Sham election not what war dead fought for
An election in a sovereign democracy should be more than a toy for the nation’s leader, and the inner circle of advisers who make up his court, to play with.
It should be something far more than the outcome of raw calculation by the two or three “heavies” in the back office of what advantage it might produce for the “boss.” And, not incidentally, guarantee their tenure as shamans of the PMO.
It should be grounded. Grounded in respect for the dignity of our democracy. Dignity is a hard word these days. And it would be a difficult argument to make that dignity hasn’t been smothered or cast completely out by its opposite, vulgarity. Vulgarity rolls like a flooded river over the whole landscape of modern culture.
In politics, it is the players and the shallow, rude and self-interested ethic they bring to that activity that has exiled dignity.
Democracy is much bigger than politics however, certainly bigger and far more serious than politics in the narrow degraded sense it has earned from the manner of most of its practitioners.
Democracy is not, nor was it ever meant to be, a game, played by a few for the benefit of a few. Alas, it has become so.
A game of who can catch out whom, which contrived “issue” might stir the most voters whose way, who can churn out the best “attack” ads, dig up the dirtiest “opposition research,” right down to who can best misrepresent (lie would be the clearer word) their opponents.
This style of politics, politics as tactics in place of substance, the tactics themselves petty and unworthy, is cheap and embarrassing.
We show an appreciation for the form of government we so benignly enjoy, and respect for those who shed blood to pass it on to us, on one special day every year.
The solemn ceremonies of Nov. 11, Remembrance Day, a sacred civic liturgy, serve the sole purpose of imprinting on our consciousness by the solemn invocation of the memories of our war dead, the price and dignity of our democracy. The sacrifices involved were huge and terrible.
A form of government built on sacrifice is not a trifle. It is not a toy for “clever” calculations to be played with according to the fall of the dice as registered by pollsters or campaign “specialists.” It was not for this shallow, cute, mean style of politics that soldiers went to war in the past century to save the world for democracy.
In a prosperous country, one blessed with natural resources, capable of maintaining a huge network of support and care services, one far off from the torments and want of so much of the rest of the world, and never having tasted real tyranny or oppression, it is easy to be forgetful that democracy bequeathed these gifts to us. Hence again, Nov. 11 and Lest We Forget.
The needless and pandemic-ridden election all of us are now enduring, called prematurely simply because he who called it thought he saw a glimpse of a majority government if he did so, is no tribute to the dignity of democracy. It should, it must be built on something more than the question — is this good for us? — meaning is it good for the party that called it.
A democracy is a great thing. Many on this earth have never experienced one. For those with stomach, look now at some of the pictures coming out of Afghanistan, whipped journalists, terrified women, two armed jihadis on either side of a news anchor.
To prematurely wrap up, I guarantee you that the general public, the ordinary Canadian (as that pillar of the whole enterprise of democracy is so witlessly and condescendingly always referred to), the man or woman who drives the trucks to your grocery stores, the immigrant women who tend to the children of the well-off, any of the huge mass of people spending their days earning a living, have long since turned off from the game. They are more tired than angry. Much more tired. This feeble excuse for an election has intensified their exhaustion over politics as usual, played out in the age of images and what we dubiously call social media.
The politics of Canada today is a game for the politicians, with some secondary amusement for the media. Check out anyone working in a store, hauling up a net, or wondering where his or her job has gone, and they will tell you, they have no time for it. When they can, they push it to a corner of their minds, and if anyone should ask what they think about this “most important election since 1945” — now there’s a whopper — the most frequent answer is: “I wish the damn thing was over. I’m sick of hearing them.”
But these people, dejected by what they see, and despising what they hear, alas must live with what the high crowd likes to play with.
We’re all going to be wearing masks to the polls, most of us because of COVID, but a good number because they don’t want to be recognized as participating in a sham.
A FORM OF A GOVERNMENT BUILT ON SACRIFICE IS NOT A TRIFLE.