Genuine democracy falls flat without social justice

The world will never have genuine political democracy and human rights without social justice and economic partnership, according to a Yemeni Sociologist. 

“There will be no genuine political democracy and human rights without social justice, equivalent economic partnership in science, work, product, distribution, consumption, and accumulation,” said Sana’a University Sociology Professor, Hamoud Saleh al-Awadi.

“This world is made by all, so it should be democratically administered by all and its wealth should be fairly distributed,” said al-Awadi at a symposium held on Tuesday by the Yemeni Center for Historic Studies and Future Strategies.

He said no secured future can be predicted when 20 percent of the world’s population is controlling 80 percent of the globe’s resources. In his opinion, this is not democracy.

Those who promote, he noted, democracy, freedom, and human rights day and night, are controlling 85 percent of the world’s capital and trade, while they represent only 29 percent of the world’s population.

According to al-Awadi, about four-fifths of the world’s population is deprived from their wealth. Westerns have their own interests in democracy, and their interests come at the expense of others.

“We should not exercise our attitudes with prejudice; we should have our own opinions which may be right or wrong,” he advised.

To have genuine democracy and human rights, the world must stop making mass construction weapons, he said. “Not only for avoiding the dangers of the stored weapons which can destroy the globe, but because some 50 percent of the science and energy of human minds is being used for developing more of these mass deconstruction weapons, costing more than $100 billion each a year.” 

Further conditions for what he called genuine democracy were put forth by al-Aawdi, including science ruling over ideology, liberating the facts of science and technology from the chains of monopoly and possession, and also equal rights, joint responsibilities, good governance, and fair distribution of wealth.

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