Are We At War?

dezeen.com

Of course not, you might say. Officially, I guess not. But I'm talking about another kind of war. A war that sees innocent people forgotten about and cartoonists who dedicate their lives to making caricatures of those they disagree with, make worldwide news. 12 cartoonists are shot, and everyone's Charlie Hebdo but not once is anyone raising their hand to say anything about any of the hundreds and thousands of deaths that are happening around the world to people who have never said a word against anyone. Yes, the deaths are tragic and the killing is completely unjust. Yes, it is upsetting. Yes, free speech is important. Yes, the fact that Paris is closer to home is likely to cause a larger outpour of 'sympathy' and 'outrage' but whatever the reason for such a huge response to the Paris attack and the complete lack of response to anything else, even if that reason may seem compelling with the addition of a hashtag and more followers... IT'S WRONG.

mirror.co.uk

And David Cameron, where does he stand on all of this? Well yesterday he marched side by side with 3.5million others demonstrating their strength of feeling towards free speech and today, he decided that actually, all of that was bollocks and instead he's going to ban whatsapp.

Britain is at a turning point in modern politics where the likes of Russell Brand drive more public interaction with the subject than any politician of our time. It's a time where Twitter drives votes and UKIP is the go-to party for voters who are bored with the way things are - but then at least they bother to turn out and vote in the first place. The leaders of the parties are exasperating ridiculous ways to win public adoration, with Cameron's latest threat of refusing to appear on television debates without the presence of the Green party, either a wonderful stab at appearing to be a just and equal opponent or a step towards the naughty corner when broadcasts go ahead without him. It doesn't matter how bigoted, how ignorant or how wonderful the education at Eton was... the point is, that something is wrong with British politics and if we don't start looking for alternative ways to fix it, we're in trouble.

theguardian.com

I don't pretend to have the answers to everything, or anything in fact but I think a good place to start is the voting system. Of course, it would help if we had candidates we actually WANTED to vote for, not just ones we prefer over all of the others. But our 65% voting turnout is shameful. Almost 100yrs ago women fought for the right to vote which also caused the voting age of men to be lowered too. People lost their lives in that fight and now, most can't be bothered. Call it disillusionment, but those who don't vote allow the room for votes towards radicalism to rise. So why does the option to vote online not exist, to make it easy for them? People have jobs to go to and no time to spend queueing in a polling station. Online votes need to happen soon - either that or election day is made a public holiday for us to cast our votes, or we are allowed to take time away from work without the threat of no pay - as in some US states (California). It's a suggestion, which is far better than our current system, in MY opinion. We need to make it easy for voters.

123rf.com

As I say, I don't have an answer for anything. But I see that there is a problem and I see the worth of free-speech more than ever. There are people around the world who hate the ways of the West and hate our politics. If I'm honest, I'm beginning to hate our politics too and banning whatsapp is certainly not the way to go about changing that. 1 in 6 of our population are over 65 and by 2050, that is predicted to rise to 1 in 4. Is this society the one we want to see our elderly relatives grow old in? The one that threatens the UK's position as a haven for those in need, for refugees and for asylum seekers. The one that values bigotry over equality. The one that will vote UKIP out of indecisiveness and naivety?

In my opinion, we are at war - with morality - and somewhere along the line, we have to start voting for it. We have to stop jumping on the bandwagon of the next Twitter hashtag and look around for other issues. Issues that we might ACTUALLY care about, might ACTUALLY rally to change and change people's minds in the process. Who knows, you MIGHT even solve it, someone's got to, coz it's not looking likely to be Cameron any time soon. After all, democracy means 'power belongs to the people', so let's remind our leaders just that...just a suggestion.