Maravi

Let those youths protest realignment of districts

Let those youths protest realignment of districts
By The Post
Wed 22 Feb. 2012, 12:00 CAT

THE youth in Southern Province, wrong or right, have every right to protest the realignment of districts in that province or in any part of our country.And it is not right for Michael Sata, as President of the Republic, to threaten them with police action, saying he has got "very capable police who will handle them".

We do not agree with these youths and their leaders on the issue of realignment of districts and reorganisation of our provinces. We sincerely believe Michael is doing the right thing and should be allowed to continue doing so.

Michael deserves support on this score. But others have the right, wrong or right, to hold a different position and champion that position with civility and honesty. And this right should be defended by all out of principle and conviction.

In a democratic society, citizens have a right to gather peacefully and protest the policies of their government or the actions of other groups with demonstrations, marches, petitions, boycotts, strikes and other forms of direct citizen action. Direct action should be open to everyone in a democracy.

Protests are a testing ground for any democracy. The ideals of free expression and citizen participation are easy to defend when everyone remains polite and in agreement on basic issues.

But protestors - and their targets - do not agree on basic issues, and such disagreements may be passionate and angry. The challenge then is one of balance: to defend the right to freedom of speech and assembly, while maintaining public order and countering attempts at intimidation or violence. To suppress peaceful protests in the name of order is to invite repression; to permit uncontrolled violent protests is to invite anarchy.

There is no magic formula for achieving this balance. In the end, it depends on the commitment of the majority to maintaining the institutions of democracy and the precepts of individual rights.

Democratic societies are capable of enduring the bitterest disagreements among its citizens - except for disagreement about the legitimacy of democracy itself.

Democracies make several assumptions about human nature. One is that, given the chance, people are generally capable of governing themselves in a manner that is fair and free. Another is that any society comprises a great diversity of interests and individuals who deserve to have their voices heard and their views respected.

As a result, one thing is true of all healthy democracies: they are noisy. All should be free to raise their voices and participate in the democratic political process, whether locally or nationally. In this way, democratic politics acts as a filter through which the vocal demands of a diverse populace pass on the way to becoming public policy.

Freedom of expression is the lifeblood of any democracy. Before people can govern themselves, they must be free to express themselves. Citizens of a democracy live with the conviction that through the open exchange of ideas and opinions, truth will eventually win out over falsehood, the values of others will be better understood, areas of compromised more clearly defined, and the path of progress opened.

The greater the volume of such exchanges, the better. We are defending the rights of the youth who want to demonstrate in Southern Province over Michael's realignment of districts out of the conviction that, in the end, open debate will lead to greater truth and wiser public actions than if their freedom of expression and dissent are stifled.

Furthermore, we believe that the suppression of these youths' freedom of expression and the right to protest government decisions and actions that we find offensive today is potentially a threat to our own exercise of freedom of expression and our right to protest tomorrow - which perhaps those in government or someone else might find offensive.

We also believe that all people are harmed when one group's right to freedom of expression, to protest, is repressed. If they are right in what they are protesting over, we are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth. If wrong, we lose the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error.

Therefore, a healthy democracy depends upon the continuing, informed participation if the broad range of its citizens. And governments protect inalienable rights, such as freedom of expression, through restraint, by limiting their own actions.

It is important for us to realise that many of these tensions we are experiencing in our country today are present in every democratic society. In some way, democracy is in many ways nothing more than a set of rules for managing conflicts of this nature.

At the same time, such conflicts must be managed within certain limits and results in compromises, consensus or other agreements that all sides accept as legitimate. An overemphasis on side of the equation can threaten the entire undertaking.

If groups perceive democracy as nothing more than a forum in which they can express their demands, the society can shatter from within. If the government exerts excessive pressure to achieve consensus, stifling the voices of the people, the society can be crashed from above.

Therefore, a democratic society needs the commitment of citizens who accept the inevitability of conflict as well as the necessity for tolerance. It is for this reason that a culture of democracy is so important to develop. Individuals and groups must be willing, at a minimum, to tolerate each other's differences, recognising that the other side has valid rights and a legitimate point of view.

The various sides to a dispute can then meet in a spirit of compromise and seek a specific solution. There is need to build coalitions because coalition building is the essence of democratic action. We say this because it teaches interest groups to negotiate with others, to compromise and to work within the constitutional system.

By working to establish a coalition, groups with differences learn how to argue peaceably, how to pursue their goals in a democratic manner and ultimately how to live in a world of diversity.

For this reason, the enjoyment of the freedom of expression, of the right to protest would require that the government allows the people who hold a different line of political thinking an open forum to express their views without government interferences, without a threat of police action.

We all know that freedom of expression is a fundamental right of every human being. This right is also enshrined in our Constitution. While this right is not absolute, it is a matter of justice that it is given to all without discrimination of persons and irrespective of the issue involved.

It would be disastrous if freedom of expression were not the same for all but depended on a person who is speaking and the side they have taken on an issue.
By and large, protests are recognised and accepted by the people as an effective and powerful weapon of political struggle. Protests help to refine a good idea.

This is why the question of how the forces of democratic governance and a civil society interact is the challenge we face and have to worth through as a continuing and dynamic process in our young democracy. There is an old saying that freedom and order are constantly in tension with one another in society. Order without freedom leads to totalitarianism. Freedom without order leads to anarchy.

It is also said that societies recover quicker and more healthily from too much freedom than they do from totalitarianism. Let us not forget that tyranny knows no restrain of appetite. Let's allow those young people to protest the good and progressive decisions of Michael's realignment of districts in Southern Province.

Let's vigorously oppose and denounce Michael's threat to use the police against these young protestors. Yes, police should be there to ensure that their protest is not lawless, destructive or violent, but not to stop them from protesting peacefully.

Let us not forget that it is said that hell begins when the simple and necessary acts of life become monstrous, and this knowledge has been shared through all the ages by those who taste the hell men make on earth.

Let us not make it frightful to think and to express oneself through protest.

Labels: DEMONSTRATION, DISTRICTS, PROVINCES, SOUTHERN PROVINCE

posted by MrK @ 2:24 PM