"Belief in Democracy 8/8
Belief in Democracy 8/8
Views of people from Turkey and Holland on statements made by Newsweek journalist Fareed Zakaria, Turkish president Abdullah Gül and prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Dutch VPRO documentary 'Turkije - Het Dilemma van de Democratie': 'Turkey - the dilemma of democracy' that was broadcast on 8th of October. Daily at Sargasso from October 5th until October 12th, at 13.00h (Amsterdam time, 14.00h Istanbul time). This blogging project is part of the Dutch democracy week WijZijnDeBaas (WeAreTheBoss): the Dutch contribution to the International Week for Democracy. More information here.
if you end up with a situation where people forget that there are other, large minorities in the country, that feel differently than you and you try to impose your will on them, then, yes, you have De Toqueville’s problem of the tyranny of the majority and that tyranny is as bad for a minority as it were a dictatorship
Fareed Zakaria,
Newsweek journalist
My response:
"But democracy is not the rule of majority per se. It is a common sensical belief that democracy means the dominance of majority but in fact, democracy is the protection of rights of both the majority and minorities. One of the ideas behind democracy is the idea of citizenship and this idea, in theory, includes all those without any discrimination. However, the social conditions we live in necessitate representative democracy in which elections and all tend to give majorities a notion of hegemony. Hence comes the possibility of tyranny of the majority. This could only be prevented with even stronger culture of democracy which by default aims to protect the rights of all citizens without any discrimination... ".
