Democracy | Educational Videos for Kids

What are you waiting for? Democracies, like in Happy Learning, believe in equality!
?? Who know where the first democracy started?
Write your answers in the comments!

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Hello friends! Welcome to a new Happy Learning video.
Today, we’re going to learn about one of the most ideal and revolutionary ideas that man has created, today, we’re going to learn about a democracy.

A democracy consists of the idea that a country’s citizens participate in the election of who will govern them, and the political decisions that government takes. This is offered through the right to vote, when we are over-aged.
But Democracy wasn’t always like this, and it has experienced a long journey before becoming the way we know it today. Let’s travel in time to see how it all started.

The birth of the first democracy

The word democracy comes from Greek word, meaning citizens’ power. It’s an idea that was first thought of a loong time ago, by citizens in Athens, a city in ancient Greece.
It consisted of a government system where decisions were discussed and decided by a citizen’s assembly. The members of the assembly were selected by a raffle, and the decisions were agreed after a majority of votes in favour. But what is true, is that neither women or slaves could vote, they had no rights.

Some time after, the Greek’s democratic ideas travelled to Rome. In Ancient Rome, they started to approve laws and chose their governors through citizens assemblies. Although, if you wanted to be part of these assemblies you had to be rich, noble and very powerful.
The town couldn’t decide yet, it still wasn’t an authentic democracy.

In Medieval times, democracy didn’t exist. It was the kings and noblemen who made all decisions, they acted like real tyrants, like dictators who didn’t care about the rest of the Town.

This was until the end of the 18th century, where the French Revolution erupted. In 1789, French citizens faced and defeated the absolute Monarchy… From this moment on, the first real democratic ideologies took place in France, especially the right to universal suffrage, so, any citizen regardless of them being rich or poor, could vote and participate in their governors elections. Although, the universal part wasn’t all true because women couldn’t vote yet.

Over time, these ideas, democracy, travelled to many other countries where it was also established as the governmental system.

But, unfortunately, there have been and there still are differences and inequalities between people. For example, women couldn’t vote in many countries until the 20th century, and some races, like the black race were and still are considered secondary citizens in many parts of the world.
Democracies still need to be perfected…

Well, now we know democracy’s history, and we’ve learnt that it looks for general welfare and is based on respecting each other, and human equality, whether they are a man or woman, rich or poor, white or black. Everyone has the same rights, but the same duties too! So we have to respect the rules and norms set.
This is a Democracy, and in Happy Learning, we love this ideology because we believe in equal rights, (we believe) in respect and solidarity, and we think that nobody is superior to another.
Goodbye friends! And don’t forget to subscribe to Happy Learning, Tv.