Democracy is a work in progress. When we of the West talk about building and spreading democracy, even fighting wars for democracy, we ought to have the grace to realise our own shortcomings and hypocrisies.
We talk as if these values - democratically elected assemblies, equal representation, the sanctity of the ballot, the secular state, freedom of religion, including freedom from religion as a political test, the equal status of women, the right of organised labour, the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, the presumption of innocence … the list goes on - were all self-evident truths and inalienable rights which we uphold as universal, immutable and immortal … as if we guaranteed them in our own societies.
In all our arrogance, we talk about these values as if they were so much part of the natural order of things that we have a divine right to impose them on the rest of the world, even if it means war. Yet not one of these values has not been under challenge in our societies in our lifetime.
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