Young people will be prepared to riot in the name of democracy on May 1 - but not to vote on May 2
Decca Aitkenhead Monday April 29, 2002 The Guardian
The only obvious benefit to emerge so far from my local borough's experiment with postal voting is the new phrase it provides for getting rid of canvassers.
"Sorry, I've already voted" is worth its weight in gold, requiring no proof, and leaving no room for argument. Men in rosettes are up and down our doorstep in under 10 seconds.
Other electoral experiments will be taking place all over the country on Thursday, and all with the ambition of making us lazy swine exercise our democratic right.
Turnout is so much the focus of these elections that the ballots could reasonably be seen less as a procedure for selecting councillors, and more as a referendum for democracy itself - a two-horse race between taking the trouble and not. We have, in effect, arrived at the strange state of affairs where we will go to war for democracy, and kill innocent civilians in its name, but cannot be bothered to take part in it ourselves.
If that is a puzzle, the much deeper mystery is why young people who won't make it to a polling booth on Thursday will find time on Wednesday to take part in a dangerous, potentially violent demonstration, specifically in the cause of "political expression". They will march, and maybe riot, for all the world as if democracy had never been invented and the chance to have their say the very next day did not exist. What are we meant to make of that?
Some say they are warriors for democracy, others that they are overgrown teenagers. Most of us still haven't managed to make up our minds - but the really striking thing about the protesters is how much better they look from a distance. The further away you stand, the more magnificent they seem - shrewd enough to have identified the pointlessness of traditional politics, and bold enough to have refused to be bored into submission.
Alas, the closer you approach, the worse the view gets. The truth is that most anti-globalisation protesters articulate a political analysis too muddle-headed to withstand even the scrutiny of a Glastonbury chill-out chat. The foot soldiers of this movement are mostly amiable halfwits. They have all elected to call themselves Jez, and under questioning can do little more than pull quotes from No Logo out of their mouths, like overworked strings of chewing gum.
Faced with the prospect of young people either failing to vote, or turning out to riot, why do we automatically blame parliamentary politics? It is politicians' fault for being "boring", we say. At the last general election, this complaint became not merely one story of the campaign; it became the only story. "Can't they make it interesting?" moaned the media and public.
But why it should be thought the job of politicians to make politics interesting is a mystery. Government isn't a soap opera, with a remit to keep the plot lines hot and ratings up - so it is strange that we expect the parties to make politics seamlessly catchy, lest we get bored and switch channels. It is as if we regard democracy like a monopoly utility, provided by the state.
If everyone has to play a role in democracy, then boredom cannot logically excuse apathy, let alone authorise a mass defection to riots. Democratic obligations have to apply as much to the dreary times as the lively. In which case low turnout should shame us, the voters, more than the politicians.
If boredom is the great complaint of youth, it is worth considering this: have the May Day protests made politics more interesting? Superficially, maybe, but, strictly speaking, no. The rioters' position is just as much a triumph of style over substance as New Labour at its most cynical, for like the politics of spin, it lacks ideology but captivates us with soap opera and circus. The naughty antics of the protesters, and their eccentric lovelies like Swampy, work much the same curiosity as Cherie's wardrobe - both considerably more reliant on spectacle than political theory.
If we think that politics must look like MTV to merit our attention, then we play a high-risk game, and might end up not liking what we get. Parallels with the current situation in France are obvious. Youngsters there couldn't wait to rush out and riot once Le Pen was through to the second round, but would they go and vote? Their objection - just as it is in Britain - was that the election was "boring".
Le Pen's success has been seen as the accidental and disastrous consequence of their boredom, but looked at in a different light it could be seen as the prize. The French presidential race isn't so boring now, is it?