What Is Democracy?
According to the Cambridge dictionary, democracy is the belief in freedom and equality between people.
I believe in freedom and equality. I believe in a democratic society represented by strong, smart, and morally devoted elected officials, who honor the constitution and serve the people. Democracy is what allows us the freedom to show up and voice our opinion, the freedom to move, to not live in fear, and to keep our families safe.
I don’t take it for granted.
I’m Barbara Bergren, author of Witness For My Father. My nonfiction book was published one year ago on January 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. As the daughter of Holocaust survivor Martin Weigen (born Mieczyslaw Wajgenszperg), I’m keenly aware of how one man moved passed horrific trauma and loss to build a future.
Stateless, Martin was determined to get to America, and worked for over ten years to get the proper papers to enter this country. Why? Because he believed in America, he believed in freedom, and he believed in democracy. Martin knew first-hand the conditions of a country that took away all civil liberties and dehumanized their people. Led by a fascist, a believer in nation and race over individuals, he and his followers deemed their race superior to all others. Martin was orphaned by this regime that inflicted fear, and enslaved anyone who disagreed with their views. That racist ideology murdered over eleven million people, six million of them were Jews. Three of them were Martin’s father, mother, and younger sister.
His dream to get to a free country, to a democratic society, was born out of his time spent with an American army troop. After Dad was liberated from the Dachau concentration camp at sixteen, he was nurtured back to health by a segregated black troop led by lieutenant John L. Withers. A troop that understood discrimination, and after WWII would themselves return home to Jim Crow laws enforcing racial segregation in the American South.
America fought hard. Martin Luther King was a beacon, a leader to support Civil Rights-equal access to housing, education and work. People of many races supported the equal rights movement, but it took a long time. It wasn’t until 1964 that the Civil Rights Act came into law, ending the Jim Crow era.
We must not take it for granted.
We are living through a historic January! The Covid pandemic is raging, death counts have surged, and we recently witnessed an insurrection on our Capitol, on our democracy…perpetrated by some of our own! We have honored Martin Luther King, and we have watched the inauguration of our new President, President Biden. And he began the hard work to heal our nation on day one. This month has seen it all!
One of my favorite Beatle’s songs was performed the evening of the Presidential inauguration, “Here Comes the Sun.” It truly does seem like years since it’s been here. I don’t know about you, but I want to work together to honor and respect our civil liberties, rejoice in our democracy, and support equal justice for all. We are stronger together, but we must always remember to keep an open mind, to listen to our neighbors, and to remember the power that come through acts of kindness.
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes…
