“That Government is best which governs least. When citizens are prepared for it that will be the kind of Government they will have”
– -Henry David Thoreau
Sri Lankans are experiencing an unprecedented economic catastrophe due to several reasons, and we see a lot of people participating in public protests and demonstrations against the present Government with the hope of finding solutions to problems they are facing.
Such actions can be categorised as ‘civil disobedience’ which is a common course of action people all over the world resort to when they do not see a better way to get their rulers to pay attention to their grievances.
Usually when people reach this point, they have already decided that the inefficiency and/or the tyranny of their Government has exceeded their level of tolerance and it is time for a change.
Deaths and destruction
Rulers, especially if they are intoxicated by the power they have been enjoying, will do everything they can to stop such uprisings which sometimes lead to deaths and destruction ending up with one side overpowering the other.
There are times when the death of one or more people was the cause for the uprising, as we saw with the ‘Black Lives Matter’ marches all over the world after the tragic death of George Floyd in the hands of a racist police officer in the US.
Governments of some countries even had trouble implementing face-mask regulations and lockdowns due to people’s protests perceiving those preventive measures as violations of their rights.
Sri Lanka should be given the credit for not going to such extreme measures against the common good and for following the health guidelines, for the most part.
We can find examples of similar protests and public demonstrations such as ‘March on Washington in 1963’ where Martin Luther King delivered the famous ‘I have a Dream’ speech, ‘Salt March’ by Mahatma Gandhi and the followers, Nelson Mandela’s anti-apartheid marches, and ‘The Yellow Jacket Movement’ in France, to name a few, that brought positive results.
Tiananmen Square massacre
We can also find examples such as Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and thirty years later, implementation of ‘National Security Law’ in Hong Kong where the Chinese Government crushed the pro-democracy movements by killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, and wounding and arresting thousands.
In 2021, the Russian Government crushed a protest campaign people started in support of the jailed opposition leader Alexi Navalny by physically attacking the protesters and arresting them by the thousands.
Political protests have become a common sign of the struggle for democracy various countries. Most of these protests are taking place in countries that claim to have democratically elected Governments.
If the citizens of a country that claims to be ‘democratic’ do still have to go through protest campaigns to secure their democratic rights and demands, then the first question to ask is: How democratic was the process of policy making and implementation in that country?
Most people think that electing members to the governing body, including the President and/or the Prime Minister, by a majority vote through fair elections is the only requirement to be a democracy. On the contrary, it should be considered as a necessary condition but not sufficient.
Democratically elected Government
Though there can be numerous reasons for the citizens of a country to engage in a protest campaign against a democratically elected Government the root cause is the betrayal of their trust and destruction of their hopes and expectations by the Government through violation of their democratic rights.
Some of such reasons are: i) the ignorant and corrupt decisions the Governments make, ii) citizens’ lack of awareness about their role as electors of their rulers from their own communities as a part of a democratic process, iii) citizens’ lack of awareness and interest in policy decisions and their short-term and long-term effects on their lives, iv) increased selfishness and deterioration of value systems in the society, v) lack of understanding and their reluctance of accepting the collective responsibility for their experience vi) inability to come out of the colonial mentality where the rulers are the masters and the ruled are the slaves, vii) dependent mentality of the citizen who places too much trust in the welfare systems, viii) citizens’ lack of knowledge about economics, political systems, purpose of religion, purpose of education and their existence in a global village, ix) inability to develop independent and analytical thinking and most of all x) citizens not having the self confidence to question the authority even when they feel that they are being misled or manipulated.
Some Governments blame their political opponents for misleading the public by creating an environment for such protests by spreading false information.
What they do not realise when the Governments make such accusations is that, if they are true, meaning, if the people are so ignorant that they have been manipulated using lies created by the Opposition or whoever the manipulators are, then there is a very high possibility that the decision a majority of these very same people have made to elect the Government in the first place could also have been a result of such a manipulation.
Sometimes such manipulations are known as “election campaigns”. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the democratically elected governing bodies to pay attention to public voice and find out the validity of the claims through a thorough investigation and then provide solutions to their problems, or at least an explanation why they cannot solve it at that time with a legitimate plan and a timeline for a future solution.
Spreading false information
If the investigations reveal that the public has been misled by the Opposition or any other group, then take legal action against such people for spreading false information, instead of making baseless accusations just to divert the attention of the public and put the real problem under the rug.
People should make sure that they have explored all other avenues available to them in finding a solution to their problems before they resort to civil disobedience, which should be the last resort.
Protesters should have a clear understanding about what they are disagreeing with and about the possible outcomes they are willing to accept as the result of their protest.
Just as electing a governing body, disagreeing with that elected body is also a right of the citizens within a democratic system.
Political protests should take the path of nonviolence since destruction of human, animal, or plant life and/or public or private property is destruction of resources that should be shared by the whole planet.
Therefore, protesters or the Governments do not have the right to destroy any life or property that essentially is a part of the limited resources the inhabitants of the planet are entitled to benefit from.
When the dust settles after any such protest it would be beneficial to analyse the reasons that created a need for such a protest and take actions to avoid similar situations in the future.
If every citizen, in a democratic system, has the basic ability of knowing what kind of Government would command his respect, then that will be the first step toward obataining it.
The writer has served in the higher education sector as an academic over twenty years in the USA and fifteen years in Sri Lanka and he can be contacted at [email protected]