The World Rests on the Young

In Spain’s Asturias, time runs more slowly. Even if you want to have a glass or two in company, you will need a few hours if you stick to local customs. In Asturias they drink cider. But not just any old way, from big bottles and glasses, to quench your thirst. It is a real ritual. A specially trained master pours the cider from the bottle or cask in a stream as long as his arm can stretch, filling a glass held at an angle up to a third, just enough to cover the bottom. Supposedly so that it has fewer bubbles, which cause digestive problems. That circular evidently never reached the Styrians, or they wouldn’t so enthusiastically add bubbles to every spritzer they pour down their throats. But be that as it may, the art of pouring is not the only reason for the time-consuming nature of drinking in Asturias. Everyone in the group drinks from one glass. If a lot of people gather, as they did a month ago after a conference organized by Rural Youth Europe in the small town of Piloña, you drink very little cider. But you have more time for conversation. With very interesting young people.

I was reminded of the group that gathered in Piloña by the comments after the latest parliamentary elections in Slovenia and the dismay of some that young people are turning to the right.

That is true, not only in Slovenia but elsewhere too. We are far from the times when young people voted almost unanimously for left-wing political options. But that in itself is not a problem. Democracy is a system that allows everyone to freely give their vote to the political option that convinces them most. And trends, including across different demographic groups, change over time and in different circumstances. Democracy is not only when “our side” wins.

For me personally, meeting representatives of rural youth from all corners of Europe who had gathered in Asturias was very interesting, and also encouraging. Most of them could hardly be counted among supporters of the left. That is not surprising, since the countryside in most countries is more conservative and traditionally minded. Some of them had taken part in the protests against the Mercosur trade agreement held weeks earlier in Brussels and beneath my office window in Strasbourg. But they were united by something else, something very important. Despite their political convictions and their dissatisfaction with how politics, European and national, treats the countryside, they are all committed defenders of democratic principles. And that is it. The most important thing. Democracy is strong when both “theirs” and “ours” agree on its fundamental values.

But despite the ray of hope from Piloña, this is of course not the whole picture, nor the prevailing one, of how ideological preferences are moving among young people in Europe, including in Slovenia. At a time when political battles no longer take place between different ideological programs within a framework of shared democratic values—within which it is of course perfectly legitimate to lean left, right or center—but are a bitter polarization for or against those values, this naturally has consequences for young people too. And that really should worry us.

Recently we have had a whole slew of opinion surveys showing that young people are increasingly losing trust in the democratic social system and are increasingly susceptible to “alternative” discourses that pave their way to power with division, the stigmatization of certain social groups, nationalism and authoritarianism.

What can be done to restore trust in democracy, since without it democracy is doomed?

Let us start with what we must not do.

Condemnation of and dismay at political choices are the fastest way to make the situation even worse. To a large extent, young people’s choices are a revolt stemming from their personal experience of democracy, and above all from uncertainty about the future. Let us not forget that the young people voting today were born during the financial crisis and have lived through the migration crisis, a pandemic and wars that follow one another and are becoming ever more senseless and destructive. This is the first postwar generation that will almost certainly not have a better life than their parents. Young people in Europe are dissatisfied, frightened and angry. If all we can do in this situation is call them ungrateful fools, then we had better keep quiet.

Trying to persuade them that democracy is the best system, and that in their ideological turn young people don’t know the real facts, are media-illiterate, uninformed and misled by disinformation spreading on social media, also has a limited effect. All this is at least partly true and requires action, especially regarding the regulation of social media and the (ab)use of artificial intelligence, but that alone will not be enough either. Because it offers a rational answer to convictions largely driven by emotion, dissatisfaction, anger and fear.

An effective answer will require serious investment in the competences young people need to understand democracy, take part in it and defend it—above all through the education system and the democratic participation of young people in society. There is no way around this. But literacy alone is not enough. The foundation of a democratic society is critical thinking and empathy—not as a school subject, but as a practice young people experience in their everyday lives, in the classroom, in the local community, in a society where their voice is actually heard and taken into account. Where this is absent, sooner or later their opposites will prevail.

But all this will remain without effect if we don’t address the real causes of the hardship from which distrust springs. Democracy cannot survive as a rhetorical slogan. It can survive only if it proves that it can respond to the legitimate expectations of young people—regarding housing, employment, health care, security, the future. And if it is represented by politicians of integrity who don’t just talk about democratic values but put them into practice. Especially when that is uncomfortable or hard for them.

All this takes time and a great deal of effort. But there is also an important first step that is relatively simple. While we waited our turn for cider, I talked with Mattias, one of the leaders of Rural Youth Europe, who confided that his peers in the village in Spain where he comes from are often very critical and mocking about his work and networking in Europe. “This stuff means nothing to us and brings us nothing,” they say. “What should I tell them, how can I convince them about democracy?”

“Before you start trying to convince them,” I replied, “ask them why they feel the way they do.”

When we start not only listening to young people but also hearing them, that will be an important first step toward restoring their trust in democracy.