Get On the Bus 2009 in New York City

Myanmar Proverb

THE PEOPLE IN A DEMOCRACY

Why do we have democracy? Said another way, for whom does it exist?

The answer to this is the people, the general public. It is the presence of inalienable human rights, and the fact that power lies with the people, which infers that society must be democratic. However, this is not a one-way street. For democracy to succeed, and serve the people, the people in turn must fulfill a number of obligations.

This distinction, that democracy serves us but we must also serve it, is easier to understand through considering dictatorship. The people in a dictatorship are subjects, not participants. They do not make decisions for themselves; instead, they are told what to do. The misrule and repression of dictatorship generally compels the people to concentrate on survival. Interestingly, it is common to use group or communal survival strategies. While it is in a sense forced, by circumstance, they cooperate together. This is the basic obligation that the people in a democracy bear: they must be willing to cooperate.

In such societies the people establish democratic systems within the overall dictatorship. This further illustrates that democracy is both a natural response to the challenge of life, and also that it works.

The people in turn have a particular nature, what is known as “human nature.” Human society can only be as good as the people from which it derives. Democracy is also a response to human nature. It is not based on a false, an unrealistically positive, appraisal of it. Instead, it is a system that is designed to function with people as we really are.

Humans are regularly unethical. Democracy incorporates many systems, beginning with the legal system, to account for this.

Another aspect of human nature is that we are independent. We do not like to be told what to do. What this implies is that our participation in society must be voluntary. Democracy is based on such voluntary action, and it is also the only social system that enables the popular voice, that lets us decide what we want to do.

A final aspect of our nature is that we have the ability of reason. Democracy is based on reason, not emotion. It assumes that we have the ability to discriminate among the different choices with which we are faced, and also the vigor to do it. Democracy implies that we have the will to want to understand the world, and that we will work at this until we do.

The ability to make informed decisions requires education, to understand what is at stake; and experience, to put the choices that are available in a larger context. It is extremely significant that for the first time in human history formal education is being extended to all the world’s children. Similarly, international travel, which is the means to truly wide experience, is now available to everyone. We finally have the prerequisites in place to enter what might be termed the “Democratic Age.”

Democracy further requires self-discipline, in particular that people will not respond with violence if they lose a vote or otherwise do not get their way. It requires that voters who have been defeated on a particular issue or for a specific candidate control their emotions and wait through the intervening years until a new election is held and they get another chance.

An important problem for democracy is that many social influences seek to undermine our reason and self-discipline. For example, institutions commonly treat us as subjects. To religions, we are believers, and to corporations, employees and consumers. Such institutions attempt to control us, including through manipulating us using appeals to our emotions.

The personal decision making process begins when we are children, and as children we generally accept what we are told, by our parents. We therefore do not discriminate, and we also become the recipients of whatever social beliefs our parents have been conditioned to have. It is only later, as we mature and become adults, that we learn to think on our own. Only then do we develop the power to reject social influences, including those that we inherited as children.

This, however, is not an easy task. The influences of our childhood are imprinted in our brains, and certain social influences and beliefs are so strong that they are effectively uncriticizable. For instance, Muslims cannot challenge their faith. To do so makes them apostates. Likewise, in the United States, the President, military and police are (or at least were) considered to be above criticism. Anyone who opposes their abuses of power is branded as unpatriotic.

These cases illustrate the subtle distinctions that we must grasp. A religion that disseminates an honest approach to spirituality is above reproach, but one that spreads hate must be stopped. Militaries that defend a society, and when called upon fight just and ethical wars, should be applauded, but armies that engage in wars of aggression and barbaric combat practices must be opposed. Similarly, police who fight crime and risk their lives in the process are heroes, but officers who repress social dissidents are criminals themselves.

For democracy to function well, nothing is above criticism. Otherwise, we have lost our right to freedom of expression, and taken the first step towards truly becoming the subjects of dictatorship.

The challenge of confronting social influences is now greater than ever before. The modern media of television and film are so powerful that their effects constitute nothing less than brainwashing.

In the face of social influences, reason can be ephemeral. It does not always prevail. For example, it is disturbing that the people who are best at influencing us, such as to vote for them, are regularly not the most skilled educators: those individuals who can explain the intricacies of complex issues. Rather, they are the people who are most adept at rhetoric and behavioral manipulation. In almost all cases involving large groups, the latter tend to be more persuasive, and attract more followers, than the former.

Democracy imposes an obligation for the people to reject such influences and instead choose the well-reasoned course. At the present time, though, we regularly fail in this requirement.

The people also exhibit other shortcomings, depending on the nature of the democracy to which they belong. For instance, it is common in new democracies for individuals to sell their votes. It goes without saying that the system cannot function properly in these circumstances. Alternatively, in mature democracies the public is often apathetic, and does not even bother to vote. Or, in response to social influences, the people, and their respective political parties, become polarized over specific issues and lose the ability to cooperate.

Democracy sets a high standard for its participants. And, at the present time, and in most societies, significant portions of the population appear unable to meet it. This does not mean that we should abandon the system as a failed experiment and instead revert to other, traditional forms of social organization (based on natural law rather than human rights). Rather, it just means that we still have a lot of work to do.

When democracy fails, the people become disordered mobs, including such things as ultra-nationalists and religious fanatics. This is unacceptable. We must learn to work together, and to leave our differences behind. To do this, everyone must confront, and defeat, the influences that encourage such mobs.

What this also illustrates is that personal responsibility does not end with the vote. The people must continually evaluate elected officials, and express their views on important issues. They must hold the officials accountable, and for individuals who abuse their power, demand relief up to and including dismissal, impeachment, and criminal prosecution.

EQUALITY, AND FREEDOM

Human society has changed dramatically over the millennia, and probably the single most significant event to-date in this process has been the development of written language. This enabled widespread education, which in turn revealed that our social goal should be equality, and also that this can be best achieved through the political system of democracy.

Humans are, in a sense, interchangeable. One aspect of this – at least initially, as infants – is that there are no limits to our prospects and the opportunities that we may pursue. Through education, anyone can fulfill – can learn to fulfill – virtually any social role. Therefore, any system that sets aside privileged roles for a select few is unfair, and unacceptable.

This includes authority. Given equality, there is no basis for anyone automatically being given a position whereby they can exert power and control over others. Because of this, democracy, in which individuals retain their independence and decide the important questions regarding their personal lives, is the only rational political system.

Human equality begins at birth. We all start life the same, with no prejudices or biases, only the desire to live.

This equality then continues throughout our lives. Regarding the most important aspects of life, what one has to deal with day-to-day and, furthermore, how to understand and deal with life's conclusion, with death, there is no difference between us in our ability to observe and understand. Anyone, just through being alive, can grasp the deepest issues surrounding our existence, and take advantage of its greatest opportunities.

What this implies is that equality begins with value. While there may be wide differences between us in the lives that we lead – one person is a farmer and another a Prime Minister – there is no difference in value. No individual has a greater value than any other.

This extends to groups of people as well, in other words, cultures. There is no basis for judging one culture to be superior to another. Two different cultures may be completely dissimilar, but it is impossible to say that one is better than the other.

This is the case even when a particular culture has a characteristic or subgroup that is justly reviled, for example, the actions of the Nazis in Hitler’s Germany. Cultures are long-term phenomena, and at some stage many if not most are misled. One can criticize, and seek to change, such a divergent culture, but this does not justify a personal feeling of superiority, particularly since the day may come when your own culture is similarly misled.

Equality is not only a social goal: it is the foundation principle of democracy. It rejects any system that is characterized by the rule of the many by the few. Democracy has other principles as well, although most people do not have a clear idea of what these are. However, if such principles are not in place, recognized and followed, the democratic system will fail.

The implication that government must be democratic in turn demands universal suffrage: that every person of a specified age is entitled to vote. In early democracies, including the United States after its foundation, only property holders were allowed to vote.

Setting a standard like this is undemocratic. Similar situations include barring women the right to vote, or limiting it to the members of a particular racial or ethnic group or the followers of a specific religion.

Equality further implies that society, not only government, should not engage in discrimination. If we are equal, our personal characteristics are irrelevant, and this includes our behavior, provided that we do not harm others.

Next, we are not only born equal: we are also born free. Moreover, the principle of equality implies that we should have equal freedom, to lives our lives as we choose and to go anywhere and to do anything that we want.

That’s the situation in principle but the reality is far different. Our freedom is restricted in many different ways. There are wide variations from society to society in the idea of personal freedom, in what an individual is entitled to do.

A common restriction is on one’s ability to believe, to have faith, or not to have faith, in a particular religion. For instance, if you are born to Muslim parents in Saudi Arabia and many other Islamic countries, you too must become a Muslim. You have no say in this whatsoever, and if you refuse you will be imprisoned if not killed. Conversely, in China it is forbidden to be a Christian, unless you practice in a state-approved church.

A further complexity is that there is a tradeoff between freedom and equality: they are regularly in conflict. We therefore need to decide, which is our overall goal?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”

This issue is clearly resolved in the United States Declaration of Independence, which is probably the most significant historical statement of the democratic ideal. The American declaration of freedom begins with a declaration of equality. Equality comes first.

Pure freedom is otherwise known as natural law, or the domination of the strong over the weak. In such a society might is right, and if you have the might you can do literally anything that you want. With sufficient power, you can be a dictator and turn everyone else into slaves.

Natural law obviously is unacceptable, but there are other situations that are more difficult to evaluate. A basic freedom is the freedom of merit, the freedom to work hard and to excel. Merit is a principle in its own right, and it is also a key check on nepotism, on parents transferring their status and authority to their children. One’s social position should be based on ability and effort, not privilege.

A problem here, though, is that merit is frequently used in the service of inequality. People work hard not only as a means to personal development, but as a tool of competition: to achieve an advantage over others, even – so they believe – to be better and to have more value.

If our goal is equality, it is clear that we have to give up a few freedoms, although fortunately these are very few, and largely unethical, such as the freedom to kill. On the other hand, if we focus on freedom, including the freedom to compete, win and conquer, which traditionally has been the case, we will be unable to achieve equality.

We need to value equality more than freedom, but the latter does, of course, remain a goal. We seek freedom of action, but only when it is not unethical or when it does not conflict with equality.

WHAT IS DEMOCRACY?

Democracy is well recognized to mean “government by and for the people.” The real question, then, is what does this mean? How do the people govern themselves?

There are two basic models of democracy: representative and direct. Under representative democracy, which is the version in use in different countries around the world, the people participate in a series of elections. Through such elections, they select a small group of leaders. It is these leaders that actually have the job of running the government.

Under direct democracy, the people make the choices of government. In other words, they vote directly on all important governmental issues, rather than elect leaders to decide them. Direct democracy has not yet been implemented on a large scale, for many reasons, including the difficulty of administering such a system and also organizing the transition to it from the current representative model.

The preference for representative democracy in turn raises the question, is this all there is to it? Does the role of the people end once they have made their electoral choices?

The answer to this is: No. Democracy is a complicated system of social organization. It has a variety of principles, responsibilities and institutions. The most important principles of democracy are human equality and personal freedom. But, there are many others as well. For the second, both the people and the leaders have their own respective responsibilities, and for the people these extend well beyond the vote. Lastly, democracy also has many different institutions, beginning with what are known as checks and balances, and the rule of law.

An implicit but rarely considered responsibility that the people bear is that they must understand democracy: all of its different aspects. Otherwise it is impossible that it will function and is actually an unachievable goal.

At the moment, though, most of the people of the world have little or no understanding of the democratic system. Even in countries where it is long established, comprehension is limited and in many ways flawed.

This is the starting point for why the democracies that are in place today experience wide-ranging and serious problems.

The reason for the lack of understanding is simple: as just mentioned, democracy is complex. The system has many individual elements, and to achieve a proper understanding of it you must isolate these elements and then logically link them together.

By completing this series of lessons, you will learn about all of the different elements of democracy, and through doing so reach a level of knowledge such that you are prepared to participate in a democratic society.

One aspect of the prevailing ignorance is that democracy has become the subject of fierce controversy. Within countries and also from nation to nation there is great dispute about what it is supposed to be.

A basic issue in the controversy is whether democracy is an absolute or a relative system, with the latter view implying that it, meaning representative democracy, can have multiple, fundamentally different forms. Proponents of this position distinguish such things as the democracy of one political party versus another, Asian versus Western, Russian democracy under Vladimir Putin, Venezuelan under Hugo Chavez, etc.

In fact, democracy is an absolute, because it is based on a core set of principles. Any system that does not satisfy or embed these principles is necessarily not democratic.

On the other hand, democracy does have legitimate and differing forms: parliamentary, where the head of the government is appointed by popularly elected legislators; and presidential, where he or she is also elected. Furthermore, the democratic system must be adapted to such things as a nation’s history, population and ethnic diversity, as well as its geography and prevalence of natural resources.

This is where the controversy develops, in discriminating between democratic principles, which must be fulfilled, and other characteristics that may reasonably vary. For example, politicians such as Putin and Chavez say that national attributes justify the denial of certain principles, including the protection of civil liberties and the freedom of the press, and through this the creation of an authoritarian system, which they then attempt to brand as democracy.

As this suggests, the alternative to democracy is an “authoritarian” society, where a small group of people has authority, or power, and then uses it to tell everyone else what to do. This is government by and for such a small group, rather than on behalf of everyone. Authoritarian rule, which is also known as dictatorship, can take many different forms. There are military dictatorships, or rule by army generals, in such countries as North Korea and Burma. Many Islamic societies are religious dictatorships, or rule by religious leaders, which is known as theocracy. There are also economic dictatorships, including such things as colonialism, where one country controls another, for economic gain; and feudalism, where a small group of individuals in a society controls most of the economy and everyone else is subservient to them in one way or another. Some authoritarian countries, such as China, even incorporate more than one form.

A related source of confusion with democracy is whether it is limited to a political role. Government regulates or at least oversees all of society. From this perspective, then, democracy, as a means to organize government, is more properly a social system rather than just political.

Societies have many different subsystems. There are political systems, both democratic and authoritarian, to run the government. There are also economic systems, including such things as capitalism and communism, to organize the production of goods and services. Other subsystems include communications, or the Internet, telephones, and the media; educational systems, starting with schools; and also spiritual systems, the most well-recognized of which are the major organized religions. Importantly, if any one of these is able to dominate, it can be termed an overall social system as well.

Currently, there is widespread and aggressive competition between the different subsystems. The most extreme example of this is with democracy and capitalism. Democracy is considered to be a political system and capitalism economic, but both aspire to overall social control. (For democracy, this is more properly social guidance.) The underlying issue here is that the two systems are not compatible. Capitalism also has its own sets of principles, responsibilities and institutions, and in many cases they conflict with democracy. This competition and conflict will also be examined throughout the lessons.

Similarly, and which the lessons too will explore, the principles, responsibilities and institutions of a society that is dominated by a particular religion are also frequently incompatible with democracy.

In conclusion, as human societies around the world are becoming integrated, through the process known as globalization, these types of disputes are becoming more and more pronounced. The world is now seeing a resurgence of authoritarianism and dictatorship, and the associated rejection of democracy. It is hoped that this series of lessons will help clarify things, and also demonstrate that democracy is by far the preferred choice.

Open Letter to the Burmese Government

Published on April 8, 2009

Should the State Peace and Development Council respect human rights and move towards changes in the interest of the country and all its people, the sanctions in protest against the SPDC’s violations of human rights, would be removed.

1. Burma is facing severe political, social and economic crises. Due to the global economic recession, the people of Burma will soon confront even more severe crises.

2. To overcome these crises is a task for all the people. Thus, the National League for Democracy has proposed to the SPDC to tackle these issues through dialogue.

3. The NLD and the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP) has called for the SPDC to take the following actions: the unconditional release of all political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi; to convene parliament; to commence political dialogue; and to review the constitution. The 88 Generation Students Group believes these actions are urgently needed in order to overcome the crises in the country. These calls are reiterated by stakeholders inside and outside the country as well as the international community.

4. The SPDC has failed to realise these calls, and continues to implement repressive measures including placing restrictions on movements of, and arresting, activists struggling for democracy and human rights. Countries that respect democracy and human rights have taken political, social and economic sanctions against the SPDC.

5. Regarding the sanctions, when meeting UN Special Envoy Gambari, Prime Minister Theing Sein asked that “the UN should first make efforts for lifting economic sanctions” and accused Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD of causing the sanctions. Making such accusations against Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD, activists and Western nations will not get the sanctions lifted.

6. These countries have put in place sanctions against the SPDC in protest against the severe violations of democratic and human rights the SPDC exercises.

7. No other individual and/or organisation than the SPDC military government can do what is necessary to end these sanctions. The 88 Generation Students Group firmly believes that should the SPDC immediately respect the above calls made by the NLD and the CRPP, the sanctions would be removed one after another.

8. In the current situation, it is time for the military government to move towards changes in the interest of the country and the people.

9. The 88 Generation Students urge the military government to respect the calls made by all forces inside and outside the country as well as members of the international community.

If the SPDC does not respect these calls, the responsibility for the negative consequences the country will suffer will rest solely with the SPDC.

THE 88 GENERATION STUDENTS

Cows & Dogs (cartoon)

Mar 20th, 2009

Peacock’s Way

Feb 22nd, 2009

Traitors

Mar 28th, 2009