Democracy—cragged but never given up

The first time I leant about the term of democracy is in my high school. I still remember what the text book writes: democracy and dictatorship can’t be separated. They coexist and interact. There is no absolute democracy and no complete dictatorship. No democracy can exist without dictatorship, and no dictatorship can survive without democracy……


This is how the Chinese educators comprehends and explains the relationship between democracy and dictatorship. It may be a little extreme in some distance, after all China was always being criticized for its bad democracy environment. However, from other point of view, these explanations also make some sense. Just see the debates about democracy and the embarrassment of democracy among all the world, even in the USA, who is famous for its democracy system and also face with the problem of democracy weakening, then we know the fact that democracy and dictatorship really can’t depart from each other, no matter we would like to accept it or not. Of course, the term dictatorship here is a little too strong. Maybe we can change it with governing. But whatever term we used, we all know that democracy must be controlled and influenced by the government. The only difference is, how much democracy we can strive for and how far our government can permit us to go.


Though all of us realize that, democracy is only a beautiful dream, which can not be totally reached. But from both the history and the contemporary era, we gain a conclusion that, human-beings never give up the hope of striving for the democracy, no matter how difficult and tough the situation it is. Let’s take Chinese media for example. It is well-known that Chinese media is under government’s strict control. But in these two years, especially in the south city near Hongkong and Taiwan, the media appears a strong intent of advocating democracy, which in terms of encouraging citizens to participate in the politics through media or to express themselves in the media.


There are two kinds of news programs which can be counted into this range. One is operated as forum. Every Sunday, the program producers will invite all kinds of people, ranging from common citizens to government officials, to discuss a certain topic. At first, this forum is ignored by the citizens and the officials. But after a year, more and more citizens found that, this is a good chance for them to express themselves, and most of the case, the problem they raised can get a satisfied response or settlement. Then more and more citizens will go the forums, which don’t require sighing up, anyone being able to attend. At the same time, those officials also found that this forum provides a good chance to prove their good relationship and interaction with the citizens, which is very helpful for their personal promotion. Therefore, more and more officials who are in important government department are willing to go this forum. In that case, this forum lasts for 10 years till now, which is a good case of democratization of the media. Of course, some citizens will declare some ill-suited opinions that the Chinese censorship may don’t like. But because this programs is not an on-air show, editors can cut the segments that include those improper opinions when it is shown in television. Thus this program is never warned or forbidden by the government. Of cause, in that case, the so-call democracy has some limitation. However, it has provided a good chance for the citizens to express themselves and get an interaction with the government, which also raised citizens’ consciousness of democracy.


The other program is characteristic of encouraging citizens to shoot the news which include their comment for the television station. This owes to the population of DV camera in China. News providers will receive some money as reward, but only 100-200 RMB. However, many audiences quite enjoy the feeling of being a journalist temporally. They will record some unfair phenomena or flaws of the city plus their comment in the news, which not only extend the news source but also offer a stage for these citizens to express their opinions.


Besides Chinese new attempt of democratization of the media, among all the world, other countries also try to break the limit of democracy. Such as in some western industrialized countries, there are Wikipedia and Wikinews as tools of media democracy. “Anyone—regardless of educational background, experience, or in-depth knowledge—can edit, expand, or remove content. Wikipedia operates as a not-for-profit, and accepts no advertising or corporate investment which can influence or silence particular ideas. Operating costs are paid by typically small individual donations.”


In India, Sunil Khilnani also observes that "the coming of democracy necessitates a new kind of social intelligence, a different division of intellectual labor in the society.” Democracy, which is considered by many people that is only a dream, but is also being searched by many confident people. It exists and strives between the freedom and government. All of us are looking for a balance, which may be changed according to different countries and periods. But as long as we can reach a certain kind of balance, then I think the democracy will serve us a lot, either to the government or the citizens.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_democracy
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0305-27.htm
http://www.indiatogether.org/2003/jan/med-hoot0301.htm