39. "Democracy"

"Those are bad things the U.S. is doing in Iraq," the Turkish tourist said to me, "and it's supposed to be a democracy." I saw that "democratic" to him meant "good," as in the same loose, worldwide vocabulary "fascistic" meant "bad."

It was 2004, and a teaching moment to take advantage of, since he had obviously seen in me, lagging behind my group at Pisidian Antioch, an opportunity to learn something. He was curious and earnest, with enough English to profit by my explanation. I, well aware that in Turkey the once-high "favorable" rating of the U.S. in the polls had fallen to record lows, was eager to teach him.

How would I (how would you?) define "democracy" for him? And do it without any detectable salesmanship? It was over-enthusiastic salesmanship, I suspected, that made him and a third of the world think "democracy" meant "good." I didn't want him to think of me in the future when he said, "Hey, I've been sold a bill of goods."

I kept that future moment before me as I pondered my definition. I saw him becoming more familiar with the behavior of democracies in history — Britain, first on democracy's poster, fighting two of the least justifiable wars in history, the Opium War and the Boer War; the U.S., goaded by its yellow press, pouncing on the Spaniards and then the Filipinos. Definitely not good. The people can be as brutal as dictators.

I also saw him in the past, though. He had no doubt seen or read about the army stepping in to change the government of his country four times since 1960. He had seen or read about bloody changes in neighboring countries — Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria. He would know about personal or tribal power struggles.

The minimal definition of democracy I produced for him (though of course not at the time) was this: "It's just a way of changing rulers without bloodshed." If he wanted more I would tell him that it gave power to the people likely to be most troublesome if deprived of it, the majority. I think that would do the job but I'm open to suggestions.