I was recently asked, both as “an activist and a thinker,” how I would choose to define certain basic terms such as democracy and civil society. Well, below is my attempt at defining democracy, comments and corrections are appreciated:
Democracy is a system of governance that is meant to facilitate continuous interplay and negotiations, both direct and indirect, between various interest groups, regardless of how they are defined, be it on the basis of ethnicity, religion, tribe, gender, profession, sexual orientation and/or age, within the framework of a specific entity, state and/or a region, with the aim of achieving: 1) a greater respect for the basic human rights and freedoms of all, 2) a periodic, peaceful and transparent transfer of power, 3) rule of law, and 4) public accountability.
