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Why squander your vote?
Betty Ann Blaine
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Dear Reader,
If nothing else has come out of the "No Vote" campaign announcement made by the children's lobby group, Hear The Children's Cry, this past week, it is that it has seemingly awakened the dead and is engendering the kind of vigorous and healthy political debate that disappeared from the national radar for the last three or four decades.
Until the debate started, even I had no idea that there is now a growing and deliberate "No Vote" movement emerging all over the world as a result of the disenchantment and the disconnection people are experiencing within the various so-called democracies. Some of your comments and emails have been insightful and informative. But perhaps the clearest and most thoughtful views came from a lawyer who developed the argument with six compelling points:
. What are you voting for, the vicious Manley/Seaga/Manley cycle? Has your vote ever had any effect whatsoever besides changing the name of your tormentors?
. So, we are agreed that voting does not help. Since you are not going to vote anyway, surely there must be a way to use your decision to the nation's advantage, if we do some radical outside-the-box thinking.
. The error non-voters have been making is to abstain quietly and individually so that their absence from the polls can be explained as "voter apathy".
. If we get together loudly and collectively and withhold our vote with attendant public demands for a better system to throw up better leaders, our actions cannot be explained as mere "voter apathy". It will become obvious to whosoever forms the government (and hopefully to the international community as well) that this is "voter protest" (just like Tiananmen Square or the Gas Riots), but a non-violent method of protest. We will be able to proclaim the "winner" a morally illegitimate government (albeit a legally legitimate one) who will be unable to govern because we will publicly command more support than them at which time we can start telling them what to do if they want our supporters to cooperate with them in their attempts to govern.
. If enough people join the "Civil Disagreement Movement" we will be stronger then the "legitimate" government because we will be together publicly and prepared to escalate the protest together rather than, as at present, just a scattered bunch of dispirited individuals. We will be able to command change as did Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.
. Finally, if you don't believe that a coordinated and successful "No Vote" will force our politicians to sit up and take notice, just ask yourself why they beg for us to vote every five years anyway. If it were OK by them for us to stay home and let their thugs stuff the ballot boxes so they can form a "legitimate" government and (supposedly) do as they like, why do they take the chances of an uncertain result by begging us to come out and vote?"
The Hear The Children's Cry lobby is not merely saying to people, "Don't Vote". It is saying, "Don't Vote" unless and until we get some iron-clad guarantees that certain things are going to be done, such as dismantling garrison communities and workable solutions found for the steady diet of child murders and child sexual abuse, among others. One thing is clear to me: either we are going to use the leverage of our vote to get what we want before elections, or we are going to have to be prepared to take to our feet and commandeer those demands after power has been consolidated.
As far as the criticism goes that by saying "Don't Vote" we will be ensuring that the incumbent remains in power, I wish to make the point that if this very bad PNP government remains in power, it is not because a group of people are urging Jamaicans not to squander their votes. Instead, it will be because all of us, over 18 years have fallen down on the job of advocacy and oversight, as well as ensuring competency and accountability from the current administration, especially the country's weak and ineffective Opposition party, which, even in the face of our children being slaughtered, has not been able to muster a public debate, let alone sustain public protest.
With love,
bab2609@yahoo.com
Betty Ann Blaine
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Dear Reader,
If nothing else has come out of the "No Vote" campaign announcement made by the children's lobby group, Hear The Children's Cry, this past week, it is that it has seemingly awakened the dead and is engendering the kind of vigorous and healthy political debate that disappeared from the national radar for the last three or four decades.
Until the debate started, even I had no idea that there is now a growing and deliberate "No Vote" movement emerging all over the world as a result of the disenchantment and the disconnection people are experiencing within the various so-called democracies. Some of your comments and emails have been insightful and informative. But perhaps the clearest and most thoughtful views came from a lawyer who developed the argument with six compelling points:
. What are you voting for, the vicious Manley/Seaga/Manley cycle? Has your vote ever had any effect whatsoever besides changing the name of your tormentors?
. So, we are agreed that voting does not help. Since you are not going to vote anyway, surely there must be a way to use your decision to the nation's advantage, if we do some radical outside-the-box thinking.
. The error non-voters have been making is to abstain quietly and individually so that their absence from the polls can be explained as "voter apathy".
. If we get together loudly and collectively and withhold our vote with attendant public demands for a better system to throw up better leaders, our actions cannot be explained as mere "voter apathy". It will become obvious to whosoever forms the government (and hopefully to the international community as well) that this is "voter protest" (just like Tiananmen Square or the Gas Riots), but a non-violent method of protest. We will be able to proclaim the "winner" a morally illegitimate government (albeit a legally legitimate one) who will be unable to govern because we will publicly command more support than them at which time we can start telling them what to do if they want our supporters to cooperate with them in their attempts to govern.
. If enough people join the "Civil Disagreement Movement" we will be stronger then the "legitimate" government because we will be together publicly and prepared to escalate the protest together rather than, as at present, just a scattered bunch of dispirited individuals. We will be able to command change as did Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.
. Finally, if you don't believe that a coordinated and successful "No Vote" will force our politicians to sit up and take notice, just ask yourself why they beg for us to vote every five years anyway. If it were OK by them for us to stay home and let their thugs stuff the ballot boxes so they can form a "legitimate" government and (supposedly) do as they like, why do they take the chances of an uncertain result by begging us to come out and vote?"
The Hear The Children's Cry lobby is not merely saying to people, "Don't Vote". It is saying, "Don't Vote" unless and until we get some iron-clad guarantees that certain things are going to be done, such as dismantling garrison communities and workable solutions found for the steady diet of child murders and child sexual abuse, among others. One thing is clear to me: either we are going to use the leverage of our vote to get what we want before elections, or we are going to have to be prepared to take to our feet and commandeer those demands after power has been consolidated.
As far as the criticism goes that by saying "Don't Vote" we will be ensuring that the incumbent remains in power, I wish to make the point that if this very bad PNP government remains in power, it is not because a group of people are urging Jamaicans not to squander their votes. Instead, it will be because all of us, over 18 years have fallen down on the job of advocacy and oversight, as well as ensuring competency and accountability from the current administration, especially the country's weak and ineffective Opposition party, which, even in the face of our children being slaughtered, has not been able to muster a public debate, let alone sustain public protest.
With love,
bab2609@yahoo.com
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