Countries vary in history, culture, system and economic development level, but peoples of all countries uphold the shared human values of peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom. Peace and development are our common cause, equity and justice our common aspiration, and democracy and freedom our common pursuit.” — Xi Jinping.
Off the bat, I think that it is important for me to make the assertion that, within the extensive and complex global political terrain, there are those systems and values that are so universal that they may never mean the same thing to everyone. One such concept or principle is democracy.
We have seen democracy having varied applications throughout the world and its conceptualisation being suited to various national conditions. Does this fundamentally mean that one country is more or less democratic than the other because of the differences that may have in the application of democracy within the context of their very different national conditions?
It can never be disputed that democracy is one of the common values that are universally appreciated and is a subject of much attention and interest. Democracy has been perched as some sort of moral barometer to measure not only the distance between the State and the people but has also been naively postured as some safeguard against injustice, anarchy and tyranny.
One must, however, recognise that such a value that is so fundamental to our humanity, as it speaks directly to our agency and those societal functions that make us whole, must be diversified in order to adapt to the various material conditions that beset many of our countries. Effective democracy cannot be achieved within the confines of rigidly set confines.
The values of democracy are rooted in history, culture and tradition. It takes diverse forms and develops along the paths chosen by different people based on their experiences and innovation.
Whether a country is democratic depends on whether its people are genuinely the custodians of the character and trajectory of that society. Later in the article, I will make the point of how this must never be limited to an election and participation in this periodic event. Democracy must be about the relationship between the state and the people.
To really appreciate the value and extent of democracy, we consciously start to undress our very limited Eurocentric understanding of democracy and concede to the fact that there is no fixed model of democracy, which manifests itself in many forms. Assessing the myriad political systems in the world against a single yardstick is in itself undemocratic.
In order to make a more poignant analysis of this, let’s take a closer look at China and how democracy is expressed and defined relative to the specific national conditions in China. In modern-day China, there is the Two Sessions event.
Source: News365
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