Egypt recently took another step towards democracy. The country just held elections to determine its next President. It’s an exciting time, listening to citizens take pride in the right to vote.
In the movie “American President”, Michael Douglas (who plays President Andrew Shepard) said “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship”. Johnny Cash once said; “I love the freedoms we got in this country, I appreciate your freedom to burn your flag if you want to, but I really appreciate my right to bear arms so I can shoot you if you try to burn mine”.
Let’s face it; democracy is not easy. Consider these hot-topic issues dominating the news…
- The right of the church to exercise their belief vs. the right of women to have access to birth control?
- The need to build the Keystone Pipeline vs. the right of property owners who say they don’t want it on their land?
“In Egypt we’d like to bring a new form of democracy where all can work together and in spite of our differences” said Abdul Mawgoud Rageh Dardery, who won a seat in the Egyptian parliament.
Work together? That does not sound like the democracy being practiced in America today. Both parties seem more interested in appealing to the base and would rather point out everywhere we disagree rather than focus on what we do agree on (we do still agree on something right?)
How do we put compromise back into the vocabulary? In the good old days, politicians would enter a “smoke-filled room”, haggle, twist arms until both sides felt a little pain and made a little gain, but those days, like VHS tapes and the Walkman, seem like a long time ago.
Dalia Ziada, the Executive Director of Ibn Khaldun Center for Democratic Studies in Egypt said “Time by time, democracy fixes itself”. I for one, hope she’s right.
