Democracy is a lifestyle!

This article is not dangerous. Contain only 1343 words and if you invest 10 minutes of your life you will find answers on next questions: What is Education for democratic citizenship? What is politics? What is democracy? What is community organizing?

When I started to write this article a lot of questions came in my mind such as: Why young people don’t vote in Serbia (only 10%)? What is Brexit? What will happen after Brexit? What is purpose of election process? What is purpose of democracy? Unfortunately, I don’t have time now to answer on all those questions and I will focus on fundamental question: What is Democracy for?

People different react and answer on this question. According to philosopher Walter Bryce Gallie democracy is like “art” and “education” an example of “essentially contested concept”. In other words it means different things to different people according to their cultural values and how they view related issues like ethnicity, gender, poverty and social class. In order to establish shared understanding before we go on I will say couple words about the terms: politics, democracy and community organizing.

Politics (power play and problem solving) is all about people not about politician. That is process where organized group of people try to find solutions for their problems in their community. Rolf Gollob, during the Module about EDC and Human Rights here in Swityerland, rightly pointed out 4 important elements of a politics:

1. Conflict (conflict of interests, resources and power. We would watch on conflict like an opportunity for society to “grow up”)

2. Interests (what is behind? If we want to find solution we have to understand other side, their needs and interests)

3. Shortage of resources (if we have access to resources politics is not needed, but real life is little different. Is it not?)

4. Influence and power (for example: lobbying is a billion-euro industry in Brussels. Every corporation has their own office in capital city of Europe. According to Corporate Europe Observatory, a watchdog campaigning for greater transparency, there are at least 30,000 lobbyists in Brussels, nearly matching the 31,000 staff employed by the European commission. I wonder why?)

Democracy (check and balance) is all about balance between two P. Between People and Power. According to Abraham Lincoln democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people. For the better understanding I will use Rolf Gollob explanations of those three definitions:

• “of”: Power comes from people: the people are sovereign power that exercises power or gives mandate to do so

• “by”: Power is exercised through elected representatives or direct rule by citizens

• “for”: Power exercised to serve the interests of the people, i.e. the common good

Also I want here to introduce and 6 core elements of democracy:

1. Election (through this process citizens delegate their power to politicians)

2. Parliament (there is sometimes confusion between roles of Parliament and government. Both have important powers, but each is responsible for different areas in democracy. Parliament is place where parliamentarians represent interest of citizens. They are in charge for approving and changing the country’s laws)

3. Government (collective group of people that exercises executive authority in a state)

4. Opposition (is all about balance, good opposition check and control government )

5. Separation of power (is very well when all “interests” in the state have appropriate represents in the Parliament)

6. Constitutional state (mean that is exercise of governmental power is constrained by the law)

Community organizing is a process where group of people come together into an organization that acts in their shared interest. That is method of changing power relations in society. As Predrag Stojicic point out every citizen always have three choices:

1. To accept the situation as it is. (to suffer)

2. To pray for those who have the power to solve their problem.

3. Accept the responsibility and to act. To get up for own rights and organize the people “around” who have similar problem because only together they have chance to make a change.

According to Marshall Ganz community organizing method approaching leadership as a practice, not leadership as a position…It’s about accepting responsibility for enabling others to achieve purpose under conditions of uncertainty. In that context I just want to point out that is community strong if citizens know how to solve their problems in their society.

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“In democratic countries, knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835.

Before I shared with you my point of view about what is democracy for, I just want to shortly jump on the island. Hot topic! If we watch this statistic data below, from the UK’s EU referendum, we can realized that YES comes from people who are 50+. That is a sad fact. If we watch the last column we can see interesting data – youth people, from 18 until 24 years, will live with BREXIT next 69 years, in average, although they didn’t vote for that decision.

Nigel Farage, man who campaigned for Britain to leave the EU, left the sinking Brexit ship. Speaking at a press conference in Westminster on Monday, he said: “During the referendum I said I wanted my country back … now I want my life back.” What can we say now. Thank you mister Nigel. Nice job! I am not expert but in my opinion Brexit is clear example how “behind interests” and politicians manipulate with people. I don’t have time to explain why is Brexit possible in UK. Instead of that I will pass the floor to experts.

For our story is time to jump on the Moon. View on the global village is much better, but image is not good! We live in uncertain times and our world is facing with different challenges such as: ethnic conflict and nationalism, natural disasters, developments in new technology, neglect, insufficient resources, population movements, mistrust of traditional institution, unemployment and so on. Now and here I just want to emphasize that is quality and relevance of education most important challenge of our world. Only education can prevent new Brexit or new Reich! We can notice that international community is calling an education that will help resolve emerging global challenges. According to that UNESCO made global citizenship education GCE as a one of key education objectives for the next period (2014 – 2021). Life is a very simple if we know HOW TO solve problems. All solutions lay in education.

Community organizing and Education for democracy citizenship prepares citizens HOW TO:

• Act

• Take responsibility in their society, and on the end

• Achieve a freedom.

Democracy is a process and it can’t be learned on the one class. We have to learn about democracy again, again and again. Democracy is lifestyle. Our Culture. And FREEDOM.