jose saramago grasps that democracy is a process to be made not an ossified thing to be imposed.
from le monde diplomatique
"Experience confirms that political democracy is of little use unless it is based on economic and cultural democracy. Yet economic democracy is now a despised idea, replaced by an obscenely triumphant cult of the market. Cultural democracy has been replaced by the no less obscene idea of industrialised mass culture, a pseudo-melting pot that conceals the predominance of one culture over all others.
We think we have progressed but we are regressing. Talk of democracy will become absurd if we persist in identifying it with institutions called parties, parliaments and governments, without examining the use those institutions make of the votes that bring them to power. A democracy incapable of self-criticism is doomed to paralysis."