26^th Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities – 25 to 27 March 2014

Is there a real place for young people in local and regional democracy?

Statement by Adriana DELGADO, on-line youth activist, Portugal

I was invited to speak to you at this Congress as an online activist. Indeed, that describes much of why I do. I am part of the core group of activists helping with the No Hate Speech Movement, a campaign tackling online hate speech developed by the Council of Europe, aimed mainly at young people. I am also involved in a couple of other cross-platform projects that deal mostly with gender issues. The reason I chose to develop my activism online is that it enhances the impact of my actions: I can reach more people, and I can go beyond my contacts and the “friends of friends”. But being an online activist does not mean that I spend most of time behind a computer. In fact, and if there is anything I would like you to retain from my contribution it is this: online is mostly just an extension of what happens offline. While it may be useful to speak in terms of online and offline, the truth is that both are just different and complementary ways of doing what human beings love to do: communicate and participate. What the internet does is it replicates the logic of our everyday offline interactions, bringing it to a wider audience in shorter time.

Over the years I have on multiple occasions heard that youth nowadays is disengaged, at least in what politics are concerned. I don’t agree with this statement. It is perhaps true that young people make less use of the traditional methods of participation of our young democracies, such as voting and joining political parties, but that doesn’t mean that we are not interested in politics, that we are not active, that we don’t care. It just means we shifted in the means we use to make our voice heard. Even if some don’t feel represented by a party system, many still want to change the surrounding reality into one that is more just. New media might then be the chosen tool. It has proven useful in the building of synergies, and has opened up new possibilities.

Often we hear that the internet works as a big forum, a sort of a massive scale Agora where everyone has a say. I must confess I find this a rather naïve interpretation of the possibilities opened up by the internet. After all, what exactly are we talking about when we use terms like “e-participation” or “digital democracy”? What these terms refer to is the use of communication and information technologies in order to enhance and strengthen representative democracies. Technologies can then be used to (1) inform the public, (2) as a means of consultation or (3) as a method of participation. Concerning what brought me here, participation itself, it can assume a number of forms depending on its goal (Agenda-Setting, Analysis, Policy Creation, Implementation or Monitoring), but it is important to understand that in the end this e-participation takes place in dialogue with methods we already know, the offline ones. As I said before, the online sphere is an extension of the offline world.  Take online petitions, for instance. This tool has been around for a long time, the internet has only changed certain aspects of it: perhaps now it reaches more people, perhaps now it gathers crowds faster. Or perhaps now there are just more petitions, but they are atomized and disappear in the overflow of information. Perhaps only those with a good marketing strategy actually make it to public debate. There is a danger when dealing with the World Wide Web: more information, as we have learnt by now, does not mean better information, and this multiplication of participatory methods could just as well, if mismanaged, end up in barren initiatives of very limited impact; everyone shouting, no one hearing.

In my opinion, the best way to use new technologies for the benefit of democracy is to simply integrate them in a broader strategy. Apply offline logic online. E-participation doesn’t have to mean creating new projects that are totally online: a new cool website, an online forum, some new smartphone app to communicate what is wrong in your neighborhood. More than creating new spaces, you should go to where the people already are. Picture the internet as a city, or a village: if you want to reach lots of people, you go to the main square, or to the most popular café, but you don’t create a new pub in the outskirts of the town. The internet is much the same. We already know where people go to on a daily basis: we check our emails daily and we use social networks. Use these tools to strengthen the ties of your community and to spread the message. In essence, that is the greatest contribute that new technologies can bring to democracy, at least from what I have seen.

My experience in activism has taken place mostly at European level, so I don’t have any particularly great example of cooperation with local authorities that I have personally taken part in, but I have so far learnt of a few interesting experiences elsewhere, of which I will name two:

The first one has taken place in Helsinki, Finland, namely in the cool modern neighborhood of Kallio, and goes under the name of Kallio-Liike, or the Kallio Initiative. In short, it consists of a loosely structured community of people who live, work or simply hang out in Kallio, who seek to influence the city’s decision-making and to arouse public discourse on matters concerning the neighbourhood. Kallio-Liike has been behind a number of initiatives, such as the music festival Kallio Block Party or the Multicultural Hockey Night. New technologies come to play in this example in the sense that the community relies a lot on them to self-organize and to spread information about what they are doing.

My second example, in which new media plays a bigger role, is the Greek project City of Errors.

Still on the making, City of Errors intends to be a social network for civic engagement. Based in Athens, its main tool is, for the moment being, video, and they collect testimonials from citizens who tried to take action to improve their city. It is a participatory project that also tries to be a place for reflection. Just like Kallio-Liike, it relies on new media to spread do word, but it needs offline work within the community to work.

From my side, I have for some months now been involved in a project called the No Hate Ninjas, based in Portugal but developed within the No Hate Speech Movement. Started as an online initiative seeking to raise awareness to Human Rights online, we are now transitioning into offline activities in Lisbon, and have been in talks with the township in order to organize a small music festival that will also include street art, and to launch a Postalfree campaign.

For someone invited here to talk about digital democracy and online participation, my speech may seem a bit too focused on offline projects, and even perhaps outdated, but I don’t want to sell some naïve illusions of how the internet will change everything. I don’t think it will. In the end we are still human beings, and history has shown us that time may pass, but our struggles remain in essence the same.

For once, in the massive Agora, inequality is still a challenge. If it is true that, in theory, we all can make our voices heard on the internet, practice has proven that not all have the same access to it. Gender, ethnicity and income are still determinant factors.

Finally, the biggest challenge faced by democracies can’t be solved by technology alone, but only through education: we must foment a culture of citizenship, of critical thinking. The internet might represent a breath of fresh air, but it will mean nothing without education for participation, for democratic values, for human rights, or we might end up with a sea of apathetic submissive citizens clicking pointlessly.

Thank you.