28. Bright Future for Democracy?

Lady Viqar-Un-Nisa Noon, Mr. Mazharul Haq Siddiqui, Mr. Ross Masood Husain and especially my beloved friend, Dr. Raja Ikram Azam, and all the members and supporters of the Pakistan Futuristic Institute are to be most heartily congratulated for convening this regional conference of the World Futures Studies Federation to consider one of the most important, and perplexing, questions facing the world today: the future of democracy in developing countries. In my brief remarks today, however, I would like to expand the scope of that inquiry to make problematic the future of democracy anywhere in the world. I frankly am very doubtful that democracy has a bright future anywhere, unless there are more meetings like this, where the participants are willing and able to look frankly into the future, with all its tsunamis and whirlwinds of change rather than only, or merely, projecting past battles and circumstances into the future. It is also necessary for us to try to see clearly the new, as well as the old, forces and trends which are working against, as well as for, the creation of viable democracies. And finally, we need to be willing and able to look beyond the forms and structures of so-called democratic governments of the past and present and the social systems within which they are situated, and see what new, and hopefully more truly, democratic forms and structures might be envisioned and invented to take the place of those which emerged in response to historical and political pressures of the past which may, or may not, be as important, or important at all, in the future.