Why Democracy Does Not Work

As our efforts to help rebuild the homes of those shattered by natures forces continue, the ravings of the madmen at RFN and SV also continue in their vain efforts to discourage us from our work. We have read your letters and we will continue to spurn you because of the dogs you truly are. In the hopes of recovering their shattered yarn which we are the cause of, the RFN and SV bloggers now assume that the speech written by the PM on the day of the takeover was written by the AG. How misguided the foolish bloggers are! We all know that the speech was written by the Commander himself and the wordings were chosen carefully to ensure that each person in this country understood the situation.

For the bloggers to continue to assume that this blog is maintained by the AG because of his technical abilities, you are sadly still mistaken - but we know you would be extremely surprised when we reveal ourselves to you some day because we are certain you did not expect to be attacked by us. We are a group of people who will not be distracted from our cause and we remind the doting idiots of both blogsites that we will stop our responses when you support our cause instead of blogging against your fellow men and women who are helping those in this time of need. In addition to this, the people who claimed that the military was not doing anything, we believe that you have become blinded by your own stupidity as the military has been out on the ground helping rebuild shelters and schools.

The current issue that we feel needs to be highlighted is the recent release of Francis Kean. Kean, as you all must be aware, was found guilty of murder and sentenced accordingly. During the days of the Yellow Ribbon campaign, it was you bloggers who believed in its cause because you had a stupid (and unbridled) hope that people such as George Speight and his group of clowns would be released. This was not to be and your frustration is no doubt abound after Kean's release. We ask why you did not complain when Kunatuba was released and given a job? We wonder why you choose to complain because one man was released and given back his life and reputation in society? Is it because he is not one of you and refuses to be blindsided by your petty rhetoric's and instead chooses to look towards the future and shares our vision of a different Fiji? Or perhaps it is because unlike most Fijians who are in jail, Kean happens to have truly reformed whereas the remainder refuse to undertake the rehabilitation projects which could change the lives of your relatives in prison? Kean was outstanding in his behavior during his stint in prison and undertook to sharing his knowledge and skills with other inmates. He was found to be courteous and ensured that he did what was expected of him. So why the disparity now that he is released? Do the principle's of the Yellow Ribbon project not apply to him? Why not? After all, he is a prisoner who was subjected to the same level to treatment as other prisoners. He did not receive his salary as erroneously stated by the dysfunctional RFN and SV blog sites so we fail to understand why such a lie was told to the readers of the aforementioned sites.

Our task is to take Fiji to the 2010 elections and despite the rubbish being spewed by the RFN and SV blogs that this will not happen, we disagree. Democracy does not work all the time, however, we are willing to give it another chance in 2010 and hope this time the people have enough sense to vote in leaders who will take Fiji forward for the good of the nation instead of filling their pockets. However, if that fails, then the govt. will be removed again and even God will once again not be able to stop us as he failed miserably in 05 December.

Complaints directed towards the government or the political structure have been part of our lives ever since the first governments arose. There is a difference, however, between past and present western civilizations: democracy. Criticism is an essential part of any democracy, as it allows us to influence our government and thereby ensure it represents the public will. However, the continuous dissatisfaction of citizens in democratic societies with their government indicates they do not feel represented at all. This results in a negative attitude of the citizen towards the government that will increase the gap between politics and the public. The source of this malfunctioning of democracy can be found in the emphasis on the individual, that is so explicitly present in modern society.

Our modern individualism leads to a divergence of the goals of government and citizen: what the governments want differs from and thus does not represent the will of the people. Politicians strive for what is best for society as a whole, whereas the individual in an individualistic society will strive for what is in his own, personal benefit: “the thought that the human is a creature that is directed towards values [...] for which one should make some concessions, has completely disappeared.”1 As the average of all these individual wishes does not necessarily represent that what is best for society as a whole, individualism leads to a difference in interest between government and citizen.

Due to the divergence of public and governmental will a difference evolves between the criteria used by the public and those the government itself uses to judge its performance. If the government strives for different goals than the individual, the idea of what is a good political policy will differ similarly. Consequently, the criteria the public uses to judge the policy as executed by its government will not correspond with the governmental criteria. Therefore, a government might achieve its goals and yet be regarded as a failure by the public.

The lack of representational power and the subsequent negative judgements lead to a negative attitude amongst citizens towards politics. The criticism the public has of their government seems to remain unanswered, since no government can serve all personal desires of each individual. The public senses its criticism lacks influence on the performance of politics, and thus distrust towards the political institutions arises.

Eventually, if no change is made, the public will turn away from politics entirely and therefore politics will become increasingly incapable of knowing and representing the public opinion. This is caused by a negative spiral that follows inevitably from the current situation: the distrust increases the distance between government and citizen, and therefore increases the feeling of lack of power of the public on the government, and the incapability of this government to represent the public.

So we see the three fundamental aspects of democracy: representation of the public by the government, influence and control of the public towards the government, and a feeling of engagement and trust, are more and more destructed by individualism. Democracy increasingly seems to fail, and it is, for the greater part, our individualistic society that is to blame.

1 Dijn, p.p. 94

Works cited

Dijn, Herman de. “Het einde van de politiek?” Democatie als filosofisch vraagstuk. Ed. Tim Heysse and Wilfried Goossens. Kapellen: Pelckmans, 2003. 81-99.