Are you interested in politics and do you vote?

Are you interested in politics and do you vote?

Well if you answered either yes or no to either of these questions, then you really should start paying attention. It seems more and more that political parties and the various political systems around the globe control what is REALLY going on in world politics and your own backyard.

So you may say, who cares about American politics if you live in Australia, or you may say I don’t give a hoot about Australian politics if you live in America but there is no denying that there is a political issue that is hitting you hard in the hip pocket right about now; Globalisation and the Global Financial Crises. This is all the more reason that We The People start looking at our governments and their political parties and ask what sort of a society we want for ourselves, our children and our neighbours.

If you are just someone who simply wants to get on with it and leave it to the experts, the politicians, political parties, governments and the media and are not interested in voting, that is up to you. But as many say, if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.

For thousands of years political ideology has determined how our culture has been formed. For Thousands of Years wars have been fought and people died in protests over power politics and the religion of politics and even the right for every man and woman to have an equal say in how we live our lives. In our life time the right to vote has united black and white and seen the abolition of apartheid, the crime of racial segregation in countries all over the world. In the last 100 years women in most political systems now have the right to vote and have a say in how they and their children can now live.

Decolonisation has seen entire people and nations become independent Nation States and from The Statute of Westminster in 1931 to the United Nations Declaration on Granting Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples in1960, the culture of international politics has focussed very strongly on one thing; ELECTIONS.

Article 21 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 states:“Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his/her country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.”

While this has not been internationally realised throughout the world due to differing political ideologies, nations that have taken up Article 21 have embraced elections with gusto.

Article 21 also states that :
“… expressed in periodic and genuine elections..”

But how do we judge an election to be ‘genuine’ in Indonesia, central Africa or downtown New York?

In the age of political party machines with billions of dollars have we lost sight of the fact that as citizens WE actually DO take part in government THROUGH elected representatives?
Or, do we just leave it to the experts.

Do you vote?
Think about it.