Listen up America, the best way to honor the innocent victims of Sept. 11 is not with made-for-TV specials and self-serving political rhetoric. The best way is to show the world that we take seriously our status as the longest continuous democracy, by thronging to the polls on Nov. 5 and voting.
Since 1945, U.S. voter turnout in federal elections ranks 139th among the world's 172 democracies with 48.3 percent of those eligible actually taking the trouble to vote. That's according to Sweden's Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, which ranks Italy first with a 92.5 percent turnout.
A laundry list of other nations stands between us and the top - including many that most Americans would be hard put to identify. One of the most obscure - the Seychelles, a small group of islands in the Indian Ocean northeast of Madagascar - ranks second in voting enthusiasm at 90.5 percent.
Gravely intoned speeches and profound observations by politicians, celebrities and commentators will dominate the airwaves this Sept. 11.
They'll reverberate from the World Trade Center site in New York, from outside the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., and from the still woods in western Pennsylvania where the fourth hijacked airliner crashed. And those words will be echoed a hundred times over from other sites across America where people gather to grieve and rededicate themselves.
Yet it's unlikely the rest of the world will much note nor long remember those expressions of patriotism, as sincere and as heartfelt as they will be. But people everywhere will pay attention - and pause to ponder - if Americans march to the voting booths in record numbers on the first Tuesday in November.
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We can match our words with our deeds, by doing that. We cannot, after all, expect others to embrace democracy, unless we ourselves set a sterling example practicing it.
Among all forms of governments, democratic republics - or, if you prefer, republican democracies - require the most maintenance. And certainly they are the most fragile as well.
Consider that most of the humans who have lived on this small planet since recorded time have never lived fully free lives. Sadly, the majority of the earth's 6.2 billion people do not live in truly flourishing democracies even today.
Slavery still exists in Sudan and some other African countries. In far too many countries of the Arab world, women still are regarded as little more than chattels - vigilantly deprived of their basic rights.
How happy the oppressed of today's world would be to live in a nation governed by a freely elected president and legislature, with an independent judiciary that applies the rule of law rather than dictates it.
When Benjamin Franklin left Philadelphia's Independence Hall after the Constitution was adopted, he was asked what kind of government had been voted into place and he replied, "Gentlemen, you have a republic . if you can keep it."
Keeping a free government, of course, requires more than just voting once or twice a year. It requires participating in democratic forums all year round - in our schools, in our neighborhoods and in the larger communities surrounding them.
While the vast majority of Americans say they believe in a judicial system that starts with the presumption of innocence, in practice, far too many suggest this is merely lip service by using any excuse to avoid jury duty.
The mere thought of jury service, indeed, seems to send waves of fear and apprehension through most Americans. While less than 50 percent of the eligible electorate actually enters a voting booth, less than 25 percent of eligible jurors ever end up in a jury box.
The next time you look for an excuse to avoid jury duty, consider that in many countries today the alternative to a trial by one's peers is often a firing squad.
From all the media hype about special programs and special sections this Sept. 11, I've become convinced that we're about to be overwhelmed by banality - a sound and fury that, while signifying something, does not signify the right thing.
The right thing to do on Sept. 11, 2002, it seems to me is quietly reaffirm two of our major duties as citizens. Let's vote on Nov. 5 and let's serve on a jury if we're called. Those are among the best ways I can think of to show the world America's commitment to freedom still burns brightly.
by Kathy Read
Knight Ridder-Tribune
Kathy Read is former publisher of The Wilson Quarterly, the official journal of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Readers may write to her at P.O. Box 5925, Bethesda, Md. 20824.
