EMOTIONAL DEMOCRACY: A BROKEN SYSTEM DESTROYING A VISION

Political or government issues like religious issues are discussions that people rarely settle down into with a sense of rationality. There is always a tendency for things to go off kilter especially in times when touchy issues are being discussed. It is often easy to take sides especially if you know all there is to know about your side but when you have to face the reality of the other side of the spectrum, you realise that nothing is truly black or white. You begin to understand that there are so many ramifications to every issue and at the moment when you begin to see all the sides in an issue, you realize that you have taken the first step towards finding a satisfactory solution to the problems, whether political or religious or even if it is an argument about the colour of your favourite hip-hop star’s chihuahua's fur.

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It is not easy to accept that you have been wrong in your opinions concerning the politics of a place, a people or even what people want done by the government of the day. It is unfortunate that it is common to find that the government is the most culpable when it comes to feeling the pulse of the people in issues like policy making and channelling the discourse on what is best for the country. It is through this sort of deliberate ignorance in some cases, or a lack of understanding of the thought processes of the man standing by newsstands discussing trending issues that has often led to a dichotomy between what the people want and what the government is doing.

When a government seeks to focus itself on grandstanding, pointing fingers and playing the lone wolf politics, it is often as a result of its inability to come to terms with the needs of the common man. It often because the government has forgotten its major role, which is ultimately to manage a country made up of diverse peoples with different needs, beliefs, ethnicity, and understanding of how things work. It is not the job of the masses to make the government understand their desires, it is the job of the government to articulate the people’s desires and find solutions that are not only satisfactory but also long lasting. Yet even when you articulate your legitimate needs as a citizen, nobody is paying attention beyond election season.

As a result of the emotions often attached to political issues, it is often difficult for people to speak the truth or even see the truth when it has to do with a political ideology that they hold on to or if a person they like and worship is making policies that make no sense. Football fans are easily riled up when their club managers or players make mistakes. They still support the club but they do not hesitate to castigate the club management and team for errors made. This ensures that the club places a high bar for themselves during their performance because they know that if they make mistakes they will get a bashing. Not all club managements pay attention to the pulse of their fans in all things but some take the opinions that their fans express seriously as some of these opinions are informed.

This is often difficult to find in the political sphere as in politics there is too much give and take, favours owed, promises made, and agendas within agendas that the process of pushing policies to better the life of the average man is subsumed inside the need to satisfy a huge campaign donor. With such situations, it is not surprising that the government of the day may seem deaf to the needs of the people or even if they are listening, they carry out cosmetic changes to assuage the minds of the people.

Often though, those in the helm of power despite whatever ego or pride they may have about their ability to head the government have people whose job it is to help them feel the pulse of the country they govern. These people are supposed to be able to tell the man at the top, the people’s mind backed with research, statistics, interviews and a broad knowledge of human behaviour and the subject matter of concern. But because politics is often about back scratching, you find that people in those positions are there because of a prior relationship with the head man that has nothing to do with qualification, knowledge, or the readiness to help those who they are supposed to speak for. They are mostly sycophants who repeat only what they want the president to hear and because the president is not omnipotent, omnipresent or omniscient; he makes decisions that at the end of the day do not meet with the desperate needs of the people. Is this the fault of the president who picks these people based on a broken system of cronyism and nepotism or is it the fault of the masses who allow these people t speak as if they speak for them?

During elections, people often vote not for rational explication of a plan with a purpose to bring about growth and development to the people but rather because they like the party or an ideology that they sometimes do not understand and are card carrying members of the party or because the contestant has made words in a room of fifty people with connections in the community dipping their hands into their pockets for their chequebooks, promising them lucrative positions and contracts in exchange for their support. In such cases, there is no sense to the politicking because it is not helping the common man and because there is no sense, it is not working. The average man votes and goes home but gets nothing for his efforts. He has been promised exactly the same thing previous men with big cars and pot bellies have been promising him and his father before him for years. It is often surprising to see that they still do not get it that the system is broken. They still do not understand that the politics practised is not intended to help the people but to foist godkings on the people for a time, make wealthy rogues and thieves and nothing more.

On the day when people begin to shift away from emotion based actions when it comes to politics and anything related to politics, until the day when the people begin to see those who come to the forefront with grandiose schemes and grand sounding words just to steal some votes for who they truly are and judge them not for what they hope to get from them but for what they have contributed in the past, how true their heart is to the cause of growth and development, what their rhetoric has been over the years, the consistency of their stand on certain issues that bother all, their loyalty to their constituency, this same broken system will continue to be in play and the things that we as a people desire for our country and for our children would continue to be a mirage.

Democracy is considered by so many political theorists as a good system of government but politicking has damaged it at its core. Votes are bought and paid for, legislator speak for big business and their pockets not for the masses that they supposedly represent. Those at the head of governments do not get credible reports because the people around them are there to massage their egos not help them govern better. This is because democracy is now based on emotion and personal benefit not on rational analysis of what would be to the benefit of masses.

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Postscript: I am not into politics and I have never really liked politicking but I always believed that the democratic system was the best but I have doubts with each year that passes and each election that usher in people who have no clue as to why they contested the position in the first place.

©warpedpoetic, 2019.