Posted by: dorcas on: October 2, 2008
When I was younger, democracy to me meant the freedom to choose the political party that I favour, to be the ruling party of an area, or country. It seemed to me back then, that all countries with an election system are democratic. As I grew, I realised the naivety of my thinking. There is definitely more to democracy than mere elections. Democracy involves the idea of personal rights and freedom. I have envisioned the perfect democratic country to be one that treats everyone equally and involves all citizens in policy-making decision. Almost every country aims to be democratic and promises to make every citizen’s voice heard, but is democracy truly attainable, especially in today’s globalised world?
United States of America is known as the greatest democracy in the world, but is the United States really all democratic? Yes, the state does have many policies which encourage democracy, such as the fair voting procedures as well as the system of checks and balance which prevents the president from forming a dictatorship.
However, the state is not all democratic. I feel that the state also does reflect certain undemocratic qualities. One way which undemocratic quality is reflected is the torturing of terror suspects. One terror suspect, Dilawar died in his prison cell, bringing to the public’s attention the inhumane torture undergone by terror suspects. Military officers who were asked to explain the situation commented that ‘it was an isolated incident’. This was clearly not the case. Prison wardens in torture camps have testified that they were told to treat the terror suspects to be less than humans, and hence resulted in the very inhumane torture used to extort information from the terror suspects. This act of torture takes away the basic human rights (to be treated as human) which everyone, including the terror suspects has. On top of that, there were attempts to cover up the real situation going on in the terror camps. Prison wardens also testified that when the Red Cross came to the torture camp, most of the torture equipments were kept away. These actions undertaken by the military go against the definition of a democratic state. A democratic state emphasises on transparency, openness and equal treatment of all humans. This however was not shown in torture camps.
Yet, I am able to comprehend the reason for the many torture camps in the US, as well as the new US rule which allows terror suspects to be imprisoned on the basis of hearsay or coerced testimony. All these rules and torture camps were enforced after the 911 incident. The United States probably felt threatened by the terrorist and their power. To stop anymore repeat incidents from happening, they felt that they had to put in place strict regulations to show potential terrorists that they are not to be trifled with. The pressure to extort information from terror suspects were so great on the prison wardens that they had to turn to unimaginable and inhumane torture. One prison warden commented that those in the top military power were more interested in getting information and more information from the terror suspects. Due to the threat of terrorism, transparency and human rights were compromised.
This incident brings me to ponder whether democracy can exist in today’s world, where there are many threats of terrorists. I feel that the answer is no, as seen from the United States example. When a state is threatened, it will go all out to protect itself even if it means compromising democracy. This is one reason why democracy is hard to attain especially in today’s globalised world.
References:
Which is more democratic, America or Britain:
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/democratic_america_britain.htm
Video of taxi to the dark side:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XDMgIySVlQ&NR=1
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