Some months ago, the Civic Education Working Group launched a competition for essays with the title: “What does the ideal political system look like?”.  Participants had to submit an essay over their ideal political system and then organise an activity within their local. The working group chose one winner, how had the possibility to win an Interrail ticket, but the ECWG chose also two honorable mentions: What if YOUth could shape Europe? by Antonis Triantafyllakis (AEGEE-Cluj-Napoca) and The Ideal puzzle – can we put back together our pieces? by Roberto Meneghetti (AEGEE-Torino). 

The Ideal puzzle – can we put back together our pieces?

Author: Roberto Meneghetti, AEGEE-Torino. 

Since the dawn of Mankind, the problem of establishing an ideal form of government has been debated. Nowadays, with a diffuse Crisis, both economic and ideological, of our system, the question seems more relevant than ever. However, are we sure that “ideal” means good in practice? And is there an “ideal” form of government that can be found out throughout these days? To answer these questions, or at least, give it a try, it is useful to have a pretty quick (and simplified) trip through some previous attempts that have been tried in the history of Europe in order to attain an ideal state of government.

We will see that any time has produced its own “ideal governments” depending on different values and ideas of society.

I. Monarchism (…-1700s)

One of the most ancient form of government in a large and organized society is Monarchy, where the rule is centered into the hands of one. There are many kinds of Monarchies with different kinds of relationship with the whole society. Here we are concentrating on the feudal/absolute monarchies, ruling out any democratic environment, but all of them share a legitimacy coming from dynastic and divine rights. Beside the divine justifications, we find justifications for this kind of government as the one system to solve all the problems.

Even Machiavelli (1) in the XVI century, who favours ultimately a republican model (especially during his late years), recurs to the necessity of a sovereign because it acts and adapts faster to the rapid changes of the times. Hobbes (2), one century later, says a King is necessary to ensure order and stability in an otherwise chaotic society. Machiavelli was living during the late Renaissance, in which Italy was scrambled by wars and internal conflicts and Hobbes was writing right in the aftermaths of the English Civil War.

In their societies in which instability, strict social divisions, war, slavery, colonialism were considered the norm, this kind of reasoning as well appeared more acceptable and became an ideal through which manage a troublesome situation.

II. Liberalism (1600-1700)

During these centuries, various upheavals change the shape of the European society: a larger and larger share of the population attains an higher living standard, becoming a new social class: it is the so-called “bourgeoise”. With a new society come along new values: the new ideals are of individual self-realization, personal rights and property protection, which are the issues that the rising new class is facing in the hostile Monarchic environment.

Locke (3) theorizes that the humans possesses some innate rights, such the one to life, to freedom, to health, to property, the so-called natural rights. We are in the XVII century, where England is a forerunner in granting new rights to this uprising social class as a rising constitutional monarchy.

In the XVIII century, during the Enlightenment, the liberal thought takes full form: Kant (4, 5) introduces the concepts of universal laws, respecting the natural rights: the ideal man, and therefore the State is the one respecting those terms. Montesquieu (6) formalizes the concept of division of the three powers, necessary for a democratic environment. It is a period of prosperity for Germany, under the “King Philosopher” Frederick II and France was still enjoying the fruits of the colonial dominance under Louis XIV, but after his rule the general wealth was crippled by war debts and this will lead to explosive consequences: all these values are incorporated into the French revolution which will be the ultimate demand of individual rights against the monarchy. Sadly this surge of freedom rapidly degenerates into a regime of Terror, culminating with the rise of the Napoleonic Empire.

III. Authoritarianism (1815-1950)

After the French Revolution, the shape of Europe has changed and monarchies have lost their “appeal”: Napoleon crushed the whole continent, and the traces of the revolutionary thinking have remained. These previous upheavials have made many thinkers change their mind about the role of the State, going far beyond divine legitimacy or simple utilitaristic thinking. During the Romantic age, Hegel (7) among the others theorises a new role of the State: the monarch become the actor w history and defends the national identity. This reflects a period of reactionary restauration in which exstensive national/colonial empire arise. The concept of People and will be re-elaborated by Marx (8): the people is not a Nation, but a Class, the working class. The ideals of liberalism (during this period we find this word for the first time) continue to co-exist in contrast with the previous views and in the mean time and the democratic processes become achieved by the end of the 1800s, with the Industrial Revolution bringing fundamental technological breakthrough. It is a period of hope and this is reflected in the wave of Positivism, the belief that technology can and will save mankind. The theories of Darwin, thought for the animal kingdom, start to be applied to human society: the ideal becomes a system where the strongest survive and evolve, the weakest deserve to be excluded from the path of history. Thinkers like Spencer (9) include these ideals even in the framework of Liberalism.

However the faith in technology will have a sad epilogue: the Great War: after this tragic event, technology shows all its deadly potential at the service of an, up to that point, ideal mankind. But the 1929 breaks also the ideal of liberalism: freedom of individual has brought to a major economic crisis. Liberalism doesn’t pass the test.

We are again in a moment of confusion, upheavial, but now without strong monarchies, which have been mostly dissolved after the Great War. In this period new ideas arise: totalitarisms set their foot in the political scene, bringing the promise of a completely revolutionized society which, at the eyes of the, seem the ideal response to the weak and struggling liberal regimes. Nazifascist and Soviet dictatorships bring with themselves the ideas of Positivism in a new form: their ideal societies see a totally new kind of man, accurately crafted by the State, with precise requirements and qualities. This positivism yields its most nefarious product in the form of the concentration camps, where the scientific method and the ethics of maximum efficiency are put at the service of one of the darkest pages in the European history

IV. Social-democracy & Free-Market (1930-2000)

The crisis of the 1929 even though coming from the US, has struck heavily Europe. The liberal system, as we have seen, came into crisis. In those places where dictatorship didn’t become the new ideal, we witness anyway a shift in the ideal form of Government toward a more controlled one. The need of control emerges in a new way, which tries to get a compromise between the necessity of controlling an otherwise unstable system and on the other hand the protection of human rights and liberties. Keynes’ (10) theories about Welfare State and intervention in the economy are fundamental in this shift, that will change the ideal of State. After the Second World War, Europe is looking for peace and a new time of prosperity. The ideas of Keynes will be influential throughout this period of reconstruction and regrowth. In the ideal vision the State must no more simply grant the liberty of the individual. The ideal State is the so-called Welfare State, which grants to the individuals the right to realize their individual ambitions, by granting proper education and services and a suitable environment. This is a new concept of equality called “Equality of Autonomy”, as theorized by Sen(11).

In the meantime, there are many oppositions to this kind of reasoning: Friedmann (12) is one of the most prominent economist which supports a laisser-faire economy: one where the intervention of the State is minimal and finalized to the security issues. Reaganism and Thatcherism follow this path and lead to a gradual return to a non-interventionist view of the State.

Both this right and left-wing visions share the ideal of democratic representation as we know it and live into this framework. In this period of general prosperity, Fukuyama (13) prophetizes “the end of history” as conflict, with democracy as the permanent winner.

V. Ochlocracy v. Epistemocracy (2000-…)

In the recent times, also the form of democracy we have just outlined comes into crisis: socialdemocratic systems incur into debt crisis and free-market policies put the basis for the unregulated framework which will burst into the financial crisis of 2008. Both systems lost their credibility for their harsh consequences, leading to serious concerns about the democratic system as we know it. The consequence of this failures comes into the form a feeling of underrepresentation.

This feeling has originated movements bringing forward a new idea of democracy, exploiting the higher communicability given by the new recent technology: the direct democracy, which unlike the representative democracy which relies on elected representatives, gives to the common citizen a direct influence and decisional power into politics. Referenda and online voting/discussions have seen a great rise in recent times’ debates. European parties like Syriza, Podemos, Five Star Movement, the Pirate Party, advocated for the introduction of an edemocracy, based entirely on an online participation. Ultimately this need of “representing the voice of the people” has given birth to various movements, labled “populists” and a period in which referenda have been advocated as the ultimate resolutive tool, leading to events such as the Brexit and the Italian Governmental crisis of 2016.

One big critique to this ideal participated system is that giving so much decisional power into the hands of inexperienced individuals may lead to disastrous consequences, or as the ancient would call it with derogatory spirit, an “ochlocracy”: the government by the crowd. In this vision we insert the opposing school of thought, which as well criticizes the participation system of democracy, but at the opposite: it is too much. Thinkers like Taleb (14) and Brennan (15) have put forward a system in which only the competent people have the right to participate into the electoral process, it’s the so-called “epistemocracy”: the government by the culture. There are flaws in this thinking, too: beside the renouncement of the basic democratic values, it’s indeed really difficult to determine which is – and how to measure it – the optimal level of knowledge necessary to make a good voting decision.

One thing is for sure: the democratic system is facing once again a big upheaval and this will probably change it radically.

VI. Conclusion

We have seen many different systems, with many different ideals, which have significantly shaped our vision today. Many systems looked like reasonable because of the values of their time: slavery, colonialism, segregation, discrimination, the very use of violence were considered normal. The fear for the future made people change their mindset and their priorities. Nowadays the challenges are new and at the same time no different: in our period of crisis we must be really attentive to what our ideals are, as violence and intolerance are sadly returning to be tolerated and apologized, a process accelerated by the recent migrational crisis.

Ideal is then not a synonymous for good. At least, not necessarily. Therefore we have to think more than twice before stating that our system in our minds is the one which will solve all our problems. Democracy as we know it has many flaws, but has also granted us one of the longest periods of peace and prosperity in our history.

Do we really need to change it? Probably yes. But, do we really want to change it in a way that will run over our individual rights?

References:

1. Machiavelli, N 1532, Il Principe, Feltrinelli Editore, Milan

2. Hobbes, T 1651, the Leviathan, BUR Edizioni, Milan

3. Locke, J 1690, Second Treatise of Government, UTET, Turin

4. Kant, I 1788, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Feltrinelli Editore, Milan

5. Kant, I 1795, Zum ewigen Frieden, Feltrinelli Editore, Milan

6. Montesquieu, C 1748, De l’esprit des lois, BUR Edizioni, Milan

7. Hegel, GWF 1817, Enzyclopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, IBS, Bari

8. Marx, K 1867, Das Kapital, Newton Compton, Roma

9. Spencer, H 1862, First Principles, Bocca Edizioni, Milan

10. Keynes, JM 1936, The general theory of employment, interest and money,

11. Sen, A 2009, The Idea of Justice, Mondadori, Milano

12. Friedmann, M 1962, Capitalism and Justice, IBL Libri, Milano

13. Fukuyama, F 1992, The end of History, BUR Edizioni, Milan

14. Taleb, NN 2007, Epistemocracy, a Dream. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Random House

15. Brennan, J 2006, Against Democracy, Princeton University Press

During EPM Zagreb, the Civic Education Working Group organised a debate competition, which prize was an Interrail Pass. Domen Brus from AEGEE-Osnabrück was the winner, and he wrote this report of his interesting journey for The AEGEEan.

I started my journey in Ljubljana where I boarded the train headed for Frankfurt, final destination of the day being Konstanz. On the platform, I ran into an old friend of mine who was taking the same train so I was in for a fun drive. However, at that point I had no idea about the “real Deutsche Bahn experience” that was about to follow.

First, we stopped somewhere just across the German border as there was some accident on the tracks. Waiting time: two and a half hours. Luckily such accidents really connect people, so I got to know many nice people and actually had a great time waiting. Fast forward to a couple of hours later, the train stops at Augsburg train station. The board next to the train reads: Delay of 170 min. As I thought things couldn’t get worse the sign changed to: The train is cancelled. So, I boarded a new train and continued my way towards Konstanz. I miraculously caught a connection on the wrong side of Lake Constance and I thought I would actually make it there. As soon as this thought went through my mind the lights flashed and went dark, the train stopped in the middle of a field with a creaking noise and the emergency lights came on. At that moment, it also started to rain. It was already midnight. I knew that if we wouldn’t start moving in exactly eight minutes, then I would miss my last connection and be stranded in a village in the middle of nowhere. Two hours later we were still there. Due to some regulation, they couldn’t let us off the train but sadly they had no actual updates regarding our trip. Finally, a new train arrived and took us to the next station, where a friend of mine awaited me and the first day of travelling thankfully finished.

I spent the next four days in Konstanz. We planned to enjoy the lake, do some kayaking etc. I somehow forgot it’s Germany that I’m talking about so naturally it was more or less raining for four days. Nevertheless, we had a great time. We explored the city and its surroundings and also made some cycling trips to Switzerland. On Monday morning I took the train to Berlin. Due to the experience of the first day I was really paranoid but the trip was actually very enjoyable. I stayed in Berlin until Friday. I was visiting a friend who also lent me her bicycle. I think I made about 150 km in those three days. I was really lucky with the weather so I was able to explore the streets and parks of Berlin thoroughly. I found awesome beach bars, rooftop parties, open air cinemas, dusty record shops, cheap awesome food, cool graffiti and intriguing small galleries. Those few days really reminded me why I fell in love with the city many years ago. I was actually really sad to leave on Friday morning but new adventures awaited me!

It was then that my first class Interrail ticket came in most handy. I took the train to Osnabrück that continued to Amsterdam. When I arrived on the platform there were about 600 young people waiting for the train and for a second I thought I’d have a problem. Well, there were almost no people in the first class and you also get Haribos! I made it to Osnabrück, the best city in the world, just in time to join the local antenna for the canoeing trip. It was really great to see the familiar faces of my old antenna. The canoeing was also just as I remembered it – very rainy but still awesome! Someone mentioned that Osnabrück was the rainiest city in Germany – definitely not something that I knew when choosing my Erasmus destination! After the canoeing, we enjoyed a nice barbecue in front of the city castle and then toured the city till late hours. Next day I first went to the non-existent city of Bielefeld to meet a friend and then finished the day in Verden, a small town close to Bremen where I stayed with a fellow AEGEE friend for a couple of days. Of course, there were again delays and cancellations so yet again I spent many, many hours waiting aimlessly. I used that time mostly for relaxation and to plan my next trip. My original plan was to spend that weekend in Hamburg which turned out to be a horrible idea due to all the craziness that surrounded the G20 meeting. After a few days, I decided to go to Sweden, to Uppsala. When I checked the connection, I saw that I had to change five times and that it would take 14 hours to get there if it all went according to the plan. Since I’m not a smart man I decided to take my chances.

All went surprisingly smooth up until the very end, I was even pleasantly surprised by our whole train taking a ferry. I was asleep at the time so I was quite confused when I woke up inside a ship. I was almost in Stockholm, when there was another “incident” on the tracks so yet again we had to wait for an unknown amount of time. I somehow made to Uppsala by 1:30am, when the night was almost ending since it’s so far up north. The train drive across Sweden was absolutely breath-taking. There are hundreds of little lakes, vast forests and beautiful solitary farms on the grassy fields. The next days I spent too much on bad coffee and overpriced beer. Jokes aside, it was a really nice experience to see a small Swedish student city and the friend whom I was visiting proved to be quite a good city guide.

Only after two days I had to leave again. I travelled to Hamburg to see what the riots did to my beloved Schanzenviertel. To my surprise and amazement there were almost no more traces of the chaos that went on just a few days before. I had a great dinner and too many beers with an Italian friend that I was visiting so I took the morning train almost directly. Not a good idea, I really do not recommend this. I was supposed to be home in 12 hours but by that time I should’ve known better. After many hours of confusion and chaos I made it to München where I took the bus to Ljubljana, since there were no more trains for the day. It was 2pm. After getting home I slept for about two days to recover a bit and set my head straight.

Despite being really unlucky with the trains I really had an amazing time. I saw many people that I hadn’t seen for a really long time, explored many new places, met great new people and generally gained a lot of valuable experience. The only thing I regret is not making my trip longer and seeing even more things.

Written by Domen Brus, AEGEE-Osnabrück

One year as Projects and Communication Director at the AEGEE House in Brussels, and Joanna Pankowska from AEGEE-Warszawa has no intention to pause. During busy preparations for Spring Agora Enschede we talked to a very energetic and inspiring candidate for Civic Education Working Group Coordinator.

The AEGEEan: Joanna, after being in the Comité Directeur, members often take some time for themselves, but this is not your case. What keeps you motivated to lead a working group?

Joanna: Being a member of the Comité Directeur is a very different experience than working in European Bodies for one simple reason – next to the tasks that you are passioned about there is also plenty of tasks that are not necessarily the things you came to AEGEE for. Don’t get me wrong: I am thankful for the experience and I definitely learnt a lot while being in Brussels, but my true passion was and still is civic education, and that is why it feels natural to continue the work I started while being member of the Working Group in 2015/16 and continued as CD appointed responsible towards the education portfolio.

Why do you think civic education has a fundamental impact on society?

Quoting the words of Barack Obama: “The most important office in a democracy is the office of citizen“. Every office requires preparation and civic education is supposed to prepare us for the role of citizens. Currently, we are witnessing insufficient and incoherent teaching throughout Europe of essential civic competences, i.e. the knowledge, skills and attitudes that are needed to act as a responsible, active and democratic citizen. I believe that we need to address this issue first before we can move forward with any other social issue.

CEWG has two big aims: non-formal and formal civic education. What projects have you been working on in these fields?

My interest in the topic precedes my membership in AEGEE. As a scout and a volunteer in numerous Polish NGOs, I have always focused on the topic of inclusiveness and civic education. I took part in a Youth in Action study session, learning about the Swedish education system, and I coordinated a working group under The Polish Student Parliament on the proposals of changing the Polish educational system and many other similar initiatives. When joining AEGEE, I focused similarly on civic education, firstly by joining the Working Group on Civic Education in 2015/16 and being a driving force behind the European Citizens’ Initiative “More than Education”. Being part of the Comité Directeur, I continue contributing to our internal and external affairs on the topic of civic education, and education more generally. Throughout the whole year I have been working closely with the Lifelong Learning Platform, which is one of the most important education oriented organisations in Brussels. Lately, I have also been selected as a member of the expert group on education within the European Youth Forum.

What are the usual task of the CEWG? Describe a typical busy day of CEWG or a live meeting.

It depends on the new team and how we divide the roles. Two years ago, we have been a relatively small team, so the collaboration was smooth, but also the workload was quite extensive. This year, I observe that the whole team of the CEWG (9 people) worked very hard and they also managed to create a very flat and cooperative structure for the team that allows people to work in smaller subteams, which means that for every member the work looks a bit different. Live meetings are there to set up long terms plans and responsibilities. Depending on the capacity of the team, the minimum plan is to fulfill the objectives of the Action Agenda and if the team wants to do more – the sky is the limit. If Agora approves the current objectives proposals, it seems we will be focusing on differences between political systems, visits to high schools, critical thinking and ECI follow-up.

You were among the promoters of the European Citizens’ Initiative “More than Education”. What do you think is its biggest strenght and its biggest weakness?

The weakness is quite obvious – we did not do a classic campaign for it because we never found proper human and financial resources to run a campaign. None of the people in the team was interested in doing so and also several open calls and Erasmus+ openings did not attract people to run it. I myself few times regret that due to my Comité Directeur responsibilities, I could not take a more active role in it. This reflects in the numbers of signatures. Nevertheless, I believe the ECI does bring a lot of value to AEGEE. It is the theme of Europe on Track, which is proving to be a very successful edition, it has been reflected in the Budapest conference, the hitchhiking competition “Thumbs Up for Civic Education” preparation is going very well. It was the main topic of our activities at YO!Fest, University on Youth and Development in Mollina and European Ideas Lab – Greens. We established many contacts that are valuable not only for the ECI itself but also for future collaborations on the topic of civic education (Animafac, European Civic Forum, European Humanist Federation, Association for Teacher Education in Europe, Network European Citizenship Education, Vote&Vous, Bosch Foundation and many more). María Ballesteros Melero (AEGEE-Madrid) was a speaker on behalf of the ECI at the “1st European Conference on Education and Democracy” organised by Fundación Cives in Spain. Thanks to the ECI we have established very close relations with the European Economic and Social Committee. I was invited to speak at the ECI ad hoc group meeting as well as at the ECI day. We are also collaborating with EESC on the upcoming roundtable event: ‘Mind the gap – how to strengthen civic education for all throughout Europe’. Are we reaching one million signatures? No. Do we put civic education on political agenda? I think so.

Can you tell us something more about your cooperation with the Lifelong Learning Platform?

I have been a link between the Platform and AEGEE. I have attended numerous meetings and events but also I have been in touch directly with the Director of LLLP, discussing the possibility of the creation of a new working group within the LLLP on the topic of civic education, which will be led by AEGEE. This conversation has not been finalised yet, but right after Agora I will be attending the General Assembly of LLLP, where it should happen. We are also discussing the possibility of co-organising an event at the European Parliament together with Lifelong Learning Platform and other partners in autumn. LLLP is one of the important partners for AEGEE, not only because it is the most relevant stakeholder in European civil society when it comes to education, but also because AEGEE has been one of its founding organisations and it is important to maintain our active role within the platform. Contribution to the processes and consultations within the Platform allows us to be part of bigger European discussion at the tables that we might not be invited on our own. Taking into consideration all the knowledge and experience I have gained this year, I hope I can continue to be the link between AEGEE and LLLP as a Working Group Coordinator.

How would you pursue cooperation with other Working Groups? Do you already have ideas in mind?

I have numerous ideas but those have to be of course agreed with all of the Working Groups. The general though is to coordinate actions when it comes to AEGEE calendar, so to have months dedicated to each of the focus areas (the idea was born during the drafting part of EPM and does not belong to me). Another idea would be to collaborate on communication towards the Network – for example sending open calls for members of WGs in a coordinated matter or putting together all of the publications and materials from WG that locals can use and have common promotion of them. Last but not least – active communication between groups, sharing best practices, co-creating events and much more – depending on the capacity of all of the groups. I imagine all of the working group coordinators to meet before the summer to discuss a collaboration strategy for the whole year.

You can read her full candidature here.

Written by Aliona Sytnyk, AEGEE-Berlin

If you have attended EPM Zagreb 2017, you might have assisted to the final round of the debate competition organised by the Civic Education Working Group. The debate in Zagreb was just the last step of a journey started last year in November when Balint Toronyai from AEGEE-Budapest and Doro Harles from AEGEE-Mannheim, members of the CEWG sent an open call for topics. We spoke with them to understand how the competition went. 

Why did you decide to do the competition? 
Bálint: We participated in some amazing debates during the Summer University of AEGEE-Warszawa last summer. We experienced how competitive debating can improve complex and critical thinking in a really fun way. After both of us joined the Civic Education Working Group we decided to organise this competition to strengthen civic competencies and promote debating in the AEGEE community.

How did you select participants? 
Bálint: The application for the competition was open for every AEGEE member; however there were two conditions: the applicants had to be available in Zagreb during the EPM where the final debate took place and they had to apply in pairs (or pair-up with the other single participants) as the debate format and the winning prize were created for such teams. The applicants had to write about their motivation, debating experience and answer some other simple questions, but the true selection was coming in the pre-round of the competition.

Who were the teams? 
Bálint: Most of the teams were formed by people who already knew each other, with one exception where we matched two single participants. It was a really diverse field, seven different AEGEE antennas were proudly represented: Skopje, Heidelberg, Osnabrück, Nijmegen, Bilbao, Zaragoza and Ljubljana. It is easy to say that it was a truly European debate competition.

What was the structure of the debate? 
Bálint: There were two rounds of the debate competition. The pre-round was an online round, where the teams had to prepare video statements with their arguments and send them to us and to their debate opposition. This online way of debating was far from optimal, but it was a compromise we had to take for a Europe-wide debate. The best four teams of the pre-round qualified to the live final which took place at EPM Zagreb. The format of the final was the classical British Parliamentary debate, where two teams have to compete with each other both on the government and the opposition side. This complex way of debating makes it possible to approach issues from multiple angles. 

What were the topics debated? 
Doro: In the pre-round, there were three topics, in debates called proposals, debated on: “This house believes that (THBT) migration should be promoted in the EU”, “THBT an unconditional basic income should be established in the EU” and “THBT people older than 70 should not vote”. The topics were chosen from a bunch of ideas send from the Network in an open call for topics. The proposal at the final was “THBT referendums should be forbidden in national democracies” and fitted to the topic of the EPM “Populism and Anti-European Agitation”.

What was the reaction? Are you satisfied with the result?
Doro: The audience at the final was interested in the topic and the format used to bring the topic closer to people. They could also participate in it by voting before and after the debate which side they were on: for or against the proposal. After the debate, more people were for the proposal than before. In general, the audience liked the event. The participants could develop and practice their skills in public speaking during the competition and all managed the speech in front of a big audience well. We are very satisfied with the development that our participants made over time and that people were interested and not super bored by debating. About the result in the sense of the winners, we cannot say that we would have liked one time better than the other. We are delighted with the winners who are happy about winning the two interrail tickets.

Would you replicate it in other events? 
Doro: We were already thinking about it because a competition is a good way to show that debating can be interesting. Yet, we need to have a fitting event, time to prepare it and find a good prize for the next time. Maybe we are going to do it a bit smaller than this time. Nothing is settled yet but we are working on it.

Is there something you want to add?
Doro: Maybe people got inspired by the debate from EPM and want to organise one in their locals or somewhere else. We have updated the debating toolkit and people can find all relevant information there. Check it out!

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Verona

In order to strengthen civic competences in AEGEE, the Civic Education Working Group has been promoting debating throughout the year. Why? Debating was proven to improve academic achievements, critical thinking, mutual understanding, as well as communication, argumentation and interpersonal skills. In short it helps you to know more and form a better-founded opinion. Today we are taking the debate online for the first time, with a topic that challenges the very basis of our organisation!

One of the powers of debate is to challenge the assumptions that are made by individuals or groups. Every human being makes certain assumptions and draws conclusions based on the incomplete information they have. Debating pushes people to think critically and get informed in more aspects. As an organisation, it is useful to have a solid ground on which we rely when giving direction to our work, but from time to time we also have to take a critical look at things.

In the case of AEGEE, we base our work on certain principles as laid out in our Statement of Principles. One of those principles concerns Human Rights. We agree that it is fundamental to promote freedom and human rights as “essential elements of a European society”. We aim to serve as an example and spread these values among the youth of Europe through our work and behaviour. This is presently reflected in the mentioning of Human Rights in AEGEE’s strategic aims as an important civic competence to be taught to AEGEE members, as well as to youth in formal education.

But what does the promotion of Human Rights mean? In what way is it an essential element of an European society? To explore the relevance of Human Rights, we challenged Andrea, known to have been involved in many Human Rights promoting initiatives, to argue that:

Human rights are outdated and incompatible with the 21st century world social development issues.

The opposition is done by Joanna, who will try to explain why human rights are still relevant. Note that these statements are not necessarily the person’s personal opinion, nor are the arguments they use indisputable. We challenge you to get involved in the discussion (on the forum), react on the arguments and decide for yourself what you think about human rights; and what place it should have in our organisation.

Here you can read Andrea defending the motion and here Joanna opposing the motion. 

Written by the Civic Education Working Group

In order to strengthen civic competences in AEGEE, the Civic Education Working Group has been promoting debating throughout the year. Why? Debating was proven to improve academic achievements, critical thinking, mutual understanding, as well as communication, argumentation and interpersonal skills. In short it helps you to know more and form a better-founded opinion. Today we are taking the debate online for the first time, with a topic that challenges the very basis of our organisation! 

For each topic, a defending and an opposing motion will be presented. You can express your opinion and continue to debate on the forum. Note that these statements are not necessarily the person’s personal opinion, nor are the arguments they use indisputable.

I have a very vivid memory of my first contact with the Declaration of Human Rights. I was preparing for an inter-school competition on this topic and was desperately trying to memorise all 30 articles by heart. It was extremely difficult because in my naïve and unaware teenage mind, I found them trivial and self-evident and I could not imagine how and why one can be openly deprived of any of them. And please keep in mind that I was growing up in Poland during the times when memories of communist crimes were still very fresh.

In the western cultural circle, where a linear concept of time is predominant, we tend to assume that our society is constantly morally developing and the future can be only better. However, looking at an ever-repeating history, we find plenty of examples like war crimes and genocides, which clearly show we do not learn from our mistakes. This makes the Human Rights, written and declared right after Europe’s most fatal genocide in modern times, more relevant than ever before. Sadly, we don’t have to look hundreds of years into the past to see violation of Human Rights in Europe. We have seen many recent failures in the face of the refugee crisis. Even without any current crisis, we can easily point to many places on the map where Human Rights are not part of society’s everyday life.

I wish that Human Rights would be regarded as old-fashioned, well practiced and as obvious for everybody as they were for my teenage-self. But it is hard to go further if you have not even arrived at the attempted status quo.

What is more, I don’t believe any of the social developments or other 21st century context issues could possibly influence relevance of the Human Rights. It really does not matter if people are riding horses or flying cars, living in tribes or in the European Union, they still have same basic needs and deserve certain rights. Human Rights represent core values of humankind, imperative in their style of writing and applicable to every human being on the globe. It still remains innovative when it comes to the formal aspect of it being a Declaration. Even in the framework of the European Union, we witness a complete lack of cohesion when it comes to rights regarding the asylum execution. Taking into account the complexity of the world we live in and political games, there is no higher success than the recognition of a universal framework.

Last but not least, I would really not underestimate the power of the Declaration.  It has a huge sophistic potential when it comes to open confrontations. The only problem is that we don’t confront those who fail to respect Human Rights as much as we should. This can not be changed by any new legislation. We don’t need another dead letter. What we need is to enforce the Declaration even more as a set of standards to measure ourselves against and keep striving for everyone to finally take seriously what we have universally agreed to.

You can read the defending motion here.

If you want to give your imputs and continue with the debate you can go to the forum via this link.

Written by Joanna, Civic Education Working Group

In order to strengthen civic competences in AEGEE, the Civic Education Working Group has been promoting debating throughout the year. Why? Debating was proven to improve academic achievements, critical thinking, mutual understanding, as well as communication, argumentation and interpersonal skills. In short it helps you to know more and form a better-founded opinion. Today we are taking the debate online for the first time, with a topic that challenges the very basis of our organisation! 

For each topic, a defending and an opposing motion will be presented. You can express your opinion and continue to debate on the forum. Note that these statements are not necessarily the person’s personal opinion, nor are the arguments they use indisputable.

Human Rights, the only good thing we have in this world, isn’t it? Or is it? Now imagine you have to think of one bad thing about Human Rights today. What would that be?

Human Rights might have been, and still are, the most important, liberating, long fought for, inventive and inclusive way to make human lives across the planet as decent as possible. Yet, one bad thing about Human Rights development is the fact that the development itself stopped where it is. Yes, mankind did something extraordinary, but stopping only there might not have been the best idea in such a fast progressive society. Right now we need more. More concreteness and a better implementation. One of the major and most noticeable drawbacks of Human Rights today is the failure of their implementation.

Even if we are talking about a document that has been adopted by the majority of countries around the world, disasters which disobey the convention are vastly happening all around the world, and rarely do they manage to reach the International court of Justice and Human Rights. Indeed, we could trace the reasoning for such happenings on a grass-root level, and blame the countries themselves, and yet, it would still continue to happen. They were new back in their time, they were revolutionary, and not all countries were in favour of them, that we all know by now. However, today, there might be space for considering mandatory implementing strategies, and not dependence on the reluctance of countries. And yet, this should not sound western and colonizing, as the next step accompanying would be the importance of the cultural sensitivity that the Human Rights lack. They are indeed our common denominator, and in that sense they are as broad as it gets, but if all the countries would take some time and effort to create directives and legislation that would be as inclusive, grass-root, context sensitive, and culturally adopted, then maybe we could talk about possible coverage of all the rights and all the territories.

Putting everything that was already said aside, we could all agree that Human Rights might be considered quite outdated. Not only that new issues have arisen, that are not addressed in the convention so far, but some of the already existing ones make no sense today anymore.  For example, if we take a look at this: “Everyone has the right to a nationality.” Then it would make us think indeed, was this an issue in the past, can it still be an issue today, how relevant is it, and whether it can be from today’s perspective addressed in a different way?

Arguing that Human Rights are bad as such is something not so favorable and accepted. We would all be happier to just accept them and praise them as they are. Yet, it makes me wonder, if we would be as critical of them as we praise them, would a possible door for change start to open?

You can read the opposing motion here.

If you want to give your imputs and continue with the debate you can go to the forum via this link.

Written by Andrea, Civic Education Working Group