In the past couple of weeks, already much before the events in Norway, I more than once found myself asking my students whether or not Italy is a democracy. The response: invariably "no". This left me thinking.What is democracy? This is how Merriam-Webster defines it:
"Democracy a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections".
Officially and on the surface Italy was still a democracy the last time I checked - granted that was probably around the time I was still studying for my A-levels. I think most of us consider Europe pretty democratic, and even Italy has the typical signs: a constitution which in theory guarantees people equal rights, freedom of speech, elections and multiple parties to choose from etc. Some would also add, that there must be open and unbiased media.
We all know about a certain man's connections with the Italian media, what many of you probably don't know is that in Italy the TV channels have been divided among political groups. Basically one channel traditionally represents the right wing view, one the left wing and then one is for the centre and so forth. We can of course discuss whether this system works or not, but the benefit of it is that at least people can, in theory, get information presented from different points of view. However, the head of the local public broadcasting company RAI is chosen by the Prime Minister, who, as it happens, is also a major owner of the private TV. You see the problem? Needless to mention that this said man also controls a large lump of the newspapers.
Elections in Italy are free - to an extent. The parties choose who they want to put on their list and apparently, this is what I have been told and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, the parties are reluctant to add for example young people on the lists, thus the country is mostly represented by old dinosaurs who tend to be (personal opinion again!) much more interested in protecting their own interests. So is democracy when a group of old men decide to pay themselves a huge salary while the rest of the country is struggling? If that is not democracy, why are the Italian people not resisting it more than they are? Well, that's opening a whole new can of worms.. Or is it democracy when a person decides that his beliefs are better than someone else's and kills close to a hundred people? Surely this is putting yourself above democracy. Acting like the rules, that the majority have accepted, do not apply to you because in your opinion the majority is wrong. Italy has big issues, but so do the rest of us.
It looks to me as though democracy in Europe is having to redefine and readjust. I have always considered democracy to be one of those things that Europe has been and should be at the forefront of. The question on everyone's lips now is: how far can you take your democratic freedom of speech? How far are you allowed to go? And who decides where the lines are drawn? Certainly people who decide that their holy mission of defending pan-European and Christian values justifies the killing other people are not flying the flag of democracy very high, but neither are the dinosaurs protecting their own tails (and wallets).
In the general elections in Finland this year the winners was undoubtedly the right wing. This made many people very unhappy, but the fact remains, that this is how a part of the nation voted. We may not like it, but the people had the freedom to vote as they wanted and this was the result. We can't ignore or annul the vote, that's not how democracy works.
I know this post is a jumble of this and that, but it pretty much represents what is going on in my head in regards to this topic. I just have a feeling something is off but I can't put my finger on it, or maybe I do not consider myself high and mighty enough to try to do so.
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