democracy

A recent placement of myself in big responsibility is making me understand how difficult it is to exercise direct democracy in real life. Theoretically, it is a fascinating system and there is no doubt about it. Everyone equally have the right to express his/her opinion to make decisions and that decision will probably reflect every participants' benefits. Nevertheless, frankly, it is basically impossible to effectively exercise this sort of decision making protocol, even when that mass is a lot smaller than...let's say, a local municipality.

Currently, there are over 200 nation-states in our world. Out of these 200 sovereignty, Switzerland exercises a system that is the closest to a direct democracy. Along with a representation in the federal senate, they often utilize referendum to decide critical matters. Even though the citizens are a lot closer to the government with this system, a referendum is a referendum after all. Whenever a referendum is declared, each electorate is given a pamphlet with an intensive explanation of the act and the options for that act. Voters are given the right to place a vote on one of the available options listed up on that pamphlet.

The reason why I'm blabbering on about democracy is because of my current status as an organizer for my summer school program. I am trying to be as democratic as possible in planning for a convivial meeting, but a lot of people are abandoning their right. Not only that, they are slow in their responses and I am having a great difficulty in deciding when to hold that meeting. I don't want to be an autocratic organizer, deciding everything on behalf of my convenience.

Even when the group is composed of only 60 people, direct democracy fails to operate. I must wonder why those Greeks were successfully exercising Demokratia in the ancient times. They must have had more than 60 people in their assembly...I guess this proves the diversity of personal interests that reigns in our world today.

It is nice that many of the participants are offering me help in their replies, but my concern is toward the rest of the people who are reluctant to send me a simple reply on his/her RSVP. The only help I find necessary is to force these lazy people send me an reply.

Repondez, s'il vous plait...non, plus comme "REPONDEZ MAINTENANT!!"