Worthy Democracies

The elections in Iraq have finally concluded and the results were along expected lines. The demographic majority but political minority Shiite's finally made it. Though they have not got the expected majority, its still a decent start for them after a long time in the political wilderness. All good to hear that Iraq has finally broken free from the past.

As expected the western world poured out their kudos for Iraq. Congratulating their "leadership" for taking this gigantic step towards democracy. Now Iraq has entered the comity of democratic nations, they believe. How so western and biased could their attitude get.

Imagine this - These western countries support countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia etc in their "one step forward two steps backward" moves towards democracy but dont spare even half a chance to take swipes at countries like Iran and China for their lack of democracy. Why this double standard ?

Iran by any standard is more democratic than any of the countries in the middle east. And fashion this - their governence structure is similar to the American model (save the guardian council). Yes, they do not have their President as the ultimate authority and yes they do not as yet practice universal adult franchise but hey! so did the US until 1920 when the 19th amendment was passed to give women the right to vote.

It took them 144 years to give women their rights since the signing of the Declaration in 1776 when in the declaration it said "all men are created equal" !!! In Britain, the suffrage movement began in the 1860's, though women did not win full voting rights until 1928. Countries like Kuwait still do not give voting rights to women, though we do not find the western nations condemning Kuwait every other day.

This attempt at trying to divide the world between worthy and unworthy democracies is shamefull. And the worst part is that the western nations try to keep their people ignorant and confused about these issues so that it gives a free hand to the governments to do what they please.

We need to see a concerted effort by the non-western democracies of the world to come together to educate their people and to foil the attempts at redrawing the world map between worthy democratic nations and unworthy democratic ones.