Life on the road: building a global political party for Unity
and what I'm learning along the way! This week: how to tackle corruption & depoliticise the fight against misinformation.
Dear Friends,
A week ago, I left my flat in London and started a new adventure. Many asked me to keep them in the loop, so here’s a weekly newsletter in which I’ll attempt to share everything I’m learning along the way, the work I’m doing on the ground, and the political ideas I’m exploring.
🗞️ What’s happening
Onto the big news: after years of purely advocacy work, Atlas (the global movement I co-founded) will enter politics. Because to create a truly equitable, free and better world, we need to access the halls of power!
Running for elections across the planet is a huge project. Enormous. One that must be grounded in local realities yet impact global change. One that must be radically innovative while addressing people’s primary concerns. One that I cannot achieve by working behind a screen only.
So years after doing so during the 2019 European Elections, I’m back on the road with my partner in crime
. For a year, we will learn from different cultures, ways of practising democracy, and experiments that have been done to achieve a United world where equity, well-being and freedom are the guiding stars. And we will support members and chapters across the world and register political parties. We’ll get ready for elections!🇬🇷 Destination: Athens
After leaving London a week ago, I headed to Athens. For the last two years, I’ve been involved in the work of the Democracy and Culture Foundation, which hosts the annual Athens Democracy Forum. This year’s theme was “hope” after an insanely depressing year when it comes to freedoms, rights and democracy. A welcomed relief that reached its peak when Namatai Kwekweza was announced as the winner of the Inaugural Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Prize! And I’m honoured to have helped in selecting her. I mean.. just listen to her speech here.
Andrea and I presented the work we did over with the foundation.
Over the last few months, we hosted grassroots consultations on key democratic topics to attempt to come up with innovative solutions to some of the challenges the current models of democracies are facing!
We supported citizens in identifying issues with the current way we “vote” in Nairobi, with “mis/disinformation” in Bogota, and how people can exercise their democratic power in Bucharest. They then prioritized them and came up with concrete policy solutions. The underlying thesis of this effort is that citizens know what their core issues are and, if given the chance, will often come up with very solid solutions. Some topics came up over and over again, from the lack of trust in government to the need to eradicate corruption and better education. And the outcomes were mindblowing. Examples included: 1) creating an index of media companies based on their information accuracy to help readers/viewers/listeners understand whether an outlet is reliable or should be read with a pinch of salt; 2) democratizing education systems themselves to form more informed and empowered citizens.
I’m actually quite proud of the work we pulled off with partners and activists on the ground: we brought hundreds of people together to discuss some of the biggest issues with democracy. And they came up with brilliant results! We are now trying to get partners to work with us to push forward some of those recommendations. My personal favourite ahead of the mega year of elections in 2024 (EU, USA, India & many more): blacklisting corrupt politicians, or having sortition-based citizen-bodies create rules of what disinformation/misinformation is and how to deal with it.
📣 Let’s talk politics
End corruption by banning the corrupt politicians!
When it comes to corruption, it’s simply a systemic issue that plagues too many countries. To put this into perspective, “the global cost of corruption is at least $2.6 trillion, or 5 per cent of the global gross domestic product (GDP).”
Political corruption ranges from people accepting bribes for favours or influence over certain topics (as is allegedly the case with, for example, the US Senator Bob Menendez indicted on bribery charges), to democracies becoming oligarchies because of all the power and influence politicians accumulate after decades in power. While I fundamentally believe in learning from one’s mistakes, temporary solutions must be put in place for democracy to stand a chance.
Once convicted of corruption after a fair trial, banning politicians of running for office for at least a number of years could be the relief our institutions need. In countries where too many politicians are accused of corruption, this, alongside other policies such as term limits, could leave room for newcomers, declutter the political landscape, and rebuild trust in politics. It is at least what our Nairobi consultations on how to improve voting systems suggested. Let me know what you think in the comments!
Depoliticize dis/misinformation with citizens’ help!
“Is that news even real?” Did you ever ask yourself the question? I bet you did. And how many times did you hear someone claim that something was fake news?
We live in a society where we have constant access to an enormous amount of information from traditional media, social media, and individual sources. While many claim that this is the end of journalism and a threat to society, I find it to be a beautiful form of progress. More people are able to make their opinions heard, and what is “newsworthy” is less controlled by the few. For one, I would never have been able to do my work, build organisations and movements, or access information about activists’ work without all these advances.
There’s, of course, the other side of the coin. Fake news exists and harms individuals, communities and the entire planet. From people refusing to get vaccinated because they believed Bill Gates was inserting chips into their bodies to our sense of reality and truth being impacted on key issues such as elections, it’s often very scary.
First, here’s the difference between mis & disinformation:
“Misinformation is false or inaccurate information. Examples include rumors, insults and pranks.”
“Disinformation is deliberate and includes malicious content such as hoaxes, spear phishing and propaganda. It spreads fear and suspicion among the population.”
Tackling this is incredibly hard: “the spread of false news online is six times faster than truthful content.” It’s a losing game. And what makes it worse is a lot of those topics are so politicised that having bureaucrats or politicians trying to set the record straight often doesn’t work.
But what if citizens did? Due to a loss of trust in existing institutions, we are less likely to simply believe politicians or governments we don’t agree with calling out fake news. Due to a loss of trust in democracy, we are less likely to believe in processes attempting to deal with mis/disinformation. So might citizens be the solution? That’s what our Bogota consultations pointed toward.
One of the recommendations that came out of it was to create a citizen-made body to review what mis/disinformation is, suggest rules on how to tackle it, and oversee the review of politicians spreading fake news claims. This body could be created by sortition and would help in ensuring the impartiality and trust of whatever comes out of it!
For more ideas on how to tackle misinformation & disinformation, read about our Taipei and Bogota consultations.
💫 What Now?
I just landed in India! I mentioned above, Andrea and I are hitting the road to help strengthen and formalise chapters across the world. India is the first stop, as it obviously is a key player in geopolitical affairs and due to our amazing team there! I’ll spend the next month here to meet our local organizers, organise political events, establish a legal entity, and learn from great practices in the country (from UBI experiments to how the Central Tibetan Administration functions). We are in Delhi for a week, and will then head to Dharamshala, Amritsar, Rajasthan, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. If you are around and want to meet, have contacts and suggestions, reach out and check out the events we already have scheduled.
I’m thinking of making this a weekly newsletter with all the learning l’ll accumulate over the next few months. Let me know what you think, what you’d like to read more of, the format and any feedback and advice you might have!
Thanks for reading; let’s Unite for change!
Colombe, from Delhi.