Democracy and the People - Chimara Eric Uchenna

Democracy may be a word familiar to most, but it is a concept still misunderstood and misused in a time when totalitarian regimes and military dictatorships alike have attempted to claim popular support by pinning democratic labels upon themselves. Yet the power of the democratic idea has also evoked some of history's most profound and moving expressions of human will and intellect: from Pericles in ancient Athens to Vaclav Havel in the modern Czech Republic, from the forces of democracy and human rights grand battles to overthrow military dictatorship in Nigeria and install democracy to the orange revolution in Ukraine last 3 years.
 In the dictionary definition, democracy "is government by the people 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." In the phrase of Abraham Lincoln, democracy is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."
Freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, but the two are not synonymous. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of a set of practices and procedures that have been molded through a long, often tortuous history. In short, democracy is the institutionalization of freedom. For this reason, it is possible to identify the time-tested fundamentals of constitutional government, human rights, and equality before the law that any society must possess to be properly called democratic.

Democracies fall into two basic categories, direct and representative. In a direct democracy, all citizens, without the intermediary of elected or appointed officials, can participate in making public decisions. Such a system is clearly only practical with relatively small numbers of people--in a community organization or tribal council, for example, or the local unit of a labor union, where members can meet in a single room to discuss issues and arrive at decisions by consensus or majority vote. Ancient Athens, the world's first democracy, managed to practice direct democracy with an assembly that may have numbered as many as 5,000 to 6,000 persons--perhaps the maximum number that can physically gather in one place and practice direct democracy.
Today, the most common form of democracy, whether for a town of 50,000 or nations of 50 million, is representative democracy, in which citizens elect officials to make political decisions, formulate laws, and administer programs for the public good. In the name of the people, such officials can deliberate on complex public issues in a thoughtful and systematic manner that requires an investment of time and energy that is often impractical for the vast majority of private citizens.

Majority Rule and Minority Rights
All democracies are systems in which citizens freely make political decisions by majority rule. But rule by the majority is not necessarily democratic: No one, for example, would call a system fair or just that permitted 51 percent of the population to oppress the remaining 49 percent in the name of the majority. In a democratic society, majority rule must be coupled with guarantees of individual human rights that, in turn, serve to protect the rights of minorities--whether ethnic, religious, or political, or simply the losers in the debate over a piece of controversial legislation. The rights of minorities do not depend upon the goodwill of the majority and cannot be eliminated by majority vote. The rights of minorities are protected because democratic laws and institutions protect the rights of all citizens.

In most third world countries like our own country, Nigeria, majority rule has entirely nothing to do with ideologies or leanings rather the belief that the ethnic majority will always dominate others due to their numerical strength.. A senator from the northern part of the country once boasted that the North could keep producing the president of the Country till thy kingdom come citing several countries like India where the Hindis always dominate India's politics.
This same ill phenomenon has eaten deep into the hearts of Nigerian politics up to the local government levels. Some states in Nigeria no longer remember the rights of the minorities(ethnic) while sharing the dividends of democracy. Since the inception of our current democratic dispensation, ethnocentric policies have taken over the whole exercise, that's why in some states, certain ethnic groups feel it's their birthright to keep producing the chief executives of the states despite the minorities long term servitude.

In Benue state, no other ethnic group has been able to produce the state's chief executive except the Tivs, reason, they are the majority. They are not the only state where the majority has constantly denied the minority a shot at the helm of the affairs of the state. For all those states, the majority rule has got nothing to do with the dominant ideology rather the numerical strength of the majority.
The developed world who understands democracy in the real sense of it enjoys it's dividends, the immediate past Prime minister of Britain, Mr. Tony Blair is of Irish and Scottish descent while the current Prime minister Mr. Gordon Brown is of Scottish descent, in a Country where the English are the majority. If those gentlemen had been Nigerians, they would have been denied the opportunity to contribute immensely to the growth of their fatherland simple because they belonged to the minority ethnic group.
Diane Ravitch, scholar, author, and a former assistant U.S. secretary of education, wrote in a paper for an educational seminar in Poland: "When a representative democracy operates in accordance with a constitution that limits the powers of the government and guarantees fundamental rights to all citizens, this form of government is a constitutional democracy. In such a society, the majority rules, and the rights of minorities are protected by law and through the institutionalization of law."
These elements define the fundamental elements of all modern democracies, no matter how varied in history, culture, and economy. Despite their enormous differences as nations and societies, the essential elements of constitutional government--majority rule coupled with individual and minority rights, and the rule of law--can be found in Canada and Costa Rica, France and Botswana, Japan and India.
 
Democratic Society
Democracy is more than a set of constitutional rules and procedures that determine how a government functions. In a democracy, government is only one element coexisting in a social fabric of many and varied institutions, political parties, organizations, and associations. This diversity is called pluralism, and it assumes that the many organized groups and institutions in a democratic society do not depend upon government for their existence, legitimacy, or authority.
These groups represent the interests of their members in a variety of ways--by supporting candidates for public office, debating issues, and trying to influence policy decisions. Through such groups, individuals have an avenue for meaningful participation both in government and in their own communities. The examples are many and varied: charitable organizations and churches, environmental and neighborhood groups, business associations and labor unions.
In an authoritarian society, virtually all such organizations would be controlled, licensed, watched, or otherwise accountable to the government. In a democracy, the powers of the government are, by law, clearly defined and sharply limited. As a result, private organizations are free of government control; on the contrary, many of them lobby the government and seek to hold it accountable for its actions. Other groups, concerned with the arts, the practice of religious faith, scholarly research, or other interests, may choose to have little or no contact with the government at all.

In conclusion, I would like to state that democracy can never be complete if a Kurd can't be elected as a Turkish Prime minister, where an Efik or Edo cannot be elected a Nigerian president, where no Cameroonian from the Anglophone side can be elected president, where an ethnic Albanian can't rule Macedonia, where a Tamil can never dream of presiding over the affairs of Sri Lanka not due to their incapability to deliver rather the meager numerical strength of their ethnicity.
Again until an Idoma can be elected in Benue state, an Ogoni in Rivers state or an Okun in Kogi state, the dream of democracy for all will continue to be a fleeting illusion to be pursued by all but achieved by few.