Rarely reported in the West has been the concerted repression of democracy activists on the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia, the first among equals in the peninsula, has been ruthless against any suggestion of democratic reform.When contemporary writers refer to "democracy" they mean the anemic version that has developed under capitalist rule. The capitalist classes first supported "democratic" ideas in their battle against the land-owning aristocracy. The most well-known illustration was their affirmation of such ideas during the 1789 French revolution. No doubt, the US revolutionary movement shortly preceding this influenced the rising capitalist class to spread the same ideas in France.
It is commonly thought, having been thoroughly expounded in media and education among capitalist countries, that the US Revolutionary War was a political revolution. This is false. It was most profoundly a class revolution having been instigated by emerging North American capitalists who realized the vast potential of the North American continent for their exploitation, but suffering under the constraints of British imperial interests guided by the latter's ruling aristocracy.
The French bourgeoisie succeeded by using such democratic propaganda as their American counterparts had. The rising capitalist classes of both countries used people like Thomas Paine and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to spread ideas of equality, but after their revolutions were accomplished they and their ideas were either forgotten or discredited. Instead, the instituted governments that were elected only by property owners. Since then they have gradually expanded the voting franchise as they have perfected their control of the political process of elections.
However, the ruling capitalist classes have since have kept such democratic verbiage after carefully circumscribing what they actually mean. Today, they mean "democracy" to mean societies where elections are held, especially those under the supervision of capitalist ruling classes. Thus, many identify this corrupted version as "bourgeois democracy".
But other systems will do in a pinch when they support the interests of the ruling classes of the dominant US Empire. Saudi Arabia is a prime example of an extremely oppressive medieval-like kingdom that serves the Empire. Hence, the total exclusion of information about all the social crimes committed by their rulers from Western mainstream media. Vijay Prashad's report of Saudi crimes is another example of an article that will never be carried by mainstream media.
