Rule 4: Governments do not represent the people

In life and in politics, it’s dangerous to oversimplify the complex world we live in.

The devil is in the details — and if you lose sight of them, you lose sight of the real situation. Political scientists oversimplify the world in many ways, but one of the worst is describing a country and its people in the light of its government’s actions.

There is an unfortunate truth in that many people who discuss politics will take the actions of a particular government and equate them to the people.

This black and white view of the world, the “us versus them” mentality, causes all kinds of political miscalculations, which result in terrible consequences for the lives of people.

Some people take it as far as associating a nationality with the government’s policies. For example, some may think because people are Chinese, they must be freedom-hating, commie comrades. And if they are from Saudi Arabia, surely they must view women as property.

Some clearly make the mistake of transposing the will of a government to the will of an individual. For politicians to do this and then base foreign policy decisions off these notions causes even greater issues — issues that can spawn international conflict.

The truth remains that these individuals are diverse and cannot be summarized by their government’s actions. Many of these issues are too political for the individual citizen to invest interest in; thus, many politicians have free reign when it comes to international diplomacy. The truth is most people don’t invest themselves into the complexities of governments’ policies; most humans have normal hobbies. The majority of people of the world are not overzealous, extremist or otherwise violent. People generally just want to live happy lives, maybe do some good for the world — certainly not conquer it. While governments are supposed to be accurate representations of the people, they oftentimes do not reflect their full interests.

As seen clearly in democracy, much of the time the minority party is silenced on the international scene as the majority party conducts diplomacy. In autocratic governments, it’s even truer that these governments’ actions do not reflect the true will of the people.

Thus, never take international policy as a standard for judging individuals or groups of populations.

“OK, fine Matt,” you might say. “But what’s the big deal?”

The big deal is we make decisions that affect those people based on their government’s actions.

The big deal is we impose sanctions on Iran and its people based on what Ahmadinejad, Khamenei and a few other old Iranian men do. The big deal is we invaded the country of Iraq partially based on the terrors committed by Saddam Hussein.

There is a fine line between an issue with a government and an issue with a people. While it is true sometimes to end the atrocities committed by government, there must be use of force that affects both the people and the government.

Sometimes, we need to go to war to stop the Nazi Germanys of the world

But more often than not, there are several other political mechanisms and actions in place to foil the efforts of governments without foiling the people of the nation. Supporting opposition movements, applying international political pressure and even aiding the people of a nation can sometimes undermine the efforts of corrupt governments.

Overall in politics it’s important to remember when making political decisions that the people are a separate entity from the government that represents them.

Though the government may have meant harm and perhaps deserves reprimand, the people remain a separate matter. Take to heart that all of us are one of the same, even under the guise of differing governmental rule.


E-mail: mdshowal@indiana.edu