Yesterday morning my 17 year old asked me to edit the draft of her history paper due upon arrival at school. It was about the relationship our country, the US of A, has had with a certain democracy in a region where democracy is rare and the country in question is surrounded by hostile states. I made gammer corrections and offered a few stylistic suggestions. While doing that, I began to wonder if this particular country was a democracy. Since I was doing so out loud, my daughter expressed her annoyance, stating clearly that whether or not this country was a democracy was not the subject of the paper. I couldn't deny the truth of that, but I could not stop myself from pondering this question. When a country denies basic rights to some of its citizens, can it still claim to be a democracy? If you are required to be a member of a certain religion in order to have rights, can it still be a democracy? Are theocracy and democracy necessarily at odds with each other?
We did not consider South Africa a democracy until the Blacks and Coloureds there were given the vote. But was that because the majority of the population was disenfranchised, rather than a minority? If we take democracy to mean that all adult citizens have the right to vote in the processes that determine the leaders and governments of the state, then was the US not a democracy until 1920 when women were given the right to vote? Wow! that would seem weird. But in the very beginning of our so-called democracy, only white men who owned land had the right to vote. Hmmm, this complicates things a bit. What exactly do we mean when we use the term democracy?
In Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, democracy is defined (in part) as: 1. a. government by the people, esp. 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 usu. involving periodic free elections 2. a political unit that has a democratic government....5. the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges. However, the New International Webster's Pocket Dictionary defines it as: 1. government in which political control is shared by all the people, either directly or by representatives who they elect. 2. a state so governed. 3. political, legal or social equality.
So, when Lincoln spoke those famous words, "of the people, for the people, by the people", what did he mean? People is a gender and race neutral word. Heck, its an age neutral word for that matter. He didn't use the word citizen, nor man. The two dictionaries above, have, together, 15 definitions for people! Among the first are: 1. the aggregate of humans beings living under the same government. 2. human beings, persons... there are also several definitions that are more restrictive, such as, the members of a family or kinship, or: subjects of a ruler or government. Number 7 in the Webster's Collegiate, defines people as, the body of enfranchised citizens of a state.
I am not sure that the US was a democracy before 1920, or that the unnamed state above is now. I know that some people would say that its not a democracy unless there are at least 2 political parties, in other words a one party state cannot be a real democracy. But I am not sure that I have come much closer to understanding what is commonly assumed when the word democracy is used, other than a vaguely defined form of government that is not a dictatorship or monarchy, where at least a significant minority have the right to vote to elect the leaders and government of their country.
