Celebrate Our Democracy in The World

What do you know about September 15? My birthday, Prince Henry’s birthday, Tommy Lee Jones’ birthday? Well, what about the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 that affect our financial world? Plus, in Germany, Nuremberg Laws were enforced just because Jews were affected by the Nazi society. Well, in order to understand the realities of September 15, good or bad, the U.N. (contributed by the Inter-Parliament Union) luckily passed a resolution last November 18, 2007 to celebrate an International Day of Democracy. The first celebration in 2008 is rarely obvious in the media as if the headlines last 2008 is purely bad news, especially the tight campaign between Obama and McCain, and the collapse of Lehman Brothers that drive our world in an economic crisis. Of all the news from September 15 of any year, we should celebrate our democracy in the world that cherish ourselves and hope for a peace in the world.

To tell you the truth, what is the true meaning of democracy? Is it power to the people or people should have the power. I know I write this in a redundant form but these answers are right. In other words, the government should secure the people to provide free, fair and transparent elections, effective branches of government (whether it’s parliament or presidential, for example), transparent perspectives from media, critics and people, equality of society regardless of race, gender or creed, and most of all secure our fundamental values of human rights, especially once an individual is arrested by authorities by providing habeas corpus (alive and treated fairly while in custody).

To begin the historical trends of democracy briefly, it began in Ancient Rome where they perfect the true meaning of democracy until the fall. In the 1200’s, King John of England known for its laziness and one of the brutal dictators of their time, forcefully accept, fron the barons, to change how the monarchy behave to the people, especially decreeing Magna Carta. Magna Carta should provide a rule of law between the monarch and the people, and have respect fairly and decent living. Fortunately, Magna Carta improved the lives of the English people but there are problems. Men that are decent and rich take the advantage to secure their democracy while the rest are considered inferiors. Through time to time, there are changes in democracy, especially in the 1600’s, the English created their Bill of Rights so that democracy is fairly established. After the United States of America was born, they provide a constitution to set up the government, and plus provide the Bill of Rights to secure the true meaning of democracy. Good, isn’t it? Well, what about the territories that the imperialists controlled for, they need to understand and practice the true meaning of democracy and the rule of law. After the World War II, most territories provide not just independence to establish countries but exercise the true meaning of democracy. Therefore, the United Nations is also born and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was enacted in 1948.