Democracy and Minority Rights
Vol.3,No.3(1995)
Abstract
Pages:
200–214
The strongest defence of democracy as a juridical-political constellation lies in its openness to pluriformity and its willingness to allow and create possibilities for public rational debate. People with diverging ideas should in principal have a chance to speak them out, to discuss them with those who have different opinions. Only in very extreme situations that is when fundamental rights and values are challenged in this debate (incl. the idea(l) of democracy itself) should one resort to means as a prohibition of certain political parties, that is only as an ultimum remedium.
In the meantime, more generally speaking, a society would do well to create space for different kinds of cultural expressions and practices, thus creating a basic of acceptation and respect for differing opinions, of free choice out of different lifestyles, and for an understanding of people who will and should never be all the same of a kind!
200–214
Copyright © 2018 Theo van Dijk