After spending 15 years under house arrest, Aung Saan Suu Kyi, the most widely recognized face of the democratic movement in Myanmar, is free. While this is good news, some of the other news coming out of Myanmar recently does not seem promising. Myanmar’s widely criticized general elections, held six days before Aung Saan Suu Kyi’s release, handed power back to the ruling military junta. Aung Saan Suu Kyi’s own party, the National League for Democracy, refrained from participating in the elections, and was then declared illegal by the junta. Violent uprisings against the junta are gaining momentum in the country. People are fleeing Myanmar to its neighboring countries. It is against this backdrop that Aung Saan Suu Kyi has to restart her work for a peaceful transition to democracy in her country.
Now consider the mid term elections we had, about two weeks ago. We had Democrats, Republicans, the tea party, political pundits, bloggers and talk show hosts. There were rallies, marches, interviews, debates and advertisements. The whole gamut of media outlets in the preceding months had been hovering around the midterm elections, and certainly no one is barred from voicing their thoughts on any topic or taking a stand in matters of public interest.
What we, the public, often fail to realize is that such a political discourse, the freedom to voice our opinions and a right to make it count, is not universal. According to a 2008 democracy index compiled for 167 countries, only 18 percent of the countries with 14.4 percent of the world population had “full democracies,” and luckily the U.S, though trailing many of the European nations, is one of them.
As part of the American public, students should not take their political freedom for granted. The validity of a political process based on democratic principles is derived from the fact that it is believed to be the will of the majority. The majority may not always be right, yet it is the best system we have when we consider the alternatives. That being the case, the democratic system is less effective if a significant part of the population, especially those on whose shoulders the future rests, take little interest in participating in the process. Apathy is not the way to carry the system forward.
Participating in a democratic process is not just going to the elections and casting your vote depending on the “R” or “D” next to the candidate name either. Your responsibility does not end at that point. It is also making an effort to be aware of happenings in the political landscape of your country, and demanding reasons for policy decisions made by your representatives. Once you have the information you need, decide for yourself if those reasons are valid, and create a conversation with your representative. Almost all of the resources you need to be active participants is readily available on the web. The education you are gaining at this stage in your lives would aid you in making those all important decisions.
