PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNMENT

 

Problem:   Alienation in relation to our government. And thinking, “It’s the government’s job to do the job, to decide for us.” Big government is alienating, depersonalizing.

 

We must train ourselves to examine the institution we have created. If a governing body, a militia, a road or highway repair service, does not achieve what our best judgment, our consciences, our moral selves, want it to achieve, we must re-evaluate why we as citizens made if possible for such a service to come into being. It is wrong to assume the judiciary or the military or government as a whole, stands for justice or peace.

All too often, government has become a convenient device for the delegation of our responsibilities, and just a convenient abstraction — insofar as it takes away from individuals certain responsibilities, privileges, and functions, claiming that it will take them over, thereby exonerating us from any need to feel concern about such responsibilities.

One important concern we should have in the area of  government is to reverse the trend toward excessive centralization, to make sure that individual economic/administrative/political units or entities are manageable in size. Kirkpatrick Sale’s Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision, which has already been mentioned, contains important insights on this score. An especially valuable compact statement of the Gandhian strategy of judicious regionalism is the booklet by Gora (G. Ramachandra Rao) entitled Why Gram-Raj (a title which may be interpreted as “Regional Autonomy, Gandhian Style: A Program for Socio-Economic-Administrative Conversion”); its application of the Gandhian insights into the situation in India would need to be translated into terms applicable to the Western context.

Effectively conveying our wishes and values to our representatives and elected leaders is a complex task, considering the discrepancy between the best values we believe in and the notions or principles by which these representatives are guided (and this is true of most Western, Communist bloc, and Third World countries). Representatives and leaders, for the most part, are drawn from the ranks of the highly privileged and/or meritocracy, and are motivated by a dysfunctional philosophy of life, which operates on achievement and reward principles. Unless and until we insist that our leaders adhere to more enlightened values, we are always voting for men who are the products of a general social dysfunction. Elected representatives or leaders who are “successful” under the present system would have a difficult time accepting the need for far-reaching changes in the direction of the saner values advocated by Gandhi and a few others.

We must make sure that through representation of our opinions, through our votes and actions, government agencies achieve their original purpose — the administration of a required service in accordance with our aims and values. If they no longer do so they no longer deserve our support. The time may have come to think of another approach. The Gandhian approach.

With considerable lucidity, Gandhi cautioned us, stating, “The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. …as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.” Unless we constantly make an effort to convey to our government the best and loftiest notions instilled in us by our conscience, the soulless violence within the machine will prevail. At the same time as he denounced the violence within the machine of the State, Gandhi firmly believed in the need for us to work for the moral and political well-being of the nation of which we are a part. (In fact, that belief was so definite in him that it led to — largely ill-conceived — reproaches on the part of both Tolstoy and Erik Erikson that Gandhi pandered unduly to the cause of Hindu patriotism.)

Gandhi invited us to develop enough boldness to speak up to our government and its leaders when necessary. This can be done through letters and calls to our legislators, through tax resistance, or in other ways that forcefully convey our concerns. In the contemporary context for us, the words we should boldly speak to our government on the basis of inspiration from Gandhi might be as follows:

“Please do not draft anyone into the military or maintain a standing army in my name. The sole purpose of a military establishment is to prepare and execute killing — this it achieves by systematically breaking and humiliating army recruits, so they will kill ruthlessly; and I want no part of such an operation. There are far better things that trained, skilled and organized people can do with their lives. Kindly refrain from threatening or bullying any other nations or peoples in my name; there is plenty of fear and pain in the world already, and I see no reason to add to it. Do not maintain any more dictatorships in my name. Please do not build or stockpile

a ridiculously exaggerated quantity of weapons in my name; I do not want such ‘protection.’ Even if some feel that the violent repression of foreigners (e.g., Nicaraguan civilians) is somehow essential to the ‘security’ of my country, I demand that it cease; I do not wish to benefit from such horror, and I do formally repudiate and reject any and all ‘protection’ such repression may afford.” (Based on a statement by Greg Johnson.)

In essence, we should take our share of responsibility in the running of our own country. Focused political effort sustained by nonviolent values can dissolve layers of apathy, and overcome the current political crisis in our country. As the need occurs, we should have the courage to work in the halls of government and courts of law to exercise our duties as participating citizens. As need be, we should also have the courage to undertake protests, boycotts, and other acts of civil disobedience such as were practiced to bring about the independence of the American colonies. As Gandhi’s foremost Indian disciple Vinoba Bhave (1895-1982) insisted, the power of the people has to be awakened, so that the people can rule more effectively (rather than entrusting this task entirely to an often alienating entity, the state). And after all, Vinoba was echoing Thomas Jefferson’s statement, “I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but the people.”

 

 

The citizen is the sovereign, who appoints the government.

 — An Indian disciple of Gandhi

 

Solution:   Participate in the democratic process. Take responsibility for our government. Think: “The state is our state; we must participate in running it.” Support the government only if it allows fair representation. De-bureaucratize life. Practice decentralization. Small is beautiful, small preserves a human scale, a human spirit. Support communication between government and citizens, based on sharing (as opposed to adversarial approaches).

 

 

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