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| Photo: Maria Vlachou |
This year, I had the opportunity to spend three days at FOLIO – Óbidos International Literary Festival. I attended, among other things, the launch of “Voltas e Reviravoltas - A Cidadania”, by Ana Maria Magalhães and Isabel Alçada, with illustrations by Mantraste. This is the second of 12 books in the children's collection “Missão: Democracia” (Mission: Democracy), an initiative of the Portuguese Parliament, curated by Dora Batalim SottoMayor.
At this event, Isabel Alçada said that, for young people today, democracy is as natural as turning on the tap and water coming out. I wrote this statement down in my notebook. It caused me a certain discomfort at that time and I later returned to it on several occasions. Because, from an empirical point of view, I don't see anything like that around me. Because the opposite of political repression is not necessarily a democracy of quality, a healthy democracy, a democracy as natural as water coming out of the tap.
What I see, first and
foremost, around me are adults. Adults who censor themselves so as not to
displease their superiors or people in their circle. I see adults, who are those
“superiors”, expecting obedience and submission, actively combating the
critical spirit. Adults who are not bothered, do not feel that the
discrimination experienced daily by other people concerns them, because they do
not feel it in their own skin. Adults who educate younger people recommending
self-censorship, submission, indifference and… “moderation”. This was the word
I heard most about young climate activists. I therefore doubt that democracy is
as natural as turning on the tap and water coming out. I also doubt that the
majority of us – adults and, consequently, non-adults too – are aware of the requirements
that a democracy of quality, a healthy democracy, brings for citizens.
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| Photo: FOLIO |
This is what my
empirical knowledge tells me. But there are more scientific data too. I
recently read an article entitled “Democracy in trouble, stagnant at
best, and declining in many places”. It presented the latest report from the Swedish think
tank IDEA - International Institute for
Democracy and Electoral Assistance. IDEA bases its indices on more than 100 variables
related to political issues, including representation, rights, rule of law and
participation. What does the 2023 report tell us?
- That 85 of the 173
countries surveyed had “suffered a decline in at least one key indicator of
democratic performance in the past five years.”
- That, for the sixth
consecutive year, half of the world's countries slid backwards on indicators
such as freedom of expression and political participation.
- That the six-year fall is the longest period of democratic backsliding since records began in 1975.
These results are not a
surprise. And, despite Europe being named as the highest performing region in
democratic terms, setbacks were recorded both in younger democracies (e.g.
Hungary) and in other, more established ones (e.g. the United Kingdom).
At the end of October,
I had the privilege of attending the meeting in Lisbon of the European project Future of Europe for Public
Libraries. Its objective is
to build a network of public libraries across Europe, the Lighthouse Libraries,
to participate in European Union policies and initiatives on topics such as the
digital, sustainability and democracy. At the beginning of the first day, we
heard the director of the magnificent Aarhus Public Library (Denmark), Marie
Østergaard, talk about her library's public programmes, which look at public
participation as democratic infrastructure. Her colleague Asmund Bertelsen
introduced us to the programme “Democracy Fitness”, which aims to exercise the “muscles” of democracy:
mobilisation, compromise, active listening, empathy, disagreement, activism,
verbal confidence, curiosity, courage, opinion. The programme acknowledges that
we need to daily train our capabilities for living in democracy – reminding us
of Martha Nussbaum, who in her book “Cultivating Humanity” writes that “freedom
of thought and human dignity are capabilities to be developed in order to
produce free citizens, citizens who are free not because of wealth or birth,
but because they can call their minds their own.” Therefore, democracy is not
as natural as we would like for human nature. You need to train in order to
know how to defend and protect it.
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| Slide from Asmund Bertelsen's presentation. |
In her presentation,
Marie Østergaard explained that two of the main objectives of the AarhusLlibrary's
public programmes are to cultivate trust in the system and democratic
self-confidence. In other words, they want younger people to be able to
understand that their opinion matters and that it will be worth participating
and getting involved. Something that also made me think about what many young
people are seeing around them. There is no shortage of adults with opinions and
self-confidence, but what good is this in the face of the arrogance and lack of
democratic sense of many politicians? We have politicians who are too
comfortable in their power, used to subservience (or demanding it), convinced
that citizens exist to serve them and not the other way around. All too often,
this reality makes people question whether it is worth voting, whether it is
worth participating, whether this will ever change.
I thought about these
questions again when I read the last paragraph in today's article by Alexandra Lucas Coelho, about the situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian
territories. It is with this paragraph that I will conclude my text:
“Israel must be
isolated as an apartheid state, investigated for war crimes, in light of
international and humanitarian law. Subject to economic and political
sanctions, in addition to citizen boycott. Not remaining powerless also means
questioning those who govern: António Costa, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the Portuguese
Parliament, the European Union. People are protesting as best they can. And those
who represent them? Prove that democracy exists, that it is still worth voting,
that human rights belong to everyone. Live up to the life that comes from Gaza,
and each minute we don’t know whether it will continue.”
Let’s live up to it…
More readings:
Freedom
for what? Culture for what?
Special thanks to:
Lisbon Libraries
CRID – Centre for the
Rehabilitation and Integration of the Disabled, Leiria Polytechnic Institute
DGLAB – General-Directorate
for Books, Archives and Libraries
Municipality of Óbidos
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