Democracy: An improv performance requiring audience participation

This post is published the day after the May 29th Alberta election, so that province will have chosen, via the ballot box, which direction to take into the future. I’ll leave that there, as pundits, smarter and better connected than I, will assess the ramifications of the choice the citizens have made. But (my home province) Manitoba’s own election expected in October this year and our US neighbours’ in November next year have me thinking about democracy, community and service.

Call me naive, but I think of democracy as an exciting concept that equates to ‘community service’ writ large and woven into the systems and structures that support the people who live in that democracy. For this concept to fly, democracy must be fuelled by citizen engagement, because when individuals withdraw from that engagement, democracy is weakened. And when democracy is weakened, opportunity is strengthened for those who seek power rather than connection and service. (The daily news is filled with evidence of precisely this.)

In my view, citizen engagement means voting in every single election. It means being even modestly aware of the issues driving the politics of the day. It means answering the door when your local candidates come knocking and being civil to them regardless of their party affiliation. It also means knowing your neighbours and cultivating a sphere of health and safety beyond the circle of your own family and household. In short, it means being aware that you are not an island, not a solo artist: that you are a member of a larger entity called a community. 

Democracy is big and often messy and unruly and loud, and I’ll take all that and every difference thrown into the mix if it means I have the option to cast my vote for someone who shares my vision of my neighbourhood, my city, my province, and my country as a place where we can each pursue our lives with the safety net of a healthy community to celebrate us, and of systems and structures that serve to support us.

Like the smartest most effective improv performance, democracy means “yes and” (expansive), not “yes but” (restrictive), with the best suggestions coming from an audience fully engaged in the collaborative creative effort unfolding in real time in front of our eyes. 

NOTE: My bona fides for this opinion is based on my own experience running for office at (only) the university student union level and on my more recent experiences of knocking on doors for my local candidates. 

..............................................................................................................

To receive my weekly blogpost in your inbox, email fiveyearsawriter at gmail dot com. Simply put SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. 

Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo by Fatih on Unsplash