Orwell once wrote in the book 1984 about the concept of Doublespeak. This means that a word's meaning will be changed depending on how one wishes it to be perceived. In this article I will be discussing a few terms: government and citizens, regimes and administrations, nations and people. While these are commonly used terms it has become increasingly important to recognise the rhetoric involved and the confusion it can muster.
World War Two was a perfect example (on both sides) of propaganda and rhetoric. Germans were evil, Japanese were evil. Axis forces were the enemy and Allied forces were the heroes. Unfortunately this is how history is written although that attitude is changing with more and more in depth historical analysis being made. It can be said of any nation or people there are (as the cliche puts it) many shades of grey.
A free thinking individual would realise that these ideas of black and white are archaic and do not represent the reality of our existence. We see on the news declarations about certain nations and governments as if a collective voice has spoken. We hear about the Americans, the Iranians, the British, the Chinese, the North Koreans. Sadly this generalisation still places many people who live within these countries under the same umbrella even though democratic countries throughout the world are far less free than we are led to believe.
In countries like the United States and Australia we are told we are democratic while countries like China are non-democratic. The key difference being that those in Australia and the United states have two major political parties to choose from while the Chinese have one. Do any of these governments really represent its people? The short answer is no. The longer answer is that governments (democratic or not) can only really represent a portion of the population. It is the size of this representation that determines if a government will be called a 'regime' or an 'administration'.
A regime indicates force, lack of choice, and a general removal of the populace from the political process. What we see in Western Democracies is slightly different in that we can participate in the political process but still have a limited choice due to the structure. America has the Republican party and the Democratic party. Australia has the Labour party and the Coalition (liberal, national parties) and Britain has Labour and Conservative parties. This is the old structure of left and right. Can anyone really believe that there is only ever two sides to a political discussion?
Already in this article you can see that the actual people become less and less important as the political party structure dominates. The general population has little or no understanding or access to these structures there-by making politics itself highly un-democratic. This is a terrible situation considering that these are the lawmakers and representatives of the people. It makes it even harder for a commentator to discuss a nation when government representation and accountability has diminished so much.
Ask yourself this question: Who is your local government representative? Most would have no idea of the name of the person, perhaps only knowing the political party they represent. I am sure you would agree that there are good candidates in political parties even though none can truly represent what you believe. This is the eternal problem with any representation: they can only be the few governing the many. The many never govern the few.
A country such as China with one political party is the perfect example of the few governing the many Even though the Communist forces took power through a popular movement, those who are in power now are far removed from the general populous. Even though we are told that China is a Communist country, it is still a dictatorship that does not represent its people. Rather it is a dictatorship because it tells the Chinese people who they are. This means the China that is mentioned in the media is not the Chinese people. The Americans themselves were victims to this problem under the Bush government where all of the governments actions were viewed as actions by the American people abroad.
A nation does not mean the people who inhabit that nation. Rather it means the regime or (as is the case with the 'good guys') administration that is in charge and calling the shots. The difference that can be seen between a dictatorship and a democracy is that the people can still speak their minds. In a dictatorship independent thought and expression can be a cause of imprisonment and even death. However, the problem we face in modern democracies is the weakness of the media as it is increasingly reliant on corporate structure and profit. The media is now here to entertain rather than inform. The entertainment factor has meant that people with a genuine grievance are able to speak but no longer have an audience.
You see less and less mobilisation of the people in democracies since the end of world war two as governments only role is to subdue the population rather than represent them. A poor man has little access to the government which means the rich minority are represented while the majority of people are represented only as much as it serves the political party in power at the time. Perhaps the increase in web based discussion in all nations on earth may at least give back the access to government decision making people used to enjoy. Perhaps there are even politicians that would love to put the people they represent back into the decision making process.
I hope this discussion has been thought provoking. Democracy should be about protecting and helping those too weak to protect themselves, not about holding onto power for another political term.
No comments:
Post a Comment