enazir Bhutto:
"Democracy needs support, and the best support for democracy comes from other
democracies. Democratic nations should...come together in an association
designed to help each other and promote what is a universal value – democracy."
– A speech at Harvard University, 1989.
Everyone uses the word democracy as if it were a colloquial
nomenclature to describe a homogeneous social unit. Everyone uses the word
democracy as though the word were monolithic. Everybody, including Benazir
Bhutto, uses the word democracy as if it were one, single, solitary version,
image, likeness, blueprint.
Ferdinand Marcos talked about his belief in democracy. Fidel
Castro talks of democracy in Cuba. Idi Amin and Pinochet insisted that they
practiced democracy. The American president is expected to be the poster boy for
democracy. President Gloria Arroyo speaks passionately of her adherence to
democracy.
People in power have no identical definition; none adhere to
the same practice of democracy. Each of them has a convenient interpretation of
the word.
De·moc·ra·cy. Noun, plural -cies. 1. government by the
people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people
and exercised directly by them, or by their elected agents under a free
electoral system.
2. The United States and Canada are socially, racially
democratic.
3. A state of society characterized by formal equality of
rights and privileges.
4. Political or social equality; democratic spirit.
5. The common people of a community as distinguished from any
privileged class; the common people with respect to their political power.
Government by the people, exercised either directly or
through elected representatives. A political or social unit that has such a
government. The common people, considered as the primary source of political
power. Majority rule. The principles of social equality and respect for the
individual within a community.
1. The political orientation of those who favor government by
the people or by their elected representatives.
2. A political system in which the supreme power lies in a
body of citizens who can elect people to represent them.
3. The doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized
group can make decisions binding on the whole group [syn: majority rule].
Government by the people; especially a) rule of the majority b) a government
in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them
directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving
periodically held free elections.
