Democracy is a government system which is used in many countries in the world. In a democracy society, citizens have the right to make decisions of civil issues directly or indirectly. As populace make rules for their country, I think they will be satisfies by the rules, so I think democracy can contribute a part of stability in a society.
Democracy has many advantages and I think it is a good government system relative to totalitarianism. First of all, the center or authority of a democracy society is no longer one person or a group, but citizens. It gives everyone equal rights and no one has a higher position in status. Everyone has right to vote to elect their representatives in indirect way of democracy for example. The representatives are elected by populace and if they cannot do very well, they will be recalled by populace as well. Therefore, citizens have the most might. As a result, because everyone is equal, they will satisfy and there will be fewer conflicts. So democracy can bring a long-term benefit to a society.
However, on the other hand, democracy also has some disadvantages. Firstly, democracy follows might-makes-right mob rule, which means majority impose laws on the minority. The main way of democracy is voting, and as everyone has equality for voting, so the majority will decide the rules. It is apparently a good way. Nevertheless, if the majority is constant, the minority will be in an inferior position. For instance, in Northern Ireland (NI), the Protestants are majority who want the NI to belong to Britain, and the Catholics are minority who want the NI to be a part of Ireland. So this democracy society, when they vote, the result is definitely that NI belongs to Britain. Now we can make a hypothesis: if you were Catholics and most of the rules are decides by Protestants although you were in a democracy society, what would you do? If I were you, I would protest. In this way, it is not ‘democracy’ at all and the so-called ‘democracy’ creates instability.
So we cannot make the conclusion very curtly as democracy has different impacts in different situation. Does democracy create stability in a society? I think it depends on the society itself. Religious conflict such as in Northern Ireland, and Ethnic issue such as in Sri Lanka, also other factors which are economics, education standard and so on can also contribute the stability in a society and democracy is just a method. If a country has bad economics, low education standard, and populace has different needs, although it is democracy, I think it will not be stable. However, if the situation of a country is very good, and it can achieve the populace’s goals, I think the democracy can create stability.
Consequently, I think democracy can contribute a part of stability in a society and it should be advocated as it gives citizens equal rights. And we also need to prepare for solving the conflicts which we will encounter in a democracy society.
Friday, May 30, 2008
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