Mohamad Kanina: Chronicle Mohamad Kanina: "Democracy is more than just voting at an election"
Recently we at Kb Mosaik met Anna-Kerstin Larsson (L) and Camilla Westdahl (M), both are chairman of the municipal council, in Kristianstad and Östra Göinge respectively.
We talked about how difficult it is for immigrants to find the right party to vote for. Sometimes that can be a reason for their not voting.
Anna-Kerstin said that there is the same problem among Swedes. Camilla emphasised that when you vote, you must find out and be sure of what you really want.
But how can you know that? You ought to choose, and when you choose, you hesitate, as we say in Arabic.
Political scientists say that there are different reasons for peole to vote for one party or another – social position, media, ideology, current questions etc.
To sum up, we can say that when we vote for a party, we do it because we think it will be better for Sweden, for the community – and for the voter.
Every party in Sweden has some distinguishly feature. Naturally all parties focus on economy, schools, family, equality and so on.
Sometimes ideology plays an important role in the parties. In politics there are three main ideologies: socialism, conservatism and liberalism. There are other ideologies, but they do not have the same influence.
In socialism, the state plays an important part in the community, while it has smaller role in liberalism. Conservatism means that changes are made cautiously.
Sometimes the party leader plays an important part in getting voters to vote for a party.
When it comes to the bit, I must remind myself – and everyone else – that democracy is more than just voting at an election.
Democracy begins with the idea of how you can best live alongside others, how you can make the community better for yourself and others.
So democracy is an ongoing process which must continually be developed.
So we should remember: Even although we turn our back on politics, politics will never turn its back on us!
