I’ve been meaning to post something relevant about the upcoming provincial elections and the much more significant Referendum Ontario on Oct. 10. But today’s Metro, in light of the Why Democracy? “campaign”, made me stop and think about the more vague and broader concept that we call democracy. Margaret Atwood, one of Canada’s influential authors sheds some light on some of the most basic questions about democracy as a whole in Metro’s column. When asked, “can terrorism destroy democracy?”, Atwood retorts with an intriguing answer:
I think [terrorism] can destroy democracy temporarily because if terrorism creates a state of chaos that is frightening enough, people will throw over their civil liberties in the hope of safety.
This one question strikes me in that terrorism in itself isn’t a major cause of democracy’s collapse, but rather the aftermath and people taking advantage after the fact is considered to be more lethal (e.g. post-WTC) for democracy. Interestingly enough, the questions covered are literally in front of everyone’s faces and yet no one dares question the fundamentals. It’s definitely good to bring these in the limelight for other people to discuss – not to nitpick and whine and moan, but essentially try to come up with what we can do to fix it, ironically, as individuals. It’d be interesting to see what comes out of Why Democracy? and its impact on a larger scale.
Filed under: atwood, democracy, referendum ontario
