CEAC – University of Auckland asks ‘Can democracy survive’
“CEAC – University of Auckland asks ‘Can
democracy survive’?
Subject; Can democracy
survive?
https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2019/12/03/can-democracy-survive-.html
Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre
Incorporated (CEAC)
Press release 8th December
2019.
CEAC believes that Democracy and its
partner freedom is based on;
• firstly; Our belief that we can
always ask our elected politicians for support for issues of
concern to our communities.
• Secondly; To always trust our
elected politicians to do what is in our collective best
interests, while always being ‘our advocate’ for issues
of concern that we request our politicians to ‘mitigate’
on our behalf to carry out.
• Thirdly;
allow us and our elected politicians free
speech.
This long held
belief the fabric of our democratic system is now becoming
frayed and under attack by new pressures placed upon all
politicians after any one politician makes a simple blunder
and then goes under such intense scrutiny by the media.
Then secondly is attacked by their political adversaries alike and the result is that it often forces restrictions to be placed upon the very politicians that we the people are trusting upon us to advocate for our issues that we ask them to mitigate for us.
Quote; Professor Quentin
Atkinson - University of Auckland;
“When we think of democracy, we tend to think
of democratic institutions such as free and fair elections,
and parliament. But democratic societies also have another
key feature: cultural values.
These are the set of
values generally shared and agreed upon by citizens, such as
an openness to diversity and acknowledgment of individual
rights.
There has long been debate
over which is the prime mover in the rise or fall of
democracy: is it the values citizens hold dear, such as
tolerance for diversity, or is it the democratic
institutions that, for example, deliver free and fair
elections? Which comes first, the establishment of political
institutions with the values following, or is it other way
around?
In an attempt to answer that
question, an international team of researchers, including
from the University of Auckland, used data from the World
and European Values Survey to look at more than 100 of the
world’s democracies to trace the rise and fall of
political institutions and citizens’ values over the last
century.
The results show that it is cultural values that precede political institutions and in particular, values of openness towards diversity. This indicates that the values generally held by citizens are what predict the emergence and maintenance of democratic institutions.
In contrast,
trust in political institutions, even when high, does not
necessarily lead to democracy. While high levels of trust
strengthens democratic institutions in nations that are
already democratic, in autocratic nations, greater trust in
institutions actually makes a future shift to democracy less
likely.
Un-quote;
CEAC says;
‘We were always promised support from our elected
politicians’;
‘Our case to
consider;
Before all General and Local elections
political hopefuls fill our papers and media with offers to
work on our behalf on issues that concern our communities,
and even leave cards in our mailboxes promising to do this
and that to make our lives better, while offering to make
themselves available to us when we need their help.
The latest result of Kris Faafol is a case in point to highlight our demise of democracy;
Fact; Kris is a highly regarded and respected local politician known to work tiredly for his constituents he is now seen to be mired in simply wanting to assist in the way we expect to act as an advocate for our concerns whatever they be.
In his case it was a close friend who asked for help and that was a normal request.
Our own family case is now being
highlighted;
Our family in
Napier had a similar issue about an immigration issue
concerning what seemed as an ‘unfair treatment given by
Immigration NZ to a family member’ after contacting the
immigration agency, only after the advice given from the
local Napier MP’s office.
As our son’s parents; we explicitly wrote a letter to our local elected Napier MP Stuart Nash to ask for a meeting with him, to review the ‘unfair case’ for us as our family representative parliamentary politician.
We met with Stuart, with our letter, and he advised us that he could not personally become involved, and we immediately felt that was odd, but accepted this for the time.
Our MP arranged for his staff to contact the immigration officials our son had spoken to about the immigration request he was about to lodge about the details which surrounded his fiancé to obtain a work permit as she was a German national about to marry our son.
She had several University documents demonstrating her high value work experience to NZ then but the immigration was not helpful to our son saying “don’t send us an application for a work visa for your fiancé as we will ignore the request.
This was a bitter pill
to swallow for any family, especially a NZ born
family.
Answer; ‘will
democracy survive’?
If the current increasing restrictions
are placed upon all politicians after bungling by continuing
bureaucratic failure, causes more and more restrictions to
be placed on our local and government/opposition
parliamentary members, over any subject or event it will
damage our democracy to the point that we will see only
corruption emerge as ‘bought’ politicians advance the
wishes of the rich, - while many will suffer, thus
undermining our democracy that many of our fallen
hero’s fought and died for us all on foreign fields to
preserve our democracy.
“The price of freedom (and democracy)
is constant vigilance” – (US President) Thomas Jefferson
- and must be conducted by the public not
the state.
End.