Hypocracy^[1] is understood as a so called democratic government in which hypocrisy rule i.e. the ruling party/individuals does not keep on what is being promised and/or told.

Iran:

A thirty years ago “Khomeini” claimed that everything is going to be free of charge from public transportation to tap water if an Islamic state establishes. He promised freedom of speech and assured that Hijab is not mandatory (see picture).
He, the trustee of people, gained the ruling power of the country and within the very first years of revolution many were made to migrate from Iran, many were arrested and many were executed. The executions reached its peak at 1988, not even a decade after establishment of a totalitarian state under Islam’s name.

A thirty years later people queued desperately at polling places (even outside Iran) to cast their votes with slightest glimmer of hope to elect a new president who made the promise of “Freedom”. The elections led to bloody clashes between people and security guards, police and Basidj paramilitary forces. A large number of opponents of the regime including many students had to leave the country and seek safety abroad. Those arrested faced harsh prison times, torture and even cases of sexual abuse were reported^[2].

United States:

2009: Barack H. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize and at his lecutre he stated:

America’s commitment to global security will never waver. But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace. This is true in Afghanistan

Short after that more troops were sent to Afghanistan to secure the region and in hope of putting an end to this 9 year old war. A while after civilians were “mistakenly” killed by NATO troops.

Hillary Clinton in his speech on “Internet Freedom” in Jan. 2010 commented:

We are reinvigorating the Global Internet Freedom Task Force as a forum for addressing threats to Internet freedom around the world, and urging U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments’ demands for censorship and surveillance.

Without considering that “Deep Packet Inspection” (a technology which is claimed to be sold by Nokia-Siemens Networks to Iranian government) is being also used in U.S.A. (for more see here)
Forgetting about the Yahoo! scandal which led to imprisoning and torturing a number of Chinese activists. Ignoring the fact that the website of a group of Iranian hackers known as “Iranian Cyber Army” -which hacked Twitter, Baidu, and some politically motivated Iranian websites- is being currently hosted on Yahoo! servers.

A countless number of such speeches and promises can be found throughout the history and they all share one common characteristic: being successful in uniting masses of people -even with various opinions and point of views- however based on empty words.

We are all familiar with this trick, we don’t even listen to what is being said by politicians! nevertheless they are our politicians, they got our vote of confidence (one way or another) and these are the ones in charge of decision making.

Iran and United States were chosen here as examples of two countries which on one hand have very different governmental structures and on the other hand both follow populism^[3].

Civil Society

Political structures are nowadays so complicated which makes it hard to follow and understand and as side effect unattractive for majority of people. A presidential election every four years (or similar, depending on country of residence) would be the most political activity one may be involved in and a decision based upon empty words and promises and what is being broadcast by mainstream media would not be a correct one.

One way to be involved and to get others involved in politics is to join grassroots, NGOs and to empower a civil society. One may underestimate the influential and success of such organizations and movements but at this point a brief look at the history of “Amnesty International” highlights the importance of such social bodies. The goal is to inform and take action.

Another way would be Civil Disobedience, which is defined,inter alia, by John Rawls as:

civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies^[4]

For example Ghandi’s movement in India can be categorized as civil disobedience, which had great success and contributed to independence of India.

According to political climate of one country, different approaches may be chosen in order to make political changes. It is just a matter of readiness of people to take part in different forms of action.

---

[1]: Adapted from Urban Dictionary. ^

[2]: more stories on: ^

• Human Rights Watch
• Guardian
• BBC News

[3]: The word “Populism” doesn’t have a generally accepted academic definition. The definition of “Cambridge Online Dictionary” as political ideas and activities that are intended to represent ordinary people’s needs and wishes can best represent of what is meant in this article. It is to consider that it is intended to represent wishes and it does not necessarily fulfill those needs and wishes. ^

[4] adapted from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ^