Moving Beyond Cynicism

President Bush’s inaugural speech was a passionate appeal for the spread of democracy round the world. It’s already begun to happen in Iraq, even in Saudi Arabia there are some signs of developments. There were the first ever municipal council elections there on the 10th February this year, whilst the membership of the Shura Council has been enlarged from 120 to 150 members. This has been seen by some as a very significant step designed to set the stage for more widely-based elections in the future. And who can forget the huge queues of people before polling booths in South Africa at the first election there after apartheid? People had walked for hours if not days in order to have the great privilege of casting their vote. Yet in the United States and Britain the turn-out for elections is truly lamentable. A number of reasons have been suggested for this. There are no really big issues today. There’s no real difference between the three major parties and there’s a general mistrust of politics and politicians. In fact, of course, there are some very serious issues, there are real differences between the three parties and politicians are no worse, or better, than the rest of us. But whatever reasons lie behind current apathy it is important that we vote.

First, we owe it to our forbears, who fought so long and hard to obtain a vote for each one of us. In the 17th century there was a furious debate about democracy amongst the soldiers of Cromwell’s army and Putney Parish Church.  One of them, Colonel Rainsborough said: ‘For really I think that the poorest he that is in England has a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly sir I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government.’

It’s only comparatively recently that that ideal has been achieved. It was only the Representation of the People’s Act in 1918 that enabled women to vote and at that time 40% of men weren’t registered to do so.

Then, from a Christian point of view our votes help, in however small a way, to make society more in accord with what we understand to be God’s purpose for it. We are called to move beyond cynicism to have political ideals, political ideals which are expressed through the way we vote. Then, again, from a Christian point of view, there is a suspicion of power, whoever exercises it. There is always a temptation for those in power to extend their power and, perhaps unconsciously, misuse it. So democracy has evolved checks and balances, the ultimate one being the freedom of citizens to vote their government out of power. The great American thinker Reinhold Niebuhr  expressed the two sides of democracy with classic simplicity and force. ‘Our human capacity for justice makes democracy possible and our human inclination towards injustice makes democracy necessary.’