The Quest For A Perfect Democracy

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In a few days the World Forum for Democracy will open its doors. While the keynote speakers and Labs do their last preparations, Team Boomerang talked to Irena Guidikova, the main organizer of the Forum. We confronted her with the question about a perfect democracy.

Perfect democracy, a Utopia?

Well, there is no such thing as a perfect democracy; Irena replied. But what I would like to see is more crowdsourcing in political decision-making. Politics are way too abstract for the man in the street. We should invest more in decision making on a local level and make the people feel concerned about what is going on there. Local representatives should work for the future of their community and welcome grassroots initiatives that start at the bottom and include all citizens.

To be more concrete, the problem of nowadays society is, that young people living in Germany or France feel like they suffer from too much democracy. In the meanwhile people in other parts of the world have to fight for making their voice heard in politics. “You have young people as actors struggling for democratization or you have young people disillusioned and not wanting to engage”.

So we were asking: Can youth revitalize democracy?

The answer was a clear YES. Youth has the power of innovation and new, creative ideas. However, they are left out from the process of real participation and do not have a run in the game. Here, the World Forum for Democracy comes into play:

In the first week of November Strasbourg will be the place where different groups come together to talk about how youth can make a change in Democracy. On the one hand, politicians from all over the world will be there, sharing their experiences and knowledge. On the other hand, the Forum  invites grassroots organizations to present their projects, and explain how they will attract young people to participate in democracy.

Prototype your future!

Next to the lab presentations, 250 young people are already working online to create their perfect democracy prototypes. We can expect big things! A totem which illustrates their perfect idea of democracy might show up some time around the Forum days. Furthermore, an unconference, where groups will discuss topics as “Can you impose democracy with force?” will take place.

We are looking forward to the Forum days and expect very interesting projects and surprises to happen.

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