Is Democracy Dead? Or, Can the Internet Save Democracy

The huge amount of voter apathy around the world is a reflection of how many people feel about whether key aspects of the democratic system really work for the people themselves.

In some countries (Australia, I believe) it is illegal not to vote, but this does not mean that people necessarily have more faith in the democratic system for all that (in fact, if they are being forced to vote, this suggests that, on the contrary, if there was no such requirement the apathy would show itself up even worse again..!)

Of course Churchill was quite right to say that democracy is the worst form of government ever tried... except for all the others! Noone would seriously opt to live in a Stalinist or Hitlerian state such as were seen in the mid-twentieth century, and which Saddam Hussein consciously modeled, Maoist systems like those in China after the Cultural Revolution, or the chaos of "no-government-to-speak-of-at-all" of post-invasion Iraq.

Truly those of us who live in democracies, instead of Myanmar/Burma, Zimbabwe and any number of African dictatorships, or Pinochet's Chile, and especially those of us (every single Westerner in the world outside the US) who live in countries with universal medicare and homicide rates under 100 per year for the entire nation, should kiss the ground they walk on every day.

Yet this does not mean that democracy as we know it does not have serious flaws.

It seems clear that, when an election can take place where two major candidates have roughly the same amount of support (as in the US in 2000) but in the end only one can win, that about half the population will spend 4 years being unrepresented by their government.

Similarly, when a government has weak opposition (as in Britain under Margaret Thatcher, and then again under Tony Blair) it hardly makes sense to say that the people chose that party to rule, if there was in effect very little choice to begin with.

Having said all of this, there is one very important thing that lays the groundwork for a possible rejuvenation of democratic processes -- THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH AND THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF INFORMATION.

These things are entrenched in the constitutions of many countries around the world. Moreover, with the growth of the Internet, a government struggles to STOP information getting to its citizens in this day and age (see the story of the satellite giant Al Jazeera for its democratizing effects across the Arabic-speaking world, where it swoops in with investigative reporting, heads back home and then broadcasts its often damaging reports to the people of the government it is criticizing. Voice of America arguably had the same effect in Eastern Europe).

This article was written because I am very curious to hear people's views, not just on democracy itself, but also on the website Avaaz.org.

Avaaz was started by a young man of Indian extraction, Ricken Patel

as an organ of change by democratic means.

The website, blog, and crucially their mailing list of millions, are used as tools to bypass the voting process, and to get the word out to key political figures that we, the world are watching, and that we want our voices to be heard.

Not surprisingly, in a world where so many are concerned with climate change, and so many leaders drag their feet on the issue, Avaaz is focusing on this key issue.

At the moment it is targeting the Japanese government in regard to its position on the environment with a petition to ensure that its representatives speak out for effective measures to halt global warming.

If you want to be a part of this, then go to this link to see exactly how Avaaz uses a new democratic instrument to effect change, and how you can be a part of this. Go to the link HERE.

If this sort of approach interests you, then send the link to this blog -- http://hubpages.com/hub/Is-Democracy-Dead-Or--Can-the-Internet-Save-Democracy

to as many people as you think might be interested -- thereby, you will be strengthening the voice of the people worldwide, in a world where elected governments seem slow to respond to the will of those who put them in power in the first place.