Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Democracy or Theocracy?

"Democracy or Theocracy - Whats your take?" asks Reuters for their poll. Apparently.. there is a huge difference between the two. Democracy means the Rule of People. What they want and what they desire that is manifested in the form of legislation. Theocracy on the other hand is "an imposed" legislation so to speak. It is not representative of peoples wishes and desires but rather has been imposed on them from outside - God or priestly order lets say.

But is it really so? take the case of Pakistan. 90% of the population is muslim. We have a parliament that does the legislative acts. Since parliament consists of representatives of the people so acts undertaken by them are supposedly manifestation of people wishes. Democracy as one says it. Now if pakistanis want to be governed by rules specified in Quran by Allah... and parliament decides to legislate accordingly.. aren't we exercising a democratic right? Or does democracy mean something else? like.. any order BUT from religion?

Is Reuters asking the right question? I don't think so.

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