Politics
How they ended up doling out their own sense of warped justice. Answers to these questions lie partly in the crafty and cunning, though democratic, mechanisms that allow fascists to bully democracies and enable people’s undue suspicion regarding democracy to run wild.
“The incipient, creeping fascism of the past few years has been groomed by many of our ‘ democratic institutions ’. Everyone has flirted with it — Parliament (Congress), the press, the police, the administration, the public. Each time you defend the right of an institution, any institution (including Supreme Court), to exercise unfettered, unaccountable powers that must never be challenged, you move forward fascism.” says Arundhati Roy.
You all must have gathered by now that democracy can be used both as a tool to further the cause of people and as a weapon to undermine the same; it depends entirely…
Politics
You cannot rectify a receding democracy without a greater sense of political responsibility on the part of citizens and political leaders.
Bad political outcomes are a result of inappropriate individual behaviors, inordinate structural processes, and misinformed/uninformed citizens. Sometimes it is difficult to assess the attributiveness of the factors or the degree of political responsibility assigned to them with regard to the outcome. Some elements are certainly more worthy of censure than the others. Citizens and political leaders of democratic societies differentiate themselves from authoritarian societies by bearing more responsibilities and not just by exercising more rights.
We, the people, are also accountable for the behavior of our leaders other than they themselves for setting these violent and undemocratic events into motion…
Politics
What happens to a frail democracy when it is decoupled from morals and coupled with a coup — the story of Myanmar.
Military Coups are based on inferior perceptions about people’s ability to decide for themselves and their incompetency to take on political responsibility. They undermine the potential of a society to run its politics democratically. It is an attempt not to allow people to exercise their most basic rights. Different military regimes worldwide try out distinct and seemingly persuasive rationales/propaganda to sway people onto their side. Some sell the notion that democracy is ill-suited to their culture and norms; others say the military is required to maintain unity amongst the heterogeneous population. We need to understand that any set of ideas…
Politics
For Democracy to Reoccupy Its Position in America, It First Needs to Be Refashioned. That’s What Is Required to Beat Modern Day Dictators Whose Identities Are Concealed Under the Pretext of Democracy.
The election cycle of the last four years felt way too long as intense political partisanship froze the apparatus of democracy the entire time. These years brought to the surface the strengths and weaknesses of American democracy. The ultimate inquiry is what can guard it against destabilization in the future from similar misconducts? Please take into consideration that this is not an extension of an ordinary political debate about how to strengthen democracy; rather, it concerns itself with the very conduct upon which democracy is established.
What we understood from Trump’s presidency and resulting partisanship thereof is that the task…
Politics
Notwithstanding the Above, Can a Good End Ever Justify the Wretched Journey?
“Authoritarianism appeals, simply, to people who cannot tolerate complexity: there is nothing intrinsically left-wing or right-wing about this instinct at all. It is anti-pluralist. It is suspicious about people with different ideas. It is allergic to fierce debates. Whether those who have it ultimately derive their politics from Marxism or nationalism is irrelevant. It is a frame of mind, not a set of ideas.”[1], says Anne Applebaum in her book Twilight of Democracy, The seductive lure of authoritarianism.
The fragilities, similar to what happened at the Capitol, are inescapable in a democratic — authoritarian system where the basic functioning of…
Politics
The Gravity of Trump’s Crimes Does Not Call for Impunity. Also, Is Impunity the Cost of Unity?
“Where there is a strong moral arena independent of the pursuits of wealth or power, the market or the state, then truth stands a chance of surviving intact against the assaults that will from time to time be made against it. Telling a lie will be disqualification whether you are a scientist, businessperson, or politician.”, says Jonathan Sacks in his book, Morality.
Troubled times call for an unprejudiced reflection on matters such as the impeachment trial of an immoral president. A reasoned discussion beyond party politics is the need of the hour.
Check on morality cannot be entirely outsourced to…
Politics
Can American Democracy Be Relied Upon Any Longer to Deliver Justice Considering Years of Continual Regressive Attacks on It by the President Turned Dictator and His Allies?
“ You can no longer expect people to act in their own best interests when they’re so disoriented they don’t know — or no longer care — what those interests are.”, says Halina Bortonowska, a human rights advocate.
A dangerous trend of oscillating back and forth from democracy cannot last forever without having a weakening impact on it. I think it’s well beyond the time we rise to the true meaning of a stable liberal democracy. The ferocity seen in the Capitol reflects the failure of democracy to address divisions in the United States of America. …
Pandemic
Freedom in a democracy is subject to the freedom of one’s fellow citizens.[1] In Eleanor Roosevelt’s words, “We recognize, of course, that all those who enjoy freedom must learn self-discipline — not discipline imposed by the state but discipline imposed by themselves for the sake of the rights of other human beings.” In short, we understood the limits of freedom and the consequences that follow from being insensible and unconscientious in handling it.
History is in the making, and as we live through this historical moment, I realized that the crisis of 2020 left a deep imprint on what we…
Politics
We Still Rely on the Long-Term Strength of Democracies to Reverse Course When Things Go Wicked.
https://www.gallerist.in/conceptual-drawings/dichotomy.
Democracies neither rise nor get destroyed overnight. Iraq's invasion did not lead to democracy immediately after Saddam Hussein was removed. Instead, it led to the realization that other factors, apart from removing a corrupt authoritarian, were necessary too for democracy to grow. Similarly, the older and more rooted democracy becomes, the tougher it gets to deracinate it. However, all democracies more or less face one thing in common — the swing between euphoria and misery.
“Japan, early twenty-first century, you would still feel like you’d won the jackpot. Greece is in more of a mess, yet it too remains prosperous…
Politics
Democracy is exhausted — exhausted of tolerating us. It’s been keeping up with us for quite some time now. Though it feels the other way around to us, it isn’t. How things stand currently is just reflective of what we have become and how we have violated a system that enables citizens to lobby for their interests and limits government power. I believe, at present, democracy is merely mooching off its ancestral goodwill and is not really adding anything positive to its existing magnanimity. All because of the hypocritic way we have adopted to pretentiously save it. In reality, we…
Sakshi Kharbanda, Ph.D.
Learner| Researcher| Writer. Writes on Democracy, Capitalism and Inclusion. Fascinated by Mathematics and Mathematicians.
