Are we stupid?
There is, however, a political reality to be faced. Only governments can change the world for the better, but they won’t take the necessary action to address seriously the problems which threaten catastrophe for humankind unless… Unless they are pushed to do so by informed public opinion, by manifestations of real democracy in action. The problem is that most citizens of most nations are too uninformed and misinformed about critical issues to do the pushing.
And that’s why I assert that real democracy exists nowhere in the world, and perhaps least of all in America where what passes for democracy is for sale to the highest lobby bidders. For democracy to exist the voters have to be informed enough about critical issues to call and hold their leaders and governments to account, and not only at election time but any time and all the time. What we have in the Western nations and some others is the framework of democracy but not the substance.
From that it follows, or so it seems to me, that the objective of truth tellers must be to empower the citizens of nations to make democracy work.
The urgency of what needs to be done was brought home to me in a conversation I had with Ted Heath soon after he ceased to be prime minister. My wife and I had lunch with him, and over coffee I asked him what his biggest fear for the future was. Because he had been a member of the Brandt Commission when I was making Five Minutes to Midnight, my epic documentary on the everyday reality of global poverty and its implications for all, I thought his answer would be about the possibility of a violent, global upheaval if the problem of what was then called Third World poverty was not seriously addressed. But his answer was something else. He held my eyes with his and then, in a very cool, matter of fact way, he said his biggest fear was “That Britain will become the first police state in the democratic world.” (If Mr. Heath was still alive today I would say to him that there is, in fact, a race on to see which of two countries, Britain or America, will become the first police state in the so-called democratic world! If Chris Hedges, one of America’s leading truth tellers, was here today, he would say the race has already been won by America).
I also believe there is a key to unlocking the concern and active political engagement of most citizens of nations.
Question: What is it that parents and grandparents care most about?
Answer: The future of their children and grandchildren.
That being so the key to mobilizing them to make democracy work is making them aware that if they want their children and grandchildren to have a future worth having, they can’t leave the shaping of it to governments, and must become engaged in the political process, to insist that priority be given to addressing the growing pile of problems which threaten the wellbeing of all of humanity and perhaps even the survival of life on Planet Earth.
My own message to that effect would include the need for those of us who are citizens of the still rich Western nations to change the way we live and think.
Changing the way we live would require us to accept that we can’t go on expecting to have more and ever more in the way material satisfaction and gratification.
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