It's a common thing these days to hear various places thrown around as the first democracies. Greece, Rome, certain islander tribes, France, the US, they're all there.
But really, can we consider any of them real democracies as we know them? Greece restricted voting rights to native males with property whose age lay within a set scale. Rome lumped the majority of its citizens into just four houses, leaving only the Tribunes as a source of vague democratic power. The islander tribes are so small they have little alternative than democracy, so I hardly think they count. The US at its birth gave voting rights to males over the age of 21, as long as they were neither black, slaves nor natives.
So in my not-so-humble opinion I reckon none of them really apply as the very first. I think you can only really consider a democracy by the year at which the franchise was fully extended to all citizens (although in accordance with my predjudices I see no necessity to extend said franchise to children under 18 years of age).
So that leaves who as the first? We all know that New Zealand was the first to extend voting rights to women, but that the Maoris were originally under a completely seperate system, and even now can choose to vote for seats specially set aside for Maoris rather than in regular elections. But this is largely their own choice, so we could say that the full franchise was extended in 1976 to New Zealand when Maoris were given that choice. Seems unlikely it was the first democracy.
India's current political system was entrenched on independence, but can we really call such a slave to corruption and great families truly democratic?
Indonesia had a spectacularly corrupt democracy in the early 50s, but then again it didn't last long. So we can't exactly look there for guidance.
Britain extended the franchise to women in 1928, but it was still some years before the sizable immigrant population could vote.
There are second-generation citizens in most western European countries who still don't have citizenship rights, so it doesn't seem right to include them.
Australia only gave aborigines the vote in the early sixties, so that isn't exactly quick. The US was remarkably similar.
So who gets the gong? Who was first to extend full franchise?
It wasn't a communist country, that's for sure, but then they haven't survived anyway.
From an extremely socialist perspective we could say that there aren't any particularly democratic countries. Although to take that perspective I'd need to smoke more weed and start wearing ugly hemp clothing, and frankly I'd rather be having fun on more middle-class pleasures.
We could say that every country is democratic to a given value of democratic, but then we'd be fooling noone including ourselves, so let's avoid that horrible conceit.
Personally because I'm both patriotic and in general utterly blind to reason (the two so often going together) I'm going to say Australia was the first true democracy, but I'd like to hear some alternative perspectives, particularly if you're kind enough to explain why you reckon your choice was first.
So lay it on me... or don't.