Citizenship education in South Africa A critique of post-apartheid

The first recorded democracy was the Athenian democracy around 500 BC. The word
democracy combines the elements demos, which means ‘people, and Kratos, which
means ‘force’ or ‘power’. Theoretically, what does this mean? In the abstract, this
prototypical (or traditional Athenian) democracy, we are told, was a political system
in which ‘the people’ ruled: collective self-rule. More concretely, there were three
political bodies through which ‘the people’ ruled Athens: 1) the popular assembly
ruled on foreign policy, made laws, tried political crimes and comprised all male
citizens over the age of 18 years; 2) the Council of Five Hundred was an
an administrative body that prepared the agenda for the assembly, oversaw the meetings
or day-to-day business of the assembly and prepared legislation for consideration by
the assembly; and 3) the courts administered justice in Athens. Although the
Athenians bequeathed to us their conception of democracy and participation, most of
the basic tenets of prototypical Athenian democracy, such as people’ power, equality
and freedom were not pursued with sufficient rigour and consistency.