Being a Global Citizen & an Arising Global Conciousness
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc upon the global community, it is an undeniable fact that we must reflect upon events that arose as a result. With the beginning of a new era for humanity, there have been drastic changes as to how we go about our daily lives. A small one per se is wearing a mask whilst going outside and having to constantly cling to bottles of hand sanitizer after performing traditionally basic tasks such as opening a door or carrying grocery bags. Although they might seem like small changes for many, it would be wrong of us to overlook how a medically proven fact such as the importance of wearing a mask over one’s face has caused national uproars in some parts of the world.
In my country, Turkey, there is a national consciousness that welcomes and accepts the notion that the government makes decisions for the prosperity of its people and that questioning that governments’ actions is not only foolish but is cause for accusations of disobedience. As a result, when our government told people to wear masks and maintain social distancing, although we lapsed and it took us some time to adjust, there was never — and to this day there isn’t — any form of anti-mask policy movement. Unfortunately, it is not possible to say the same for other countries that are relatively to the west compared to us. Before the pandemic, although being interested in western culture and history, my understanding of western-style democracy and society could be summed up as “perfectly functioning democracies with constitutionally strengthened freedoms.” However, as the pandemic evolved and face mask policies were globally enacted and endorsed by trusted govt. institutions, I couldn’t be more wrong. The myriad of freedom that I saw as the west, had been ironically poisoned by its own antidote. We observed widespread protests against “government overreach” and for “personal freedoms.”
After I saw how the same policy could be interpreted in such polar-opposite perspectives, my understanding of what democracy truly meant also shifted. It was the blatant representation of how the “freedom” to express one’s thoughts could backfire and cause societal unrest.
The Turkish youth often voice their discontent for the lack of freedoms in Turkey and how western-style freedoms are not being implemented more abundantly in a secular republic such as ours. But as we saw from the example of anti-mask movements, the real question is: How much freedom is too much freedom? This was the question that sparked in my mind pursuant to said movement. As aforementioned, we didn’t have such problems due to our way of viewing our state and government but as points of view can differ from one side to the other, it is not possible to say the same thing for other parts of the world.
As we are going through a once in a century occurrence, there is one simple take I can make regarding global systems and the fight for functioning democracies: the constitutionally expressed and protected rights of peoples that ensure expression shall not be repressed, to the extent that misinformation does not jam the wheels of society. However, this also gives rise to an even broader debate as to whether governments can be trusted with such powers to suppress expression in the name of tackling misinformation.
In the end, I can sum up my views regarding the importance of being a global citizen that advocates for having and maintaining democratic republics that ensure free expression and filtering of misinformation through strong laws with one famous quote: “A republic, If you can keep it.”
