Dear Editor,
A thought recently came to mind concerning democracy, something that South Africa is so proud of, yet quite lacking in it's implementation.
Being allowed to make two marks on two pieces of paper every five years and then hoping you are in the majority is not exactly what I would call "having your say" or "giving your input".
Is democracy not essentially flawed at the core? My understanding of the term is that it allows for people from different walks of life, who may or may not have different opinions on matters, to have equal say in the way the country is governed.
My question, though, is why do you have these different groups in the first place? Don't say race, we are supposed to be a lot more mature than that by now. Why do these groups have different opinions?
And most importantly, does it not come down at the end of the day to what is right and wrong? If anything, it would seem that democracy allows for an organisation that might be completely incompetent, to win by a landslide, because the majority of the voters like them.
Maybe democracy was invented because dictators were (and are) mostly inhumane. But in my mind, issues regarding right and wrong should not get decided upon democratically.
In my opinion, democracy is just about as dangerous as a dictatorship. Instead of having to obey one person, you now have to obey the majority, whether their policies are right or wrong.
In a perfect world, we would not have had to have a democracy. In my opinion, democracy exists because of the constant fight between right and wrong. And with this I am not saying that any one political party is completely right and the other completely wrong.
We are equally responsible for the continuity of this war of disagreement. What we need are sound moral values, not just the opportunity to raise our opinion.
We need our leaders (and ourselves) to have the ability to distinguish properly between right and wrong, not just the ability to choose our leaders.
Hugo Malan
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Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.