Democracy only gets you half way there

Prague, CZ
11 July 2013
Thomas Secrest

There other day I was driving home from work and on the radio I was listening to the BBC. The subject was the current crisis in Egypt. Part of the program was given to Morsi supporters and the other part was given to the "anti-Morsi" group.

I literally lost tract of how many times the Morsi supporters used the words democracy, or democratic or democratically in their defense of Morsi and his (former) government.

Their arguments were simple -- Morsi was democratically elected and that's that's. For the military to remove him from office, regardless of reason, was an undemocratic military coup.

In my opinion, the Islamic world, and the judeo-christian world for that matter, don't understand the word democracy. Their tendency is to go to the dictionary and read the definition and then proclaim that since they voted, it must be a democracy.

The spirit of TRUE democracy has two elements. The first is "we the people" and the second, which is equally important is "hold these truths to be self evident." In modern times these "truths" are clearly stated in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Without that last part, democracy is little more than voting.

Let me offer a simple example. While it is much less true today, in the past America was considered to be the shining light on the hill when it came to democracy. America was considered to be the country that wrote the book on putting together human rights and voting.

However, for almost 100 years, America experimented with the dictionary version of democracy. Whites, the majority, voted again and again, for rules, laws and regulations that applied favorably to whites Americans and negatively to black Americans.  The majority voted that blacks should ride at the back of buses, should drink from only designated water fountains and should not be allowed equal access to education, and of course many more. It is an extremely sad part of American history. However, it can't be denied, the majority voted repeatedly to maintain economic and social slavery in America and quite honestly, if they could have voted to re-institute slavery, some states would have likely done so.

There can never be a TRUE Islamic democracy, just like there can never be a TRUE Christian or Jewish democracy. The reason is quite simple: religions don't respect human rights. They wish to establish their own list of human rights and the lists they formulate are, at best, seriously incomplete and, at worst, horrific, vile, misogynistic, and inhuman.

Morsi was 'thrown off'' because he was NOT a democratic president, he was an Islamist president, a democratically elected Islamist president. The Egyptian people had the right and the obligation to force Morsi from power.

These words perhaps say it better than any ever written: We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.