Do we deserve democracy?

Democracy is a system which provides equal opportunities for every individual to grow with his/her own views, thoughts and style. It empowers people to change their leaders whenever they want to. It gives the freedom of speech and thought. Democratic governments are setup by the people, run by the people and can also be removed when needed by the people. Hence, democracy is all about what public want and what public donâ€™t want. It is no doubt the best government system ever introduced and with its continuous success over the past few centuries, people have started believing in democracy in such a blind way that they rarely think about some other governance system. Amidst of all these pros of democracy, I would here like to put up a strange but different question in terms of Pakistanâ€™s democratic performance in its past 60 years. My question is Do we deserve democracy? Do our illiterate people deserve free and fair elections? Is less corrupt military dictatorship not better than totally corrupt democratic governments?

Education is the theme for any nationâ€™s prosperity and success. Today the countries which are ruling over the world had focused a lot on their education. Be it America, UK, Japan or China; the prime focus of all these developed nation was and still is education. But again, the question that pops up is, Does every educated person always behaves like an educated person? Obviously not! There are people everywhere around us who are educated but with the behavior they exhibit; they simply seem like the uneducated ones. To me, before education, first important thing is to create awareness among the masses about right and wrong and then surely comes the proper education. The reason I am giving too much stress on the education is that we can never achieve a pure democracy without awareness and education.

Pakistanâ€™s government system has never been renewed; so are the people. The same old leaders and politicians are tried over and over again. And the funny part of the thing is that it is the people, our very own people, who every time elects these corrupt leaders amidst of their past behaviors. Unfortunately, due to these corrupt democratic forces, GHQ has always benefited from it and after every few years; we have a military take over. So why we allow military dictators to interfere in our politics or in simpler words why we select such democratic systems which are corrupt and which have less chances of survival?

The answer is very simple. We donâ€™t have the adequate potential and skills to elect honest leaders. Our most of the public only listens to their â€˜Landlordsâ€™ or â€˜Vadairasâ€™. Yes, our people (specially the uneducated ones) were and are the victims of this emotional blackmail. As I had already mentioned in one my previous articles that our emotional behavior towards various aspects is another thing responsible for our downfall. And this emotional behavior always takes away our awareness to decide that who is right and who is wrong. We are afraid of some unknown sources and again vote for the people who are already been tried and dismissed from our political scene.

The conclusion, which I have reached after thinking and analyzing the situation, is that we donâ€™t deserve democracy. We, surely, are not in a position to select MNAâ€™s and MPAâ€™s, PM, CM and even the President. We donâ€™t deserve to set up a parliament and make it run. We can not just do it before we create awareness among people and make them educated enough to differentiate between the right and wrong. Democracy is vibrant in its meaning and to make it applicable is also a major challenge. It is very easy to talk about implementing democracy but to be very honest, it also requires a lot of courage and awareness to select a loyal and working democratic government. The fault is not with our politicians, the fault is within us. We have to make ourselves able to decide about the right path (currently we are not). I, personally, would prefer military to handle this country unless and until we are sensible enough to change the way it needs to be changed. I agrees that military also needs to be accountable for some bad things which they have done to demolish democratic institutions. I still believe that democracy is the only and only solution but for the time being, my vote goes for non-democratic army leaders.

Please save this country!

4 Replies to “Do we deserve democracy?”

  1. thank you for writing this wonderful article. we need more intellectual guys like YOU in pakistan.i really agree what you have written.

  2. A second reading has led me to agree with the argument presented by the author. Military dictatorship is not the answer to a nation’s woes in the long term perspective, yet it appears to be the only ‘drug’ available to provide short term relief. And since the democratic framework cannot function effectively while more than half the population is either unconcerned or too dumb to use their vote in favour of ‘failed’ politicians and usher them back into the system – which btw is already crumbling – someone has to step up and set things right, even if it hurts the sentiments of those who claim to have politics running in their blood. i ain’t no extremist and no pro-military lobbyist, but unless the people of this country are educated enough to see through emotion packed political campaigns and false promises, military rule is perhaps the only option.

  3. Dude you are pseudo guy , a wannabe
    Please stop writing about things you know shit about.
    and democracy is so cliche these days

  4. What a hopeless article … People like u always amuse me, living without any hope and ready to allow any person to not only dictate his views on urself but on entire nation as well … You are prolly proud member of tribe of people who already lost their dignity and self respect, they are not interested in making this ignorant and uneducated nation a little better by giving them responsibilities, but they are interested in living under the stick of a dictator … What a shame

    I don’t mind and u have all the right to choose between Democracy and Dictatorship. But frankly ur choice doesn’t matter in this case, coz an army dictator doesn’t need ur vote or support, he doesn’t need the vote of this ignorant and uneducated nation, He just need an adventurous mind and a stupid superiority complex …

    You know what, if people of Pakistan are uneducated and ignorant who got no idea about who is right for them and who is not, than again its their country, it still doesn’t give right to one stupid dictator to impose himself on entire nation and claim to be their leader. No he is not, just coz he is not representing ignorant and uneducated nation … How many times u ll sell ur self respect, ur dignity by giving this stupid excuse that this nation is uneducated?

    And how much improvement Pakistan showed in the era of long long military take overs? Why people are still uneducated? why people are still ignorant? Democracy oh well, these military dictators never gave it any chance, but how much they contributed in their “better than democracy” era? ts more than enough, and we are still advocating their right to murder democracy, kill politicians, bypass or use judiciary, impose decisions on entire nation … we should think

    Stop selling ur self respect … let this ignorant nation be little responsible by learning from its mistakes, but at least give them a proper chance … We deserve Democracy coz its our right and its enough to live like an animal in this country … u wanna live like an animal sure go and lick feet of any army dictator but stop disrespecting the self respect of this nation …

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