For many people, words like ‘politics’, ‘democracy’, ‘government’, ‘citizenship’, either strike them as boring, or worse, have negative connotations of being something that gets in the way of individuals living their lives without outside interference.
What they don’t recognise is that how they get to live their lives depends critically on the state of democracy and how they are governed. But they are not likely to know much about that when it is almost the social norm to avoid having informed conversations about such matters. Friends worry about antagonising each other. Teachers feel safer to keep silent rather than risk being accused of showing bias. Even politicians jump at the chance of saying ‘let’s keep politics out of this’ as though the subject is best brushed aside.
In reality – and here the facts speak for themselves – human beings are vulnerable to so many threats and problems as isolated individuals. Alone, we are more likely to succumb to disease, injuries, attacks, abuse, oppression, natural disasters, and other predicament. Throughout history, the plea ‘Can Anybody Help’ has only been answered reliably when there are adequate collective arrangements in place to give a satisfactory response. To understand what would constitute ‘adequate collective arrangements’, we need to learn about politics, democracy, and matters of government.
In the absence of civics education, we are left with simplistic regurgitation of dangerous ideas. We have the advocacy for authoritarian, ‘strongmen’ politics – with diverse lineages coming down from Hobbesian absolutists, Bonapartists, fascists, Stalinists, converging towards contemporary right-wing ‘populists’ who seek to wield unrestrained power to do as they please. And we have the propagation of anarchistic, libertarian politics – echoing the demands of the likes of Mandeville, Godwin, Spencer, Rand, to leave individuals to their own devices without any government stepping in.
It is hardly surprising that an increasing number of people, old and young, are drawn to unscrupulous politicians who insist they could do so much better for their country if they were not hindered by accountability procedures, safeguards for human rights, and public scrutiny; and that their country would thrive if government would leave it to the private sector to sort out healthcare, education, energy, water, housing, business dealings, etc.
It hardly requires much time to remind people the dire consequences of dictators imposing their ruthless and arbitrary rule on countries they have gained power over; or the terrible effects of leaving key matters to the private sector through privatisation or callous deregulation.
As educators, we must communicate, explain, and engage as widely as we can so that our fellow citizens can better understand how the threats they cannot deal with on their own needs democratically controlled government institutions to pool resources and devise responses which genuinely help the people concerned.
The hijacking of conventional and social media by manipulators, the brazen attacks on teachers by ideologues and culture warriors, the systematic spreading of lies and false rumours in political campaigns, the undermining of universities by fundamentalist and corporate influences, are all making it critically urgent to counter distortions with facts, analyses, and explanations. Through reports, drama, classroom discussions, historical accounts, and a variety of other tools, we must reach out to those who are worried that they have been forgotten, and show them help is available, but only from those who are committed to serving the people through a strong, democratic government.
