Quote:
Originally posted by Cowperson+Sep 7 2004, 08:03 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Cowperson @ Sep 7 2004, 08:03 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-troutman@Sep 7 2004, 07:57 PM
There was a thought-provoking essay in this book about how some countries are not ready for democracy, and must evolve to that point through a period of dictatorship:
The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War
by Robert D. Kaplan (Author)
The anecdotes drawn from his travels challenge assumptions that ideals of democracy give peoples a better deal than shades of extant authoritarianism. This contrarianism propels Kaplan into sympathetic essays on such exponents of the realist viewpoint as Henry Kissinger and, going back 220 years, Edward Gibbon. Controversial but acute analysis of near-term Third World trends.
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It goes to the riddle of whether or not Americans or Canadians, to pick two examples, should actually "respect" cultures that appear to be immature by our standards.
Is a functioning democracy the sign of a culture that's mature?
And is a culture that can't function as a democracy one that should be admired or even respected?
Are we doing such cultures a favour by going in, blowing them to smithereens and giving them a chance to shed centuries of cultural and religious oppression?
I know you guys will have fun with that!!
Cowperson [/b][/quote]
Kaplan says: "Democracy is a fraud in many poor countries outside this narrow band: Africans want a better life and instead have been given the right to vote".