Passing Comments

In this short video of a Guardian interview with young Pakistani poet and journalist Fatima Bhutto, she speaks in a compelling way about how things have gone so wrong in her country (“Hay festival video: ‘Power is violence in Pakistan’” June 3, 2010).

Embodied in her words, it seems to me, is a frightening warning for the citizenry of all countries, including my own.

Excerpt:

We have for the last 63 years of our country’s history allowed those in power to be above the law. We have laws and bills and acts safeguarding those in power, protecting them from questions, protecting them from recrimination, protecting them from the consequences of their often corrupt and criminal legacies.

And the people are protected by nothing, but held hostage by silence.

A troublesome question keeps cropping up related to democracies, old and new. It’s one that, it seems to me, could turn out to be the Achilles’ heel of this much lauded system of government. And that question is — how do you persuade most (if not all) of the voters to come out and vote when it’s time to do so?

It may or may not surprise you to learn that the highest average percentage of voter turnout globally during the past several decades has been 68% (see here). More recently, though, even that not very impressive statistic has been shrinking, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA):

Overall participation in competitive elections across the globe rose steadily between 1945 and 1990. Between 1945-1950 the number of voters turning out to vote at each election represented 61% of the voting age population (i.e. all citizens old enough to vote). That turnout figure rose to 62% in the 1950s, 65% in the 1960s, 67% in the 1970s, and 68% in the 1980s. But in the 1990s, with the influx of a host of competitive elections in newly democratising states, the average for elections held since 1990 has dipped back to 64%.

In the 2008 Presidential election in the U.S., for example, voter turnout was 64 percent. Turn that on its head and that means that 36 percent of eligible voters — 73 million people — did not bother to go vote. And they made this choice to not participate in the democratic process during a time of great crisis not only for their own country but for the entire world, and in an election that was an amazing historic moment for the country itself.

Interesting, don’t you think?

As many do, I find this trend of low voter turnout generally across the globe to be alarming. But I also think we need to confront it in an intelligent way. For me that means posing a direct question to the citizens of those many countries who choose not to vote — do you really want to have a democratic form of government? Seriously ask this question.

I’m not so naive as to think that high voter turnout is the solution to the world’s problems. An ignorant voter is more often a friend only to the worst of those seeking elective office. To march into the future, simply muttering to our dog or cat about public apathy on election days, while suffering under ever lamer, ever more corrupt governments, however, is not very smart either.

What brought this all to mind is the video below of an interesting interview today on France 24 exploring why 53 percent of the French didn’t vote in last week’s regional elections there.

Today, in the first video of a series, TOL showcases a cross-section of citizens of the country of Georgia. Each one talks about his or her idea of what civil society actually is. May seem dull fare but, as usual, when people speak from their hearts in ordinary language about something important, it isn’t (“The View from Tbilisi: Change from the ‘Bottom Up’” by Tako Paradashvili and Nia Kurtishvili, Feb 22, 2010).

TOL is a non-profit organization focusing on the post-communist countries of Europe and the former Soviet Union. Intro to video:

As democracy in Georgia continues to develop 19 years after independence, how do Georgian citizens view their personal and collective responsibilities? Is civil society capable of fighting for people’s rights, and how well has it succeeded? To what extent do Georgians recognize and capitalize on the power they have to monitor their government and take part in building the country’s future?

(Perhaps it will occur to you, as it immediately did to me, that these same questions apply as well to the older democracies — to the United States at more than 200 years old, and to those of Western Europe — especially as some are facing a critical and defining turning point in their development –see here and here.)

What Is Civil Society? from Elene Asatiani on Vimeo.

A new citizen journalism website is now fully online, and it’s one of the most interesting and ambitious such ventures that I’ve seen. Allvoices.com describes itself as the “first true people’s media.”

Excerpt from its mission statement:

It’s a place where individuals from all over the world can share what is happening where they are (location) at a particular point in time. Allvoices then brings together multiple voices or points of view via news stories, videos, images and blogs from the Internet, to provide context and build momentum. The platform provides the community with the ability to search and navigate a news event by location and category, to share and to have a discussion around it, to emotionally connect with each other’s perspectives and complete the human story.

Especially fascinating and helpful, I think, is an interactive world map displayed across the top of the home page. Posted with hyperlinked circles and stars in various locations on the map, it allows the viewer, if interested, to click and easily review what’s currently being posted.

How does it work?

Allvoices is an open, unedited and unmediated site. Every voice (contribution) is automatically checked for spam and relevance to the news event. A contribution is not edited and is posted as is as long as it is relevant to the news event. The relevance is checked by our algorithms and technology – not humans.

The whole idea behind adding a voice to an existing news event is to get the discussion going. It can be as simple as sharing an emotion or a comment.

The team behind Allvoices is impressive. It includes business, communications and IT professionals, and also some Computer Science professors from Northwestern University.

Summing up its mission, the Allvoices website states:

Allvoices was started by passionate people who believe that everyone has a story worth telling, sharing that story can be the first step in changing lives. Allvoices redefines the voice of people through the global community for sharing current news events and issues from multiple points of view, providing an emotional connection to each other’s perspectives.

At it’s core, Allvoices is about democracy. About giving power to people. About their voices having the effect that makes a difference.

(I came across the link to Allvoices on the Editors Weblog site.)

This Allvoices video below powerfully demonstrates once again that a picture can be worth a thousand words:

UPDATE: Questo post in italiano