‘Democracy in Bhutan, not by will of people’
New York, September 27: Prime Minister Jigmi Thinely said that democracy in the country has come not because of the will of the people but because of the persuasion of the king, who made efforts for the last thirty years to establish prerequisites of democratic culture and institutional arrangements.
Addressing the UN General Assembly Friday night in New York, PM Thinley said, “In a country that has enjoyed continued justice, stability and progress, democracy came not just by the traditional way of struggle and violence.
He expressed commitments fulfill the mandates people have given to his government during the elections held early this year.
He said the international community was facing a host of serious challenges — from natural disasters to food and financing crises, to dwindling water resources — that were testing the relevance of the United Nations and the resolve of its Member States to work together. Those crises, as well as the threats of terrorism and extremism, threatened to undermine what the international community had achieved collectively and as individual States.
He added, Bhutan viewed those developments as interconnected symptoms of a “larger and deeper malaise” that threatened everyone’s collective well-being and survival.
The oil crisis, soaring prices of metals and diminishing water reserves were linked to the exploitation and waste of scarce natural resources, PM said adding that the primary factor behind the financial crisis was a culture of “living beyond our means”, of private profiteering and socializing risks.
Those troubles were the outcomes of a way of life that was dictated by the powerful ethics of consumerism in a world of finite resources.
He pointed to increasingly unpredictable natural disasters, such as drought, cyclones, hurricanes and floods, as indications of climate change. There was the danger of increasing hunger in a world where too many people already were starving, where diseases abounded, and where new epidemics threatened man, other life forms and even food crops.
Deepening poverty, not unlike the food crisis, was also a sign of the disintegration of communities. Those multiple challenges brought out in sharp focus the “shameful inequities” of a society that failed to share and distribute the enormous wealth it had created to satisfy man’s insatiable greed.
Questioning the authenticity of the GDP measuring the strength of states on ending poverty, He said Bhutan was involved in global efforts to develop new indicators to measure real human progress. He said the more richer we are becoming, more down-civilized are becoming.
“Are we mutating to become a senseless robots programmed to be materially productive, to earn more, to want more, to consume more and more of what we do not need and will ultimately destroy us?” he questioned.
Stating that Bhutan has developed a separate indicator to measure the progress of human being as Gross National Happiness, PM said the philosophy was based on the belief that happiness was the single most important goal and purpose in life for every individual and that the end of development must be the promotion and enhancement of happiness.
He said GNH has four import pillars: sustainable and equitable socio economic development (not growth), environmental conservation, promotion of culture and good governance. Bhutan News Service