What is a democracy?

In a democracy the power is supposedly in the hands of “the people’ as they are part of a free electoral system. There are many definitions to what a democracy is as the nature of a democracy may differ from country to country. There are two principles, however, that all claim to stick to and those are that “all members of society have equal access to power “ and secondly that “all members enjoy universally recognized freedoms and liberties.”

We have inherited the democracy from the ancient Greek.
Reading the story of how Cleisthenes changed and reformed the government of Athens some 2500 years ago is more than interesting. Up to then Athens had been ruled by what we would classify as being a dictatorship.
He knew that in order to bring a real change there were certain patterns in the society which had to be broken. It had to do with strong tribal and family traditions. As long as the dividing lines in the society continued along side these old patterns the changes would be merely theoretical. That’s why he destroyed what used to be the base for former group identity and created smaller entities based on completely different criteria. He changes the focus of the people from being tribe orientated to be area of residence orientated.
Along with other reforms the democracy was being introduced but I believe this to be the most important one.

We like to believe that we have rights and that we can make free choices.
In order to choose we need to know what the choices are. We make up our minds according to the information we are given. There has to be a certain base of knowledge for us to ask questions and the questions we ask will change as we learn more.

Sometimes democracies are full of people who wants to be heard but who do not want to listen.

In 1990 , during the first Intifada ( which started in 1987) the Palestinians killed more Palestinians than Jews. It was before the Palestinian Authority and Area A,B and C. I had still not moved to Israel but had taken some time off from work and was travelling in the Land interviewing lots of people about the situation.
What bothered me had to do with the fact that so many Arabs had to die because they were considered collaborators by “somebody” which nobody seemed to know who was. There were “invisible” people who gave orders concerning when to close the shops, when and where to throw stones and whom to kill.
All the Arabs that I spoke to had the same answers to all my questions. They all said that the reason for Arabs killing Arabs had to do with the fact that “you have to remove the rotten tomato from the bag in order to prevent the others from rotting.” Not even one could answer how they knew who was “the rotten tomato” .
When I asked what exactly a Palestinian State would be like, they all said that it would be run like a democracy. When I continued asking whether it would be like the Syrian, the Iranian or the Egyptian “democracies”, I got no answer.

Does the fact that there are elections make the state a democracy? What about if there is no freedom of speech and expression, the mass medias are controlled and people who do not agree with the leadership are “taken care of” and never returns?

“There’s a long way to Tipperary”, but if it is worth getting there then “Yallah……at least try to make a move in the right direction.”

Elin Elkouby.