the far away lands: Everybody Get Up And Vote!

Now, I don’t want to sound like some kind of condescending jerk, but I sincerely hope that all of you that are eligible to vote in the upcoming New Zealand elections have enrolled to vote. Even and especially those of you who, like me, will not be home when the elections are held (in case you’ve been hiding under a rock – Saturday 26 November, 2011). If you are overseas, you need to make sure that you are still enrolled in NZ and that the electoral office knows where you are, because you will need to cast a special early vote. And if you are not from NZ – I hope you vote in your elections when they come around.

Why am I telling you this? Well, being allowed to vote is something that has always been pretty important to me. I remember when I turned 18, heaps of my friends saying things like “oh it’s great, now you can drink!” Well, I didn’t care that much about that because fake ID’s had been letting me do that for years. No, finally being given the right to vote was the most exciting thing about turning 18 for me. Finally being recognised as a citizen of my country whose opinion mattered. The year I turned 18 just happened to be an election year, and I vividly remember the 17^th of September 2005, walking down to my former primary school to cast my first ever vote. The process wasn’t that exciting, as I’m sure you know, but the concept was.

So, back to the question, why am I telling you this? Well, most of the people I work with have never voted in their lives. The clinic I work at is full of literally hundreds and thousands (over 150 000 patients per year) of people that have been denied the right to choose the government that decides their future. And the results of this denial are catastrophic. The Burmese “government” spends exponentially more on its military than it does on health care and education (the official figures are something around 28% vs 0.9% and 1.1% ish respectively), oh, and Burma is not at war with any external enemies.

Burma had a brief taste of democracy after it gained independence from Britain, this democracy only lasted from 1948 – 1962, at which point “General” Ne Win staged an epoch-marking military coup, taking over the country. In 1988 there was a massive student-led uprising in the country against the military junta that had oppressed its people for over three decades. This was the time in which the founder of my work, the Mae Tao Clinics’Dr Cynthia, fled across the border into Thailand with thousands of others, as the “government” retaliated violently and without compassion.

Eventually, in May 1990, the “government” allowed the first free elections in over thirty years. The National League for Democracy (NLD), Daw Aung San SuuKyi’s party, won a landslide 80% of the vote. The “government”, however, annulled the results of these elections and very soon after made it illegal to be a member of the NLD, imprisoned most of its elected MPs (Burma still has a huge number of political prisoners), and so began Aung San Suu Kyi’s first long period of house arrest. And the “government” continued to oppress, imprison, torture, rape and generally terrify its population. In 2007 there was another fairly significant uprising, dubbed the “SaffronRevolution” because it was started by monks (in the tiny town of Pakokku that I visited in July). Once again, thousands of people were killed and imprisoned and the uprising was a failure. Finally, on the 7^th of November 2010, the regime decided to allow elections once more, however, these election have been widely condemned by the international community as a sham: neither free nor representative, and accusations of rampant fraud by the “government” are generally accepted (they “won” 80% of the vote). Yet this new and “elected” “government” continues to rule with terror, systematically oppressing its people and violating a host of international humanitarian laws including such atrocities as using rape as a weapon of war, and flagrant use of landmines.

So, back to my original point. I really hope that you are all enrolled to vote, and that, when the time comes, you embrace your right to choose the government that leads the nation you come from. There is a massive culture of apathy towards voting in NZ, especially amongst the younger generations. Many people think that their vote doesn’t count for anything, so who cares? But you know what, it actually does count. Every single vote counts. And if you really don’t care, and you don’t agree with any Party, then vote “no confidence”. This way, you are still exercising your right to vote. We don’t know how lucky we are to come from a country that is truly democratic. And in my opinion: if you don’t vote, I’d better not hear you complaining about ANYTHING that the next government does.

Show your respect for all those around the world that are denied this fundamental right, but exercising your right. There are people that would literally kill for the rights we ignore or don’t care about. Please enrol, and please vote.

As Aung San Suu Kyi has famously stated: "Please use your liberty to promote ours". Don't be a dickhead. Vote.

Plus, if you do, these very cool dudes will think you are rad: