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OT: How do you define Western civilization?
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Supercar: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by What Box (Willing Thinker): [QUOTE]Doug M.: And I am saying that for most of Europe's history they have NOT promoted neither FREEDOM or DEMOCRACY. It is one thing to say that the IDEA of democracy started in Greece, but totally another to say that the PRACTICE of democracy and the preservation of FREEDOM for ALL was a HALLMARK or CENTRAL TENET of Western Civilization. Sorry, but Western Europe has been anything BUT the epitome of FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY or HUMAN RIGHTS. America, for MOST of its history has been a democracy in NAME ONLY. THAT is the point I am getting at.[/QUOTE][b]I[/b] was just saying the 'idea' started in Europe. I mis-understood you. For a second, it sounded as if you were trying to say that there were other democratic nations in the past which were uninfluenced by Europe. That's what my inquirey was over. [/QUOTE]Well, if you mean "democrary" as in the "European" style, then perhaps. But there have been systems in place elsewhere, whereby the 'democratic' element of their governing systems have been noted, as this author does: [i]It must be made clear that [b]just because a practice is Western does not necessarily make it an anathema on African soil.[/b] [b]Democracy is not alien to **pre-colonial** African culture despite enduring parodies by Western apologists[/b], but [b]Western-style democracy certainly was[/b]; and why not? The [b]Igbo pre-colonial village democracy[/b], arguably one of the most egalitarian in the world, and, the [b]Yoruba monarchical-divine pre-colonial have amply demonstrated this fact[/b]. [b]The key difference between these two and the Western concept of democracy is that they did not cast paper ballot (in the Yoruba example non-paper ballot was a regular feature with oracular intervention) because they were not based on written cultures.[/b] [b]They respected democratic rights **in principle** and observed dos and don't of citizenship.[/b] In fact, [b]American **plutocratic** neo-monarchical style of rulership[/b] came to several African countries as a result of what I referred to as [b]neo-Berlinism[/b](to regress beyond Ali Mazrui's 1914 cut-off point in his analysis on Nigeria).[/i] - Yinka Agbetuyi Source: http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/28.html The "ideas" of democracy in Europe may well be such in principle on paper, but not practiced. What you have in these countries, including where there is traditional monarchy as in the UK, is a plutocratic system, designed to ensure only a thin layer of the industrial-military complex elite rule, who are not necessarily representative of the real interests of the ordinary general public from the lower social strata, but that of their own. As such, you have the "Founding Fathers" of the U.S. writing on paper that "all men are equal" (or something along those lines) in principle, all the while they were owning "slaves" who didn't have the right to vote, as was the case with women, whom while never blatantly said, were obviously taken for granted as being of lesser-beings, whose primary existence was to cater to the needs of males. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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