{"id":4075,"date":"2022-07-19T20:40:37","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T20:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iddi.org\/?p=3586"},"modified":"2022-07-19T20:40:37","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T20:40:37","slug":"strategies-for-democratizing-our-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iddi.org\/en\/estrategias-para-democratizar-nuestra-sociedad\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategies to Democratize Our Society"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As is common knowledge, our country is very much mentioned throughout Latin America as an exemplary case of a solid and stable democracy, but for a whole series of reasons, we really have to admit that we have a long way to go before such a confident judgment is made. Among the most outstanding are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The style of our governments has always been extremely \"presidentialist,\" concentrating power in the Executive at the expense of the legislative representatives who make up the National Congress.;<\/li>\n<li>The Judiciary has not been able to become independent and properly exercise its constitutional mandate;<\/li>\n<li>There is no municipal power that attends to the needs of our small cities and their surroundings.;<\/li>\n<li>The citizen exercises their right to \"participate\" in decision-making regarding their country's destiny only one day every four years;<\/li>\n<li>The credibility of the Central Electoral Board is poor, as its efforts in organizing the upcoming elections are very questionable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In practice, our \"democracy\" has not been very functional. There isn't really a deeply rooted democratic concept or practice in the Dominican consciousness. In fact, serving the people is not a very common aspiration for those who seek power. On the other hand, we have not been able to create effective mechanisms to channel citizens' views on their individual or collective development, nor to ensure that these views are taken into account.<\/p>\n<p>But what is a democracy, and what must we do if we want to build a healthy and functional society? In general terms, it can be stated that one of the characteristics of human civilization's history is that its development has depended on the ability of its members to understand and articulate the basic principles and values of life. At the same time, our ability to understand these concepts depends directly on the evolution of our consciousness as individual human beings and as members of a collective. Therefore, it could be said that the development of our civilizations depends directly on the development of the sum of the consciousness of its members, that is, the totalizing consciousness of life and its integral reality.<\/p>\n<p>Undoubtedly, this applies to the concept we have of what democracy is. We know that the definition of democracy has varied enormously across different eras and cultures throughout history. Each society has defined for itself what they understand democracy to be, both internally and externally. The formal definition of democracy is: government for, by, and of the people. Complementing this idea, one could say that real democracy implies the universal right of the individual and their collective to exercise the opportunity for free thought and action at all levels of life. This occurs primarily on three levels, all of which are important: the first is within the human being, the second has to do with the relationships each person has with the collective, and the third is how this collective is organized.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding the first level, that is, the formation and awareness of human beings, it is necessary to point out that for democracy to be functional globally, members of society must possess the freedom to decide what they want from life and have the opportunity to express and achieve it. Consequently, human beings must possess all the faculties and resources at their disposal to make the appropriate decisions. Self-democracy begins with the transformation of the human being towards their internal balance, free from ties that prevent us from seeing things as they are and, therefore, being able to take corresponding actions. There cannot be a healthy democracy if its members are not healthy.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, a healthy democracy depends on the relationships an individual has with their community, as coexistence is impossible without mutual respect between human beings. Obviously, a broad understanding and consensus of what human relationships entail and how they are put into practice is required. This involves an intensive process of civic education to ensure the widest possible dissemination, awareness, and popular conviction so that each individual understands their rights and duties within society.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding the third level, it is essential to organize and structure the whole to allow individual rights to be respected and strengthened, while ensuring the harmonious coexistence and integrity of all its members. In this sense, there is a very delicate and difficult-to-define balance between individual rights and those of the collective. One could say that individual rights stop at the point where those of the collective begin. Each society must define its particular balance by creating functional mechanisms that make the concretization of internal democracy possible.<\/p>\n<p>In summary, democracy, more than a concept, is a unique and particular process of each reality, which is highlighted by two aspects: on one hand, what Americans call \"empowerment\" of the people, meaning granting political, economic, and social power to the people through the transfer of resources (educational and financial) so that they can realize themselves as human beings and participate freely and consciously in decisions about the destiny of their community. On the other hand, this process requires the support of formal and institutional mechanisms for organizing and structuring society, creating the necessary instances for its pluralistic and equitable development.<\/p>\n<p>It is important and urgent to insist on building a healthy society where all citizens participate in the decision-making process freely and consciously. That is our right and our destiny. That is what we must work towards. It is a slow but essential process if we want to enter the next century as a vigorous, dynamic, and democratic country where we all have the same opportunities to decide our own destinies and to fulfill ourselves as human beings.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Como es de conocimiento com\u00fan, nuestro pa\u00eds es muy mencionado en toda Am\u00e9rica Latina como un caso ejemplar de una democracia s\u00f3lida y estable, pero por<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>ESTRATEGIAS PARA DEMOCRATIZAR NUESTRA SOCIEDAD - 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