, on the superiority of men and inferiority of women is completely absurd. For example in the question of inheritance or a witness in legal proceedings or contractual agreements, it is ultimately the written tradition or culture and not the human reason that is accepting inherent inferiority of women in matters of religion and intelligence. Application of human reasoning is permanently crippled by the attitude of male dominated thoughts in patriarchal society. There is no doubt that the tone of the society is set by the powerful male voices who considers the women as absent and in most cases, ignores the female evaluation of her own social situation.

No kid boy or girl is born by this attitude but the outlook of the society creates this discriminative structure violating the very basic human rights for women. Therefore the solution lies within the treatments given at homes. Best quoted ‘if you teach your daughter to be safe outside then teach your son also to be decent outside’. Having dinner after all male members had or responsibility of doing and managing all house hold chores by daughters only or giving all privileges to boys implants the stringent attitude in sons implying any form of inferiority related to girls at large.

This area of inter-human relationships is seriously demanding rethinking and reinterpretations of the normative approach and attitudes else women will always be left legally silenced, morally separated and religiously veiled.