ARE WE ENGAGING ENOUGH?

On December 6th 2016, I was engaged in a rather long banal argument on the phone with my friend who had just returned from Australia, a week earlier. She had traveled all the way from Sydney to just come and vote in Accra. Worryingly for me though, Harriet intended to vote for the incumbent. I tried to convince her to vote for the opposition but I soon realized her mind was firmly made up. I couldn’t place a finger on the exact reason why she intended to vote for Mr.Mahama but something she said that day struck a chord in me. She said she was not going to benefit personally from a win for JDM, but still wanted him to win. She had bought her own ticket to come to Ghana to vote and fly back  two days later. What made her action even more absurd was the fact that she was a millennial from a working class family in Ghana and yet felt passionately compelled enough to come and vote.

In a way, I felt envious of my friend. I wished I could also say, my standard of living wasn’t dependent on the actions/inaction of the government of the country of my birth. Unfortunately, I am not as lucky as my friend Harriet, she is a dual citizen. She could always go to her second home in Sydney to relax. Yes, some people are blessed like that. Unlike my friend, my very livelihood depended on government policies in this town. It was for this reason, I decided to engage in 2016. It got me thinking about some folks I had been discussing political issues with, in the run-up to the elections.

I have been thinking lately about a certain observation among the youths of my country. Perhaps it is even a phenomenon associated with millennials across the globe. Are we engaging enough with the political systems of our countries? Will millennials show up on election day? Perhaps yes, as it was with Bernie Sanders, the 2016 general elections in Ghana and the Corbyn surge in the snap election of 2017. But is that enough?

Indeed Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, speaking in September of last year at the Brookings Institute had cause to bemoan the disengagement of a lot of youths in the policy-making space. The Economistin an article titled ‘The millennial generation: young,gifted and held back’also lamented about the lack of interest of a majority of the world’s millennials about the political space.

When I talk about ‘engagement with the governance process’,I am not just referring to our civic responsibility of voting. It goes beyond the obvious things. We need to do more, like calling our elected officials, even knowing who this elected officials are and how they are faring in the legislative business, paying attention to local politics, organizing pressure groups to demand for accountability and even venturing into mainstream politics based on principles and a collective responsibility to make our society a better place than just another avenue for jobs.

But it is not all gloomy though, social media and music are two tools young people can use to make their voices heard in between voting cycles. Again the general election of 2016 might have given us a precursor going into the future.

According to Forbes magazine, “social media has the potential to influence millennial voters in two specific ways:

1. Participatory politics: Participatory politics, a new political movement that encourages individual engagement and participation in ongoing debates and discussions, takes place predominately in the social realm. Millennials are more demanding that their local and national governments and politicians listen to them and want to be involved in the conversation at all times. Remember, this is co-creation generation.

2. Ongoing, real-time conversations: Twitter specifically has changed the political landscape for many politicians. Twitter is typically used as a platform for self-expression and news management, providing local and national leaders with the opportunity to gauge sentiment in real-time in at a rate that has never existed before.

Millennials have historically had low voter participation, however now that they have a space where they feel included, they are more motivated to show up to the polls”

One of the reasons that account for the lukewarm attitude of a lot of young people from the political discourse is the technical riguor required to do a proper analysis of public policy. However, it is obvious, there are a lot of ways we can engage the political elites without sounding nerdy. Indeed examples abound in the world. From Fela Kuti, Bob Marley to Syrian pianist Malek Jandali. Music basically is to entertain but beyond the entertainment value,every music carries a message. Music by it popular appeal to young people can serve as that tool to engage the authorities. Just like politics itself, music has no definite definition. It’s just the perspective from which we decide to see it. The more musically sophiscated young people become, the more politically alert, morally matured and courageous they become to think for themselves

I am not in anyway saying all of us should be revolutionaries but perhaps some of us should,perhaps more of us. As Philomena Cunk said “It’s your right to stand up and be counted.Or to sit down and be ignored, which is also your right,and as valid as standing up.”