Democracy and modernization

1) In essence, modernity inherently involves inequality and injustice. It is quite obvious that the entire world is not able to become as wealthy as the Western world. The striking performance of China causes rapid exhaustion of natural resources, including oil. As long as there are two major camps -- the poor and the rich -- in the world, global peace, stability and serenity are not possible.

2) Wealth and welfare achieved through modernity pose a great danger to the planet and life on it, undermine ecological balances and make the world an unbearable place. Global warming and climate change are the initial signals of this process.

3) The modern West is based on a perception of the world without any intrinsic meaning and goal and transforms the human being into an organism focused on production, consumption and mating. To this end, the basic ideas of this modern world impose nihilism onto the entire world.

The modern Western world is reluctant to maintain dialogue with other religions and cultures; instead, it opts to distance itself from others. The West will have to either shift to quite a different perspective to create a just and fair world by giving up part of its wealth, or it will remain the source and primary reason of growing inequalities between different regions and classes, of terrorism, violence, ethnic cleansing and repression.

Western countries rely on 80 percent of the entire world's production while they represent only 15 percent of the globe's total population. Pretty soon this will drop to 10 percent. In other words, they will be a small wealthy island in a sea of poor. This is neither natural nor sustainable.

As long as wars break out to sustain this unequal global order -- it should be noted that 95 percent of the 500 wars over the last two centuries were experienced in the Western world or they were caused by the active involvement of Western countries -- violence and terror will escalate and this will inevitably prioritize security issues over liberties. As liberties retreat, wealth will diminish and this will trigger consecutive global crises. Wars have made contributions to the Western world; the current international order guarantees domination and welfare of a part of the world population, but it simply does not care for the others. Today, three Western multinational corporations seek to acquire 75 percent of Iraqi oil for 30 years.

Inequality is causing serious problems and disruption not only on the global level but also on the domestic level because modernization and development plans are inherently based on inequality. Injustice in income distribution leads to social turmoil, blocks positive politics and causes violence and terror. This is the case not only on the domestic but also on the global level. As long as inequality persists, poverty becomes deeper and more visible and the young and desperate masses in urban areas are alienated; this of course breeds a culture of violence. Current models are unable to control the migration of people from rural to urban areas. Wars and invasions are not the solution to overcome these crises.

Unfortunately, democracies fail to prevent wars because, among others, lobbies, pressure groups and capital circles strongly influence the decisions of parliaments with their huge financial resources.

Western democracies are the best among the available worst options, but they have failed to ensure pluralism and justice in the past and today there is no sign that they will achieve these goals because Western democracies are pluralist in a political sense while they are monist from a cultural and social perspective. They exclude a strong ethical value like justice in the political culture. As terror and wars put an emphasis on security, the sphere of the available and recognized liberties gets narrower. What should be done at this stage is not to blame a certain religion, what should be done now is to seek real solutions to current huge problems.