The need of changing attitude towards democracy

  • Hồ Sĩ Quý

Abstract

This keynote speech was delivered at the Conference ‘Upgrading democracy in Internet era,  struggling against corruption, social supervision and criticism’ aiming at collecting ideas to the draft documents of the 12th Communist Party Congress co-organized in Hanoi, October 2015, by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology and the Government Inspectorate of Vietnam. The speech was positively appreciated by the Organizing Board and drew a great interest in and outside the conference.

According to the keynote speaker:

The very issue of concern in Vietnam today is the attitude towards democracy. There seem sufficient theories of democracy for social management, not for academic argument; The deficient, in fact, could be consulted or completed almost without any difficulty. There is no lack of lessons learnt from thousands years now, especially from the neighbor countries in the past decades.

Regarding the social rules, the democracy may temporarily cause difficulty for the authorities, and in some particular cases, may become a factor triggering social disorder. But the above mentioned effects only occurred in the political regime that is weak, distorting, or is not able to utilize the democracy. Be able to use democracy with appropriate attitude, the facts of extreme, capriciousness, demagogy, fanaticism, excess etc. are controlled by democratic mechanism itself. And the red limit of the control is the Constitution and laws. Be able to use democracy with appropriate attitude, the democracy is not ‘a pain in the neck’ of the laws, Constitution, and the laws and rules again are not the ‘vendetta’ or evil genius of the democracy.

Obviously not, it is not a magic wand and there is also a risk, thus the question is just the attitude towards democracy.

Tác giả

Hồ Sĩ Quý
GS.TS., Viện Thông tin KHXH.
điểm /   đánh giá
Published
2016-12-12
Section
Các bài chính