So what is democracy, then?

While taking shower the other day like always I was concerned about Pakistan. What is happening with us and how worse can it get. During my shower I also considered a scenario (Which I do quite often and I believe many people who love Pakistan also ponder this way) where my party had won the general elections and I was in power. So I have the authority but the question is from where do I start. Big percentage of people do not have excess to clean water and are dying due to the diseases caused due to muddy water, so do I start from here on an emergency basis…..The public schools are a big mess and there are villages where the sardars/waderas threatens teachers that if they teach in their village they will be in trouble but education is very essential, another issue which requires immediate action so what do I do now…. The price level is very high, I should reduce it but I can’t because I do not have the money to pay back IMF loans and IMF enforces me to keep prices high, puzzled again…… Unemployment is getting higher and on top of that businesses are shifting away from Pakistan due to security situation, how can I stop these people from leaving my country……… Well I have to start several projects to solve the energy crisis but can I trust the bureaucracy that it would use the funds efficiently as I cannot fire all of them and find honest ones immediately, boy o boy…. I can keep on writing such issues down and bore you. But after going through all these problems I start questioning democracy. But then I see countries that are doing very good under democracy. This time I reached the conclusion that there must some prerequisites that a country must have in order to succeed under this system.

The prerequisites

It is very important to understand that you cannot build a building unless you have a foundation for it and the foundation you have should be strong enough to carry the building. Well if you Google “what is democracy” you will find many academic articles and other sources explain it. I will try to figure democracy out through a common men’s eye who has basic
education.

Education is a must!

By looking at the heading above you would say “well we know this” but I will try to further prove the argument. I will take Turkey as an example to prove this point because democracy in Turkey recently has shown that it could actually benefit common people in a country. In its 88 years of independence Turkey also had martial laws. They had three military coups between 1961 and 1989. Now what coups have to do with education!.... In 1969 literacy rate in Turkey was almost 62% and people were simply treated like sheep and were driven by incompetent shepherds whom military had to stop for the integrity of the country. By 1991 however the literacy rate had reached 79% and since then no military coup occurred. Turkey started to flourish since early 2000s and in 2005 their literacy rate had reached 87% and in 2010 it was 90%. One correlation is very obvious that although democracy was there in the 1990s but Turkey was not a very successful state but in 2000s with increase in literacy they have started to flourish under democracy and where called “The China of Europe” by the economist.
So if you want that democracy succeeds you have to have a proper platform. People have to understand that to whom they are voting. Education helps people understand the pro and cons of the person they are voting for. But we say “degree too degree hoti hay asli ho ya jali”.

Security

We see on news TV channels (especially Geo TV for some reason that are able to catch such videos) that what is going on polling stations. People get slapped, a bullet might find you, and you may find out that your vote is already been casted. We see elections in Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, European countries, and many more and it is very rear that we hear such news from their polling stations because the system is secure and reliable.

Awareness

In democracy the public has to know that the people how are running the country are actually using the public’s money to the run the country and serve the PUBLIC. But in our case the “hukumran” is the elite and the public is simply nobody. But in democracy the public has to be aware of their rights and should audit the government whether they are actually able to serve them. If they are not serving the way they were expected to, the public has to come out and make the government step down. People should also know and believe that their vote would actually make the difference.

To sum up then…

After analyzing many countries I can say that in order to make democracy function properly education is a must. There is one trend I have seen in the world which I would like to mention. What I see is that in many countries the reason of success of democracy is actually some sort of dictatorship (it can be a military dictatorship or one man show) prior to democracy and during that dictatorship THE FOUNDATION is laid down for democracy. Take Germany they had Hitler, take Italy they had Mussolini, Russia had Stalin and Lenin, China had MAO. You might say that dictators have also spoiled some countries future but the examples I have given above are amongst the current great powers.

To conclude I can say that because we as a nation are corrupt and that’s why are unable to find that person who can guide our country to success. I pray to Allah and ask from each Pakistani that if we start correcting our corruption there no reason we can succeed. You would ask what do I mean by correcting our corruption. Well the chemist selling expired medicines, the butcher mixing the meat what some other animals meat, the milk man adding good amount of water in the milk, the rickshaw and taxi running on a wrong meter rate, and so many more that me and you commit. If we just start correcting ourselves, things will automatically improve as it is the law of nature.

Nice article buddy, all the things you said that are wrong with our country are right. And the reason none of them will change is because we the Pakistani ppl have become veryy selfish.