Don’t fear to vote the revolutionary ticket
By R Kengadharan, Free Malaysia Today
Theoretically a significant change will only blossom if there is a revolution, but this idea no longer seem as pragmatic as all that.
Today the objective is to liberate the minds of the people and create a mass non-violent movement and their importance cannot be discounted.
The purpose is to make the people the masters of their own destiny. A major achievement would be in the ability to change the status quo without violence and to cast a current political practice into a limbo and adapt a new one by an election.
In this process the new government could remake the economy or renovate the institution yet not destroy it and re-fashion even the structure of government by votes rather than by force.
We must constantly remind ourselves that characteristics such as human dignity, economic freedom, individual responsibility, equal political rights are fundamental values that distinguish democracy from all other forms of government.
Where the right to vote in any system of government you live in is undermined, then you are a subject and not a citizen. Additionally, “no democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its existence the recognition of the rights of minorities”. This was what former US president Franklin D Roosevelt said.
Democracy is the only tangible vehicle that can extra ordinarily extend the sphere of individual freedom and liberty and attach all possible values to each man and will seek equality in liberty without any form of restraint and servitude.
The people of Sarawak will once again visit the ballot box on April 16. How do you propose to exercise your fundamental democratic right?
Two kinds of freedom
Many political parties and pundits are fearlessly lamenting about claims to promote human freedom but not it profits them concretely from the denial of freedom.
Note there are only two kinds of freedom i.e. the freedom of the rich and powerful (who invariably will exploit, manipulate and commit deception on the poor) and the freedom of the monk who renounce possessions.
Prominent investment banker Felix G Rohatyn argued that in every civilized society, human rights must have the upper hand and such rights cannot exist without economic security and independence.
He added “no democracy can flourish half rich and half poor, any more then it can flourish half free and half slave”.
Never must we forget that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and his family including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Every voter must remember…
In essence every voter attempting to exercise his universal freedom on April 16 must remind himself and herself of the following values:-
- dream of the reality that ought to be – that must be;
- live beyond the pain of reality with the dream of a bright tomorrow;
- use hope and imagination as weapons of survival and progress;
