Every Remembrance Day is a poignant reminder that the freedoms we take for granted today were bought with many lives and much blood, sweat and tears.
But as we check headlines around the globe, we also know that so many people that we share this planet with are not so fortunate.
In Iraq, forces are retaking territory held by ISIS. The atrocities are too numerous to detail, and perhaps in their mere retelling we have become inured to them. Slavery and torture are commonplace – there is no hope for a life free from oppression, let alone full-on democracy.
Even so-called democracies like Russia are democracies in name only. How can a country call itself democratic when there is no independent, multi-party system and Vladimir Putin dominates the only party?
Hopes for an Egyptian democracy have soured, and countries like Turkey seem to be turning back towards state rule.
It was chilling to hear Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, in his run-up to his election, say that he would limit freedom of the press and jail Hillary Clinton if elected. He admires Putin and calls him a strong leader.
Trump’s authoritarian, xenophobic rants were shrugged off by many.
His baseless charges that the democratic system was “rigged” and that only he could fix it all appealed to enough voters to give him a significant electoral college win.
Thankfully he appeared, at least on Tuesday night, to want to heal divisions.
But it reminded us, yet again, just how fragile this thing we call democracy can be.
A less than stellar economy, a population that is hurting and feeling left out of the elite-run government, deep, unacknowledged racism, and a fear of “others” – it can be a deadly cocktail in the hands of a reckless leader, as history has shown us time and time again.
Thankfully this election did not involve bullets or bloodshed.
But only time will tell if President Trump can control his “counter-punching” personality and try to actually bring people together instead of using people’s fears and insecurities to turn them against one another.
We certainly hope that he can.
Democracy doesn’t need another punch to its gut.
