When are the democracies of the world going to use their weight to demand that all countries hold free and fair elections? The biggest human rights violation in the world is the lack of free and fair elections - every other human right abuse flows from this.
How can you have a free press or freedom of speech if you are not allowed to elected anyone? How can you have a freedom of conscience or religion if you are in a country ruled by people no one chose?
Without a mandate from the people, there is no functional way to have a government that has a legitimacy to rule. Put simply, the rule of law is almost impossible to have when there is no government with a mandate of the people.
I dream of a Canadian federal parliament that puts democracy as the number one human rights issue globally.
I would like to see Canada demand China, North Korea, Cuba, Gaza, Iran, Algeria, Venezuela,and many others to hold free and fair elections now.
Even if you are not interested in the issue of human rights that much, the simply reality is that no two countries with free and fair elections have ever gone to war with each other. Globally democracy is the fundamental solution to war between nations.
If we are to see real change in Central Asia and the Middle East, we have to have the democratic nations help develop democracies in those locations. If Afghanistan can be made democratic and finally pulled out of the hands of the gang leaders that are robbing and terrorizing the people, this will be a strong signal to a dozen other countries.
Iraq has the potential to be first Arabic country to be a free and democratic nation ever. To date the Arabs in the middle east with the most freedom and the only ones with a long term history of being allowed to vote are the ones that are the citizens of Israel. Think about, the Arabs in the middle east that have it the best are the minority in the Jewish dominated country. They also have one of the highest standards of living of any Arabs even though Israel has no resources and the Arabs feel like second class citizens.
In the 1930s the democracies or Europe failed to support each other and we saw the end result in World War 2. The democracies of the world need to become proactive in the Islamic world especially to support the democracies or those people fighting for human rights. The fascistic elements in the Islamic world are working hard to destroy freedom and human rights anywhere they find it.
1 comment:
When are the democracies of the world going to use their weight to demand that all countries hold free and fair elections? The biggest human rights violation in the world is the lack of free and fair elections - every other human right abuse flows from this"
You are under a misapprehension if you believe that there is a "Free Press" in Canada, or even the USA for that matter. The media and I include radio and the television networks are wholly owned by a very handful of people. In Canada the Asper Family control the CanWest Global empire which controls most major newspapers like the Vancouver Sun, Province, etc. as well as huge number of community newspapers across Canada. They also own Global television.
The reporting in Canada is a joke! It is in a word "biased". This has been demonstrated many times.
I dream of a Canadian government that is DEMOCRATIC period. Whereby the citizen can veto BAD legislation or introduce NEW beneficial legislation DURING the term of office of ANY incumbent party and where a group of BANKING lobbyist cannot change or manipulate legislation by their wealth.
"I would like to see Canada demand China, North Korea, Cuba, Gaza, Iran, Algeria, Venezuela,and many others to hold free and fair elections now."
It may have escaped your notice but Iran did have a democratic government under Mohammad Mossadegh but the United States with the help of the Dullas brothers (CIA) and Roosevelt's nephew Kermit Roosevelt soon got rid of that "democratically elected" government. So that you could have oil, and gas in your car and a nice plastic toothbrush.
We do not have democracy in N. America we have corporate military industrial complex who give us the appearance of democracy. In Guatemala in 1951 the democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz president decided that he wanted to be fair and give his peasant people some land. However, the US based United Fruit company (Later Chiquita) didn't like that idea and so in comes the "jackals" (CIA) and another democracy bites the dust so that you can have bananas for breakfast.
Then of course there is Haiti where Jean-Bertrand Aristide A democratically elected leader was overthrown by the US Although not reported in our "Free Press" that way. Haiti has no abundance of resources except one of the most valuable "human resources" cheap labour. With the US and Canadian forces policing Hait you can now buy Disney Pocahontas pyjamas for $20.00 made by a Haitian making $0.11 per hour.
They call the US a democracy and it has gone to war (what it calls wars)with more countries than almost any other in it's short history mainly through by lying to it's people (WMD, Gulf of Tonkin Resolution)and always to protect it's "interests" (commercial interests that is). Spreading democracy is one of the reasons given for going to war.
I would like to see Canada demand free and fair elections in the United states! The last president was elected twice through tampering with ballots and the manipulation of electronic ballots.
No the solution to war is make those that would declare war and profit from it be on the front lines withe their M16 in their hands alongside THEIR children, and take the profit out of war. Those who wage war sit back and profit from it.
I suggest you stop reading, listening to, and watching the (dying) mainstream media and do some research on the actual history, and motives behind most of these wars and "illegal" occupations, and as far as the middle east is concerned rather than trying to democratize it why don't we just get the hell out of their land lets face it we have been there for centuries first the crusader's chanting "lets covert these heathens" and picking up a few spoils along the way, gold property etc. as well as controlling trade routes to the west. Now we have crusaders chanting lets bring democracy to these people (and kill a million Iraqi civilians in the process) and of course we will take the oil and stay and control the trade routes to the west.
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