What do you feel are some of the problems about how the Mall Rats make decisions?
Dwayne Cameron: “Well of course the majority could be wrong but this doesn’t happen often”.
Victoria Spence: “You’ll always have problems when people don’t get their way”.
Ashwath Sundaresan (DAL): “They argue a lot”.
Ella Wilks: “Maybe younger kids shouldn’t have the same say as older kids because they might not fully understand what’s happening and what the problem is”.
Jaimee Kaire-Gautalu “It can lead to disappointment”.
How do other Mall Rats feel about democracy?
Victoria Spence on Salene: “Salene’s a bit of a sheep. All she needs is a bit of convincing to make up her mind. But she’s more on the same wavelength as Bray and Amber with goodwill to all”.
Ashwath Sundaresan on Dal: “My character Dal agrees with his best mate Amber”.
Ella Wilks on Danni: “Danni is very like Amber and Bray in these areas. She totally believes in democracy”.
Jaimee Kaire-Gautalu on Chloe: “Chloe is happy to go along with how the majority feels”.
Michelle Ang on Tai-San: “Tai-San disagrees with democracy. She believes people should make their own decisions and follow their own path. If she disagrees with a decision she often does not help support it”.
Agree with me or else…
Some Tribes do not believe in democracy – perhaps most notably the Locos. Instead, they feel the strongest should take what they like and rule over others because they can, being more powerful than others.
Daniel James says “Zoot does not in any way believe in democracy and I think he is the kind of person that would say “mate, it’s my way, or the highway”
The Chosen are also against democracy. Forget everyone having a say in decisions – their preference is for a society where people worship Zoot and live according to what they feel are Zoot’s principles. If a decision needs to be made on something, the Chosen feel that Brady, the Supreme Mother or the Guardian should make that decision according to what Zoot would want – and everyone else has to follow it. Those who disagree with the Chosen are “non-believers” of Zoot.
Democracy – sort of…
Others might believe in democracy for some of the time when it suits their interests – but when they can’t get what they want through democracy, they will try other methods to influence events.
Lex is like this. He is quite happy to go along with democracy and the votes of a group if the group votes for what Lex wants to happen.
But at other times, Lex might find the majority will vote for something Lex is against – and when this happens, Lex sometimes manipulates democracy. When the Mall Rats had a leadership election in episode 12 and 13, Lex believed that Amber would be the runaway winner of the election. So he tried to bribe and threaten Ryan, Paul, Zandra and others into voting for him as leader. When the time came for the vote itself, Lex cheated by trying to fix the ballot and cast several votes in favour of himself instead of one.
Amber is aghast at Lex’s efforts to influence democracy this way. She strongly believed that “democracies need defending” and that everyone should have a fair and equal say in making decisions – that’s the only way to make a fair and equal society.