Gaddafi lectures US on democracy

[ECH1969]

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi lectured a U.S. audience on democracy on Thursday and said Libya is the only real democracy in the world.

He touted Libya's political system as superior to "farcical" and "fake" parliamentary and representative democracies in the West."

"There is no state with a democracy except Libya on the whole planet," Gaddafi said to the conference at Columbia University in New York.

Gaddafi said Libya's new openness would not lead Libyans to covet what they do not have -- on the contrary, he said, the rest of the world would soon be emulating Libya. "Countries like the United States, India, China, the Russian Federation, are in bad need of this Jamahiriyah system," he said. "This is a savior to them."

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-03-23T223250Z_01_N23355577_RTRUKOC_0_US-LIBYA-USA.xml&archived=False

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Gaddafi has some interesting ideas about democracy

And Mr. Bush has some interesting ideas about the rule of law.

I wouldn't take advice from either of them.

[Taxloss]

2. 30 years on the stand-up circuit, and he's still funny!

:rofl:

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Well, he does have a point.

In fact, it would seem our self-selected leadership recognises that and is doing its best to emulate Libyan democracy.

[ECH1969]

4. lol

[David__77]

5. There is a small element of validity here.

Libya does have a system of grassroots popular assemblies that incorporate the whole community and decide many local issues directly. However, one cannot say that the "macro" issues of general economic, military, and foreign policy are decided in such a manner.

[On the Road]

6. The "Green Book" Goes into This

Ghaddafi's idea is that in practice a Western electoral system is not democratic because incumbent politicians and the upper class always end up rigging the political system in their own favor. Candidates promise to represent their constituents but end up serving the elite and benefiting themselves.

Ghaddafi believes democracy should be organized from the grassroots up. The Libyan is based on very small geographic units which meet and elect a leader, who becomes a representative to a provincial council, which selects a representative to a regional congress, and so on. The whole Libyan political system is organized on this kind of hierarchy.

It is an interesting contrast to the American system of huge groups of disconnected citizens voting en masse. I would expect that ordinary people would feel greater ownership of the political process under Ghaddafi's system, and that some kinds of grassroots issues would be better represented. On the other hand, all systems can be gamed. I don't expect it to be a panacea.