"Can Revolution lead to democracy?" But what if there is already a "democracy" in place?
Ukraine has been up to some shady business lately. The people are unhappy because of their government's poor decision to link up with Russia and refuse to sign a planned treaty with the EU. Although their "demographic bulge" seems to range between the age of 15-64 with a whopping 74%, people came together to peacefully protest against this political move. However, the response of the Ukraine government is what was most shocking! The government attacked fundamental human rights by challenging their own democracy. On January 14th, they chose to pass a bill which radically limits the freedom to assembly. It demands that permission to form a protest must be obtained from police. That doesn't even make sense now does it? How can people get permission to protest from the very people who will stop their protests? Now the Ukrainians have taken it upon themselves to react violently after having their rights taken away. According to my article, already two confirmed dead on the third day of violence. I don't see this going very well.
This bill opens the gates for censorship, and punishment for speaking out against authorities. This does not sound the least bit democratic to me. Perhaps they are still learning since they've only been a democracy since 1990, but this is going to end very ugly if the authorities don't shape up and stop trying to be a Vladimir Putin imitator.
This was interesting. Did you hear about the cell phones being shut off in a protest?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theverge.com/2014/1/21/5332726/ukraine-government-texts-ominous-orwellian-message-directly-to-cell
This was what I immediately thought about when I read your blog post. Pretty scary stuff. Sometimes democracy may not be the correct thing? When you look at the big picture, democracy in practice is still relatively young. Perhaps these regions may not be able to adopt such a system. Regardless, check out that article I posted. Do you think the government shut off the cell phones? Or was it a prank made by someone else.
That's crazy! I had no idea about this one. If it were my guess, I'd say the government was behind it considering their efforts in oppressing the people's voice. And you're right, democracy is relatively young but I guess some countries are better than others at maintaining it.
DeleteThe fact that they would pass the requirement of signed permission to protest is ridiculous. The people should have the right to say what they want and assemble. If they really have a democracy, they should be able to get the masses behind repealing the bill. If the citizens let this slide, it will turn into a landslide of individual liberties being taken away from them.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts exactly! The government obviously doesn't know what a DEMOCRACY consists of. Taking away the citizen's right to assembly and freedom of speech is not what democracy is about.
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