Democracy a “Western” Export? Not So Fast Says a Nobel Laureate
From The Wall Street Journal (of all places) comes this piece by Amaryta Sen (Nobel Prize Economics 1998) that cautions us to “look beyond Ancient Greece” to find the roots of democracy.
Here is an excerpt:
"Cultural dynamics does not have to build something from absolutely nothing, nor need the future be rigidly tied to majoritarian beliefs today or the power of the contemporary orthodoxy. To see Iranian dissidents who want a fully democratic Iran not as Iranian advocates but as "ambassadors of Western values" would be to add insult to injury, aside from neglecting parts of Iranian history (including the practice of democracy in Susa or Shushan in southwest Iran 2,000 years ago)."
Check it out.