After our class on democracy and other classes I feel that democracy has in fact become a "buzz word." People strive for for attaining their democratic right but really is this what we need ?
In our class activity where we spoke to the janitor regarding whether Pakistan is a democracy he made some important comments, that made me look at democracy with a more critical lens.
He stated that yes, democracy does in fact exist in Pakistan but it is the fault of our masses that we keep allowing the same sequence of politicians to come back into power. I agree with his statement. Maybe it is the lack of choices but many members of our population did in fact vote for Nawaz Sharif yet again. Even in the election prior to the previous one, the PPP regained its power despite its widespread corruption cases.
We all know how these politicians are corrupt and lack the skills to rule our country and and yet we irrationally ( our masses irrationally) elect them all over again. So in this case all we do is the choose the lesser of the evils and blindly put our faith in them. So democracy in fact allows for tyranny of the masses especially in the case of Pakistan. Not only this, but democracy has been used as an excuse to do something undemocratic. In the name of democracy America invades Afghanistan. In the name of democracy America uses drone attacks to kill thousands of innocents.
I believe that the democratic system should be replaced with a system based on merit. Only people with skill and not the votes should be allowed to run ministries and other important posts. How does it make any sense that an interior Minister comes into power without any qualifications related to it? How is it that the Minister of Water and Power has hold over our most important resources even though his only skill is corruption ?
I believe democracy has failed and is not a self-correcting system . It is indeed time for a change.
2 comments:
Although idealistically a system based on merit would be the most appropriate for curtailing the problems of a democratic system,i feel that is a difficult ideal to achieve.Especially in the context of a society such as Pakistan where social inequalities and lack of equal educational opportunities prevail,a meritocratic system of government cannot be established unless the society at large becomes meritocratic.
I agree that people do not have many choices, this is again one of the barriers in the way of successful democracy. The poor or the weak, even the educated people who might be more qualified and able to run the government can not enter politics which remains dominated by a big few.
Post a Comment