Radical Cities and Rebel Democracies
PPP Workshop
Radical Cities and Rebel Democracies
During last week Tuesday’s closing event of Postdemocratic Picture Party’s exhibition “I got a Feeling of Democracy when it was gone” at Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb) in Bonn, I engagée Magazin joined the party and took us on a tour through “Radical Cities and Rebel Democracies”. Here are some of my personal take-home messages.
Work & Governance Modes
Under aspects of ongoing urbanization – by 2050 66% of humanity is expected to live in cities – concepts such as (wage-)labour and capital, reaching back to Marx and Engels, and democracy as a form of governance and their fundamental appropriateness to serve and benefit the common good of humanity ought to be questioned.
Global Square Movements
Challenges to and disruptions of the current state of affairs and code of conduct mostly came forth out of disobedient civil movements. Without them, there most probably wouldn’t have been any progress in the nuclear power phase-out, no civil rights movements to end racial segregation and no women’s movement. During the past years, rebellious minds gathered on public squares in cities all around the world demanding changes in their respective political system. By means of the internet and social media, people can witness and (morally) support the longing for self-determination all over the world.
Smart Public SMART
Reasonable – a basic assumption, unfortunately not to be taken for granted – public digitization and digitalization can increase and enable social and political participation, improve quality-of-life and boost the economy. Though, administrative bodies not knowing what to look for into digital solutions (read KPIs) may be inclined to contract with and assign initial market access rights to seemingly most profitable parties without questioning their motives, i.e. business model. This can entail almost unrecoverable consequences down the line. Public-private partnerships where proprietary IT solutions are owned by an commercial private entity can create unbearable switching costs and an impenetrable digital and SMART infrastructure, if the decision to deprivatize is made later on. Prioritizing community-owned #opensource solutions can therefore be the smartest decision in all respects.
Political Position
One last interesting notion on the political area given during the workshop was that a growing divergence and diversity in political opinions, especially the re-emergence of populist tendencies and movements, indeed can be seen as anachronistic, however, isn’t it what the public called for the last years, critiquing big parties’ political program converging into one and the same and the spectrum of differing political parties shrinking altogether? For me, in the end, this is the time to seize the #opportunity and actively proclaim your desire for change and improvement in the political system, to call in a post democratic order.
Want to read more?
engagée #6/7 “Radical Cities”, their first international double issue, packed with 128 pages, and 20+ political and philosophical interventions was just released. Get your copy here: http://www.engagee.org/shop.html
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- engageé’s Facebook page
- Postdemocratic Picture Party’s Facebook page
- Future bpb events
