Democracy under threat
I am starting to believe that the idea of democracy is starting to come apart at the seams, worldwide. I seem to hear more stories of national elections being shams, causing deeper unrest, and sparking violence than stories of election success. The aftermath of the Kenyan presidential elections is the event that's brought this idea to the fore for me. Right now, I'm trying to see where the roots of the trend lie.
It's pretty clear from a Google search that the "democracy meme" is a well-travelled phrase. It is a meme that has trumped all comers: democracy is the political ideal that all citizens have aspired to. The supremacy of that idea has been under threat, however, by a bunch of big and small ideas:
- separationist tendencies (sectarianism, tribalism, and balkanisation),
- violent extremism as a (successful) form of protest,
- acceptance of bias within and censorship of information sources,
- that election fraud can work, and
- limits and faults within existing, well-respected systems (a trifecta overcoming checks and balances, winner-take-all parliamentary democracies).
None of these ideas is powerful enough alone to overthrow democracy as an idea, but each holds enough sway with some population so as to do it some damage. I'm starting to believe that the sum of the damage may be too much for the long-term health of democracy world-wide….