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Whta are the conditions under which democracies accomodate social diversities?
No society can fully and permanently resolve conflict among different groups. But we can certainly learn to respect these differences and we can also evolve mechanism to negotiate the differences. Belgium in an example of how successfully differences were negotiated among ethic groups. Therefore, democracy is best suited to accommodate various social divisions as it usually develops the procedure to conduct their competition. But the example of Sri Lanka was that distrust between two communities turned into wide spread conflict, and this remind us that a democracy must fulfill two conditions in order to achieve a harmonious social life:
  (a) Majority and minority opinions are not permanent. Democracy is not simply rule by majority opinion. The majority needs to work with the minority so that government functions to represent the general view.
  (b) Rule by majority does not become rule by majority community in at some point of time. Democracy ceases to be accommodative if someone is barred from being in majority on the basis of birth. terms of religion or race or linguistic groups, etc. Democracy remains democracy only so long as every citizen has a chance of being in majority.


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