September 8, 2011 – Following is a transcript of a conversation on Nov. 23 2008 in Toronto between His Highness the Aga Khan, Imam (spiritual leader) of the Ismaili Muslims, and founder and chairman of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), and Don Cayo of The Vancouver Sun. This transcript was posted on my Vancouver Sun blog shortly after the conversation took place, but the link has been lost — temporarily, at least — due to a change of servers. It is reprinted here in its entirety:
Sun: You’ve talked a lot about the failure of democracy, and you differentiate that very sharply from the failure of states. I’m interested in how you define this failure of democracy and its significance.
AK: The failure of democracy? Well, I think what we’re seeing in a number of countries is situations where the political process has moved forward and you have parliaments in place which are based on electoral processes that are more or less, often less, sound than one would want. You find governments which are not relating to parliament in a structured and creative way. You find parliaments where the quality of human resources is not what it might be. You find constitutions which are extremely difficult to interpret in practice, and where heads of state or heads of government consider it necessary to change these constitutions. And the nature of change itself is a problem.
via Reposting: The Aga Khan on issues of the day | Vancouver Sun Blogs.
Earlier related: Q and A with the Aga Khan | Vancouver Sun
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