Amaury presented last week a quite uncommon and particular event which occurred in Ecuador. Before dealing with the content of his article I would like to underline the fact that Amaury's presentation was really different from what we have heard until now, and when I say different I mean in the good sense of the word: he introduced some humour, what was really pleasant and managed to relate us that fact as if it was a story delivered to children. Of course this might be related to the nature of this particular event but it was also achieved thanks to the way he described us what happened and how did the situation evolve.

Moreover I think it was a good idea to shed light on that country which is a quite unknown one for a main part of us. So let's talk about Ecuador !

A few weeks ago, the Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa was the target of what he called a tentative of “coup d'etat” from some policemen who were demonstrated for their rights, as we know that the President wanted to create a civil service. The demonstration went wrong and the president had to fly, because the policemen attempted to kill him, as he said. Actually it was true that a shooting brook up and Correa was taken away to hospital, where he declared the state of emergency and asked the population for being rescue. It was at this moment that Amaury made a judicious comparison with France, what made the all class laughed.

After his summary, Amaury linked what he read to a more specific subject which was the question of Democracy. Indeed Ecuador was the victim of a succession of military dictatorships in its recent past and Correa was the only President who has managed, until this event, to escape from a putsch, maybe because he promised a new Constitution. What lead us to Amaury's questions: is a certain level of development necessary to guarantee democracy ? Is it possible to reach stability through democracy ?

For a few seconds I was afraid that this question may have disconcerted the students as nobody seemed impatient to answer. Meanwhile the debate which followed the presentation was really interesting. The first reaction was a short debate around the notion of democracy, what is a democracy, from which facts are we able to say that a country is a democracy... Someone claimed What is democracy? and once again the all class laughed and then everybody was silent because that notion of democracy is certainly one of the most difficult to explain, as there are a lot of different vision concerning what the term of democracy can represent. Examples were given such as the case of Venezuela or North Korea and quickly someone mentioned the proves of the existence of a democracy. Is the fact that a country have elections enough to pretend that this is a democratic country ?

To stick with the initial question, Marthe said that a good economy and a certain level of development are necessary to achieve democracy but these conditions are not enough to guarantee stability in the country. An other student mentioned China in order to express the fact that sometimes development can go against democracy even thought it is obvious that the development of China enabled the population to get more freedom. We concluded by saying that a good economy must help a little in the research of democracy and stability but we thought that it was also necessary that mentalities evolve.

To my mind, maybe I'm someone too naïve and utopian, but I think democracy is an ideology, a moral goal that every politician can have the will to reach and so find the way to achieve. Of course it is easier to set up a efficient democracy in a country where it is a well shared ideology and where traditionally the state is a democracy, nevertheless we must take into account the fact that some less developed countries are trying to promote democracy and that is a good thing. Maybe democracy will bring development and will increase the economy.

I think these two aspects are linked and one cannot go without the other but I don't know which is the one who causes the other, and this must be a question nobody can answer because it really depends on the country.