Iran and our own Democracies.

The events is Iran are tragic and profoundly unjust. However, we in the Western ‘democracies’ love to point to democratic failures elsewhere and have little inclination to turn a critical eye on our democratic processes. We imagine that we have more or less perfect democracies and that we could never be subject to the kind of oppression that the people in Iran are experiencing. But we shouldn’t be so smug and events in Iran should give us pause to consider our own situation.

In the last General Election in Canada a little less than 60% of registered voters turned out to vote. The Conservatives won about 40% of those votes. This means that about twenty-five percent of registered voters voted for the ruling party. Now given that a certain percentage of adults are registered or cannot register to vote, this means that we can conservatively estimate that perhaps 20% of adults in Canada voted for the ruling party. Now if the Conservatives had won few more seats they would be a majority government and rule as a de facto dictatorship with less that quarter of the people supporting them. (Keep in mind now that given Harper’s complete disregard for the courts in cases when they decide against his agenda when I say a de facto dictatorship I don’t think it is hyperbole) Now such a circumstance must be treated with suspicion and to say that this is democratic is surely questionable. This is particularly disturbing when one considers that all of these candidates were chosen by unaccountable local constituency offices and many of them were parachuted in by the upper management of the party.

Now, as undemocratic as our system is at a practical level, we should keep in mind that if millions of people had massed in Ottawa at Parliament Hill suggesting that the will of the majority is being ignored in the organization of government, our Prime Minister would be even quicker to call out the army to disperse such crowds that the Iranian clerics have been. Anyone who doesn’t believe it is irretrievably naive.

So while you are watching the terrible events unfold in Iran, don’t be so quick to feel comfortable and superior in the nature of our democracy. We have plenty to work on here in our ‘democracies’ and we should get to work. 

The Arc of Justice

The great Dr. King said (though I believe the quote originated elsewhere) that the ‘arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.’ But if the arc does indeed bend toward justice it does not do so without our constant struggle and vigilance. We move toward justice through the constant effort of countless people who make a continual effort to fight prejudice, inequality, and the arbitrary exercise of power.

We have a bus strike going on here in Ottawa and I am amazed at the degree to which people condemn the workers for the labour strife. The bus drivers are basically striking to retain the right to play a roll in determining their own work schedules. In order to ensure that the Union would have no public sympathy for the struggle, the employer put a $2000 signing bonus in their offer, an effort at bribing the majority of workers and which, if unsuccessful, would ensure that the public would have no sympathy for the transit workers. The right-wing radio hosts are livid at the thought that transit workers (people they constantly belittle as ‘mere bus-drivers’), receive a living wage in a time of economic troubles and then have the gall to want to take part in their own scheduling. And much of the public just mimics the right-wing talking points. Yet these are the struggles which workers have been waging for centuries. Most average people enjoy the basic rights and working conditions that they do because average people have sacrificed their lives for generations in an effort for rights and protections. Most people are unable to see the big picture of history and their place in it, and they forget that when workers struggle for their rights, they are struggling for everyone; because it is only when people win their rights through struggle that these rights and protections become generalized. Furthermore, many people imagine that things are different now; that age when workers were forced to work countless hours under terrible conditions, sometime literally chained to their machines, for little pay, is now over.

“That’s all in the past,” people will tell you, “no one would do such things today.” But the appearance of civilized behaviour by capitalists and corporations in Western countries is only ensured through constant diligence. Simply travel to a country like Guatemala and you will see that, in the absence of laws and unions, workers are still treated like slaves. The arc of justice only bends toward justice if we pull hard on it. It is so sad that so many average people are so quick to buy the right-wing demonization of unions. Every struggle of every worker is made in the name of all people. The arc must bend toward justice for all of us.