Today I joined the Avaaz.org community, which runs campaigns on urgent global issues. When I did it I included a personal message: 'I strongly believe that in an era of increasing globalisation we are losing some basic democratic rights, so the only way to contrast this loss is to put pressure on policy makers through international organisations like yours.'
And I meant it. Right yesterday I was thinking about the upcoming Italian elections for the parliament and future PM. This will be the second election where Italians living abroad can vote their representatives at the Parliament. It is something peculiar, that doesn't exist in many other countries (actually, I don't know which other country allows this at all but probably there must be some out there).
But I am an expat living in the UK, with no voting rights for the national Parliament here. And this will stay so until I become a British citizen, something for which I need to apply. I'm sure I can qualify for that if I wanted to apply, given that I have been living and working here for a few years now. But how many people in the world live in the same situation, i.e. working and paying taxes in a country without voting there because they are just temporary (but the temporary situation can last several years) or they are not bothered to apply for the citizenship (especially when it costs nearly £700)?
How much democracy is lost in this way on a global scale?
I think about all the immigrants working in Italy and having no right to vote, therefore no possibility of having their voice heard at the policy making level. It takes several years to get the Italian citizenship by naturalisation...
On a related - but similar - matter is the lost of power and representation that I feel is happening regarding things that involve supra-national issues. Global warming, international trade... people often have different views from their government. See the riots accompanying the WTO or G8 meetings. I tend to think that in these cases people are wiser than their governments. But still, governments act on their own. Once a Parliament is in power can vote in favour of a military intervention in Iraq although the majority of the population is against. And we call it democracy. I'm sure lots of Americans are worried about global warming, much more than those politicians of theirs who refused to sign the Kyoto Protocols. International trade as promoted by the World Trade Organisation is based on a North-South relationship that is unfair to say the least. But, then again, many people have developed a social consciousness and buy fair trade products to fight the social unjustice hitting poor developing countries who survive exporting commodities products like coffee. Common sense enlightenment and institutional blindness?
Coming back to Avaaz.org: today I also signed the petition in support of the Dalai Lama. What the Chinese government has been doing in Tibet for several years is outrageous. It is time to stop this. And when I think that China is the next world power replacing the US I hope that it is not going to be worse than the US... Unfortunately I am not too optimistic about that. We are still far, far away from the ideal of peace and prosperity for all...
