S. Guraziu – Ars Poetica, 2015 (Serious political commentary)
I remember this:
In ancient Athens, the world’s first democracy, they had a process called “ostracism”, where once per year the people could vote on the politician they thought was most destructive to the democratic process. The “winner” of this vote was banished from Athens for 10 years.
Today I was thinking:
Ostracism should be implemented today too. Especially in Kosovo, the youngest democracy in the world. There are many politicians in Kosovo degrading the democratic process, they don’t advance it 1 step forward but lead the process 2 steps backward. For Kosovo it would be good to dump yearly at least 1 politician, whether corrupt or as a “carcinogen” element of the democratic process.
After that, I was thinking:
Some things in history are quite funny, almost “ridiculous”, who could vote in ancient Athens? Slaves?! Women?! Sure not. The majority of people was “out” of democracy (but it was democracy, it’s true, you can’t deny it). While in Kosovo it is known that even “zombie voters” exist, those who become “alive” just to vote, otherwise as soon as they vote officially they are dead.
Further, for instance in the Netherlands women couldn’t vote, never in history… but they could vote well before 21st century. That’s quite extraordinary achievement – at least it was before WWII, in 1919. Also the same in Canada, USA… but also in Albania, in 1920. Thus, Albania is not yet in the EU, but concerning the “women’s vote” Albania is equal to the Netherlands, to Canada and to USA. Some other women in Europe had to wait until after WWII, and even later, example women of France until 1944, Italy’s women until 1946, and imagine… women of Switzerland, of that beautiful 700 years old confederation, until 1971. Yet imagine further, in Saudi Arabia women will vote for the first time just this year, 2015. We can’t deny, we’re going forward (in history), although steps almost ridiculously small…
