Appealing to the politically apathetic

Mar 12, 2014 Editorial

Greek philosopher Aristotle once famously remarked that man was by nature a “political” animal; he also pointed out that those societies that chose not to educate their citizens about politics were doomed to perish.
Even though he might have been using the word “political” more in line with our modern usage of “social”, the essential point that he was making is of great relevance to us today in Guyana.
The extraordinary growth of governments and the impact on their citizens, demand that those citizens understand both their role and that of their respective governments in the creation of the much-desired “good society”.
As with most education, we have to begin with our youths. In the much-maligned colonial era, there was a subject named “civics” that was taught to all students, but even this has disappeared. This education is even more necessary now that we are independent and hopefully engaged in the deepening of our democratic credentials.
If democracy is “rule by the people” then the people ought to be knowledgeable about what it takes to rule – and the earlier the better.
In the countries where democratic rule has been long entrenched, it is accepted that the promotion and sustainability of democratic values, attitudes and skills must take root in the educational institutions from where they can percolate into society and amplify their positive role.
One expert in the field has declared in no uncertain terms: “Political education is a lifelong process of developing those attitudes, critical skills and modes of behaviour which will enable the individuals to act constructively to improve and change the society”.
It is not just about filling one’s pockets. The bits and pieces on governance and government that have found their way into our curriculum via “Social Studies” are in most instances not only irrelevant but actually against the grain of our present ethos.
The focus on “cooperativism” that the then government attempted to foster in the seventies is now quite passé and even in those instances where the instructors may attempt to bring the materials more up-to-date, they invariably stress only the nuts and bolts of the structure of governments and possibly the rights and duties of citizens.
What are actually needed are the skills, disposition and necessary knowledge that produce active democratic citizens. We ought not to be surprised that we are producing very politically apathetic youths who inevitably grow up to become politically apathetic adults who simply do whatever the “leader” tells them to do, in the very antithesis of what constitutes democracy.
Even in the older democracies, studies have shown that the electorate is not usually very informed about the ramifications of the policies that are trotted out in the manifestoes of the various parties that compete for political power.
In the US, in 2001, the Economic and Social Research Council of America published research on young people’s views on politics, something that demonstrated that many young people thought that they did not know enough to cast their vote on polling day.
These polities, however, are saved by the existence of numerous interest groups that actively lobby the government on behalf of their constituencies.
Many of the groups, such as civil liberties or environmental groups, are public-interest oriented, and actively promote the welfare of those who may be tuned out.
The individuals who organise and deploy the resources of their organisations on behalf of the citizenry at large were produced by the system which does foster “public spiritedness”.
We lack this tradition, or have it in very vestigial fashion, in Guyana because of our educational system.
The government has been doing a credible job in trying to improve that education system – but the focus for some time has been the traditional one of “reading and writing”. While there is nothing in and of itself wrong with this focus, we can end up stultifying the minds of those youths who might have the creativity to move us out of the morass we have been stuck in for the past half-a-century, simply because we did not expose their minds to the possibilities of change that lie in their hands – simply by being members of a democratic polity.
That which cannot be conceived can never be achieved. Let us take care of our political future by educating our young on what it takes to be a “democratic citizen”.

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Appealing to the politically apathetic

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