Types of Gov’t, Issues, Perspectives
a)Power of the Gov’t:
Libertarian- strong feelings toward freedom of speech; police should not have much power; pro-individualism- the individual is most important, not the overall society; less laws, less gov’t control eg. U.S.-democracy, constitutional monarchy
Centrist- it allows for a certain amount of gov’t control so there are a number of laws to keep order but not so much that people have no rights of freedom eg. Canada, western Europe, democracy, constitutional monarchy
b)Authoritarian (dictatorship)-gov’t has a lot of control over the people; no freedom of speech, religion, movement; the gov’t uses the police to hurt and threaten the people; brainwashing of the government’s good deeds will be practised eg. North Korea, apartheid S.Africa, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Iran, absolute monarchy
Economic perspectives (gov’t control of):
a)Right wing: the belief that all people must earn their money on their own; it is called “survival of the fittest”- if you can make it through hard work, great but the gov’t should not be helping you too much; there should be no free health care, welfare, or other group benefits for the poor eg. U.S. , Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, - pure capitalism
b)Centrist- a mix of capitalism and socialism where the people have to make it on their own but also get help from the gov’t
eg. Canada, Sweden, U.K., France, Australia, Italy
c)Left wing- the gov’t provides most things such as jobs, housing, health care; this is communism; gov’t tells the people what jobs they must have which takes away their freedom; all people get paid the same eg. Communist Russia, China (Mao), North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba,
Media bias- the obvious political view of a media outlet whether radio, newspapers, tv, internet or other so as to influence listeners and viewers to follow their way of thinking. Media bias is found for both left and right ways of thinking and with public and private broadcasters. It can easily lead people to believe in one point of view without questioning the source since they believe that media is supposedly neutral and therefore is telling the truth when in fact the ‘facts’ may be skewed. Eg. Fox News is well known to be in favour of the conservative ideology and will present news as fact but is often propaganda against left-thinking people
Propaganda- this is information expressed by a government or political party whereby they attempt to direct, focus or even brainwash people into believing their point of view with the use of radio, posters, tv and internet and often the information is inaccurate, exaggerated or absolutely untrue.
Eg. Hitler was able to invent many types of propaganda to get the German people to believe in his ideas including anti-Semetism
Stephen Harper puts up attack ads about the opposition using his own interpretation of their abilities or intentions such as saying that Michael Ignatieff is not a true Canadian
Activist- a person who wants to help their own country with changes in ideas, actions, laws or government and is willing to fight against the government at their own risk for a more positive change. The person tries to get their own message out to the masses of people who may otherwise only follow the ideas of a government out of fear or lack of knowledge about the truth of justice.
Eg. Ninoy Aquino in the Philippines and later his wife, Cory by fighting against the brutal and corrupt Ferdinand Marcos
Steven Biko of South Africa who directly spoke out against apartheid, white colonialism and racism and encouraged the black youth of the 1970’s to feel proud of themselves as black South Africans against the oppression of the white South African government
Ideology- the belief in how a country should be ruled using either communism, capitalism/democracy or a mix of both, economically and politically. This determined how a government would organize its people and whether they would have human rights or not. It was also the cause of the Cold War from 1946-1991 since the countries with opposite ideologies could not agree with each other and tried to influence other countries
Eg. Communist ideology in the USSR, China, Cuba and Vietnam determined how people were to live while capitalism/democracy also determined how people in western Europe, North America, Japan and Australiasia also were to live
Collateral damage- this is the damage done to innocent people who are near any conflict and have no control over the events that take place but still suffer the consequences. This is especially true during any war when older people, children, women and other innocents may get killed, injured or have their homes destroyed by being situated in the middle of a battle zone.
Eg. Civilians who have been killed for many years in Afghanistan, Pakistan during different wars, presently in Libya during the conflict there, any terror attack victims,
Apartheid- the separation of the races in South Africa by law from 1948 to 1994. It included many laws which separated Africans, Europeans, mixed and Asian populations from each other and gave to the European or white race the greatest advantages in terms of education, health care, homes, jobs, public facilities. Black people were not allowed to vote until 1994 when Nelson Mandela became the first black president. The education system was made so that black people were given an inferior education compared to whites and Asians leading to economic segregation along with physical segregation. It was ended with the effort of Mandela to work with the last all white government to achieve racial equality after much fighting over 40 years.
Psychological colonialism- the taking over of one’s way of thinking toward one’s own culture or race “why are white people so smart and black people are dumb’’ –Lesotho student in 1993- white European culture made black Africans to believe they were inferior by giving them an inferior education in S. Africa.
Black Consciousness- Steve Biko’s philosophy was to encourage African people with positive ways of thinking about their skin colour- to feel proud of their African heritage and to not let the white racist government take away from their positive accomplishments; to enable black people to question how they are viewed by the white population and change their own way of thinking that they are inferior in ideas to anyonelse; it was a very effective and positive movement which helped Africans to rise up and fight against the white racist government though he was killed before he could see the ending of apartheid