I'm an optimist. Well, I try to be, but given events over the past few weeks I've had to carefully rethink the merits of believing that recent global events are just blips on a windy road toward mature democracies.

It is election time in South Africa and things are getting pretty ugly. Simmering violence between party supporters, unreachable promises by party PR machines and the general shady nature of politicians leave that unpleasant feeling of nausea you get after eating food that it is too oily. 

Talking about oil, the war in Iraq seems to have slipped off the radar given the global financial meltdown but that has not stopped escalating violence in that unfortunate nation. Now, you can't talk about unfortunate nations without mentioning Zimbabwe. In addition to record inflation and crackpot dictators, the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was recently in a car "accident" and unfortunately lost his wife. A sad moment on the road to recovery.

Despite the doom and gloom, it often takes one YouTube video to make us realise that politics is just a kiddie's game. It is there to keep our basic senses entertained but builds character in formative manner. With character building will come a mature democracy vis-a-vis an informed electorate. Pity there's not much we can do about the politicians.

Image from Flickr user, humblecitizen