The free world
The free world
Those in power always struggle to cope with the free flow of information. In the West we hold the free press and right to protest as sacrosanct talismans of our cultural enlightenment, despite the fact that our disagreements and conflicts can be attributed to idealogical differences. Strangely, our near-unanimous support for freedom of expression is the source of our division, yet it is also the source of our strength; we are free to discuss and progress naturally.
The interactions between contrasting views are tumultuous, and often restrictive to our individual goals. Nonetheless, a system of this nature offers us great power when we compare our world with that of more socially restrictive cultures. In Iran we see a society that bans women drivers, despite how female drivers enjoy cheaper insurance in the West, given that they drive more safely overall. Whilst this is a small example it is illustrates a much larger problem in restrictive societies; the truth is suppressed and then rational progress fades.
The democratic process is not perfect, in either practise or principle, but we rely on constructive discussion to find compromises and move forward. In Britain we can legally voice our contempt when our will is misrepresented in government, or when we wish to make our opinions known to other persons and entities. So long as we are peaceful in our disagreement the law protects us. But we are entering a world where the facts are hidden from the people and owned by the power; this is the age of information and we haven't the *edit* to deal with it.
Recently, a whistleblower by the name of Snowden, revealed that the NSA and GCHQ were secretly spying on global communications. Of course, as with all of the West's paranoid and ignoble campaigns, this encroachment of our privacy masquerades as an exercise in counter-terrorism when in actuality it constitutes and affront to the foundations of democracy.
Without informed voters, democracy is vacuous and has no superiority over the systems our governments pretend to defend us from. Even if we briefly suspend our nausea at being continually spied on - I type this from a smartphone, using Google's Blogger - we were lied to for years about the existence of these vast surveillance networks. Why vote for representatives if we have no idea how they intend to represent us?
We live in a bizarre world where defending our values is done by subverting the very freedoms that terrorism attempts to destroy, like the right to vote for governmental policy. We are a nation of terrorists at war with a different nation of terror. The 'enemy' may appear to have warped and alien values but most of the violent and intrusive methods used by repressive regimes are simply hidden from the Western populace when carried out by the free world. Those who reveal the hypocrisy and lies are deemed traitors and illegally imprisoned (manning). At least the Chinese people knew that their government monitored online information. The power in China may be undemocratic but in some aspects the government more transparent its actions. The West simply denies and hides its hideous face by persecuting whistleblowers and those with enough decency to attempt an honest debate.
