Thinkers and social commentators

We have seen the great minds of different eras and centuries present their idea of Utopia. All of these theories and doctrines stemmed from the common observation of social inequality in the world. Statesmen are motivated by the desire to provide the greatest good for the greatest number but watching the march of history proves only one thing: There is no Eden on earth. A friend of mine who eventually lost his marbles once proclaimed America to be heaven. His reasons were fairly reasonable foremost of which is that America makes Converse shoes, his favorites and, that in America there is Free Love. For these two reasons he has espoused the philosophy that America is not just Paradise but Heaven and when asked where hell was and he answered without hesitation: the Philippines.

We have seen the rape of Democracy in many parts of the world in the recent past where dictatorships thinly disguised as democratic flourished. Indonesia was ruled by the strogman Suharto for thirty years, the Philippines by Marcos for twenty years. In many parts of South and Central America military dictatorships flourished like banana plantations. Each one declared to be Democratic.

After the world-shaking People Power Movement in the Philippines, dictatorships have slowly been shown to be paper tigers unable to meet the onslought of an enraged populace. Successful in Pakistan but a disastrous failure in China, it has been emulated in many parts of the globe where in South Korea the military strongmen were thrown out of office and made to pay the price for abusing power by imprisonment and being put to shame. Desperately clinging to its tenuous hold on power is the Myanmar military dictatorship which insists on its brand of Democracy despite the global call for it to respect human rights and to allow real democracy to be implemented.