On Friday morning my Facebook newsfeed was filled with posts about Brexit (British exit), mostly rants from my British and European friends, angry articles accusing British politicians of all sides and pessimistic predictions about the future of EU and UK. For those of you who may possibly be disconnected from the world over the past few days: Britain decided to leave the European Union with a referendum. I am sure that most of you have read a lot about this recent event and its implications not only on Britain and EU but also on the rest of the world. Therefore; I am not going to talk more about Brexit but touch on a broader concept.
As I was scrolling down on my page, I saw a post from a British college student saying that, “I study Politics at one of the best universities in the world & I don't know much at all about the EU, did not feel at all qualified to make the decision I had to today. so I absolutely will not be blaming Leave voters if they do well, especially those with way less of the education & resources I've had, I will be blaming the government for the stupid, stupid idea of putting such an important and complex issue to a bloody referendum & also the media (which is where most people look to for their opinions) for gradually normalizing creeping fascism.” Throughout the day I saw many other posts and articles like this blaming David Cameroon for playing a dangerous bet by taking this important decision to a referendum.
So, as I understand, some people trust their government more than they trust other people living in this country. But if the government happened to be in favor of leaving EU and wanted to implement this decision without asking to public, those same people would be outraged and accuse the president with attempting to be a dictator. So people don’t want neither the politicians nor the other citizens to make decisions for themselves but since everyone has an equal vote in modern democracies, each of the voters can affect each other’s (plus nonvoters’) lives and future. And this is how democracy fails, my friends.
Eight years ago, a famous Turkish model caused a huge controversy in Turkey by saying “The vote of a shepherd on the mountain and my vote are equal. Why?” She used “shepherd” to refer to the uneducated, unaware voter population. Eight years later, this topic is once again on the agenda with the statement of a Turkish singer who finds it unfair that the vote of illiterate people and the vote of college graduates count as equal. His statement was immediately met with harsh criticism by Turkey’s president, Erdoğan who mostly relies on the support of illiterate people. Those people have determined the fate of this country and impacted the lives of millions of people economically, politically and socially. And the same people voted to leave the European Union with nationalistic motivations, affecting the lives of millions of people mostly the young ones. And there is a possibility that the same people will elect Donald Trump as the president of the United States, again impacting the lives of millions of people not only in US but also in the rest of the world.
In practice, categorizing millions of citizens according to their education or “awareness” level and assigning number of votes accordingly is nearly impossible but let’s discuss this in theory for a minute. Are everyone’s votes really equal? This seems like an impossible question and I think that it transcends the problem of education and political awareness of the voters. How can a 70 years old person decide on 20 years old’s right to have a free education and how can a 20 year old can decide on the amount of 70 years old’s pension. How can a man decide on what a woman does with her body? How can a straight person decide whether gay people should marry or not? How can anyone decide whether many young people should risk their lives in warzones, because of the stupid mistakes of a few grown men? Of course governments don’t take every political decision to a referendum but by choosing the people who will make these decisions for us, our votes count a lot. And all of these questions actually demonstrate the obligatory interdependence of the people in a modern nation state.
The disparities on the level of education of citizens is definitely a huge problem of democracy but there is a larger problem which lies in the core of the system; the problem of majority. The problem of some people slightly more populous than other groups of people determining the future of all. Since it is unlikely that we will go back to living in tribes as hunter gatherers, this system of democracy will continue to be best we have so far.
But I don’t want to end this article with a pessimistic tone. We have come from monarchies, dictatorships to these days and I am sure that, although it is impossible to perfect the system, humanity will always find a way to improve it!
