Whatever intergenerational contracts may have been in place – spoken or unspoken, real or perceived – are largely gone. The promise and hope of previous generations—in the Western world at least, the majority of young people around the world could never dream of such things to begin with—to lead a better life than their parents is a flickering image of the past.

But it’s not the lack of economic prosperity alone that infuriates young people. Not that it wouldn’t be reason enough: close to 90 million young people are unemployed, constituting about half of all unemployed people – and also roughly half of all young people interested in working. And that’s the average – in Syria, to quote but one example, the unemployed young people make up nearly 80% of the working-age unemployed population. The growing youth employment crisis, earmarked by these ballpark figures, has been largely ignored.

Add the unsustainability of the current growth-and-screw-the-environment-mantra and the massively rising social injustice to the colossal employment mess, and you get a highly explosive mix, which keeps bubbling to the surface on the streets across the planet. Young people have to watch how the world as we know it, its economic, social and political fabric, disintegrates, day by day. They don’t like the mélange of the cocktail of political, economic and social disfranchisement, and have begun to show their anger about being robbed of their own future with what Heribert Prantl calls “the sacred rage of the young.”

A global youth revolt in the making.

The exploding and imploding inequalities are one of the most impactful consequences of a well-known dilemma: what Zygmunt Bauman calls the tripod of economic, military and cultural sovereignities has long lost its stability. Economic globalisation and the deterritorialisation of capital and labour leave current political structures crumbling and humbled.

As Bauman puts it in his newest book “Collateral Damage. Social inequalities in a global age (2011)”:

“…the exclusive compound of growing social inequality and the rising volume of human suffering relegated to the status of ‘collaterality’ (marginality, externality, disposability, not a legitimate part of the political agenda) has all the markings of being potentially the most disastrous among the many problems humanity may be forced to confront, deal with and resolve in the current century.” (Bauman 2011:9)

Current events only seem to underline Bauman’s grim analysis:

• whether it’s the civil unrests in 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois, in 2007 in Villiers-le-Bel or in 2011 in London;
• the England riots and the United Kingdom anti-austerity protests;
• the grassroots protests in 2009 in Iceland, 2010 and 2011 in Greece, 2011 in Portugal and Spain;
• the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt;
• the civil uprisings in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen;
• the protests in Algeria, Chile, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Oman;

- and the list doesn’t end here! The calls for change—various kinds of change, for different sets of reasons, caused by different triggers, each unique and standing in their own right—have a decisively amplified tone, scale and intensity.

Much has been written and said about all of these events,

• from different, diverse and disputed opinions on the London riots
• to the role of young people and the role of social media in the Arab spring,
• from the Spanish grassroots protests including nolesvotes.org, the Democracia Real Ya collective and the acampadas
• to the clash of generations in Greece.

Probably Slavoj Žižek has, with this observation:

“Opposition to the system can no longer articulate itself in the form of a realistic alternative,”

offered an analysis widely shared across countries and contexts.

Without wanting to or claiming to offer a definite understanding for the various protests and movements across the globe, Manuel Castells summarises more drastically what seems to be happening:

“The disgust becomes a network.”

The note says, in Catalan, "I want to grow up in a better world"

There is a determined and unifying No! to the increasing inequality and a loud and clear Yes! to much-needed change and a different way of living, and living together. It’s obvious that young people, who are expressing their anger and frustration as much as their desire and hope for change so forcefully these days, are determined to shape our times.

“Will it be revolution, evolution, or resignation?” -

so wonder the minds behind One Young World, the global youth leadership summit, in their new 2011 White Paper Beyond the Long Spring of Dissent.

It certainly doesn’t look too much like resignation right now…

In his article The dead end of globalisation looms before our youth, Pankaj Mishra argues that we are witnessing a fresh political awakening, a world awakening with rage about “a condition of prosperity without equality, wealth without peace.”

Wolfgang Gründiger of the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations makes an equally strong statement when he writes, and warns, that

“all those who claim this generation is apathetic should know: the revolt of the young has only just begun.”

Current events certainly suggest that Mishra and Gründiger are spot-on.

Yet, the question remains:

Where are we headed?

Image credits: David Barrero, Maxi Failla, Muhammed Muheisen, Dominique Faget, Sara Noorbakhsh and Alex Ballesta.

It’s almost impossible to give a comprehensive overview of all the civil society actors and activities; too much is happening and going on. A few good starting points for globally active civil society organisations, groups and initiatives are:

• the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), defending freedoms in the networked world. The foundation works on issues such as free spech, intellectual property, privacy and transparency;
• the Internet Society (ISOC), one of the leading nonprofit organisation on internet related standards, education and policy;
• the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organisation for the web;
• the Internet Governance Caucus of Civil Society Organizations (IGC), striving for internet governance to become inclusive, people centered and development oriented;
• the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition (IRP), an initiative formed to establish an Internet Governance regime founded upon human rights that has developed a Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet;
• La Quadrature du Net, a collective and advocacy group promoting the rights and freedoms of citizens on the Internet that starts from the assumption that net neutrality means that the internet has no gatekeeper;
• Reporters Without Borders (RWB), advocating and fighting for the freedom of the press, on- and offline;
• the Open Rights Group (ORG), striving to preserve and promote citizens’ rights in the digital age;
• the combined effort of the pirate party movement to bring the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) out into the open at www.stopp-acta.info;
• the Creative Commons Network, working towards the vision of universal access to research and education and full participation;
• the European Digital Rights Initiative (EDRI), founded to defend civil rights in the information society and working, among other issues, on
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  privacy, governance and freedom of speech;

• the International Modern Media Institute (IMMI), a foundation working to reopen the discussion about how free speech is defined and how it is to be protected for and in the digital age.
• and, last but not least, and of course, WikiLeaks.

Feel free to add organisations, groups and initiatives in the comments!

The work of the United Nations on internet governance spans across several agencies and bodies within the UN work, most notably the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations Group on the Information Society (UNGIS), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), the United Nations Conference on Trade amd Development (UNCTAD) and UNESCO.

Much of the United Nations’ engagement relates back to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005) conferences aiming to bridge the digital divide and take concrete steps to establish foundations for an information society for all. In Geneva, a common vision of the information society was agreed upon and underpinned with a plan of action, setting out to bring 50 percent of the world’s population online by 2015. This was followed up with the Tunis Commitment and an agenda for the information society in 2005. The World Summit established May 17 as World Information Society Day.

The 11 WSIS Action Lines

The main follow-up process to the World Summit is the WSIS Stocktaking Process, which provides a register of activities carried out by governments, international organisations, the business sector, civil society and other stakeholders with reference to the eleven action lines defined by the World Summit’s Plan of Action. In 2010, the World ICT Development Report (pdf) by ITU focused on monitoring the targets set by the summit. Regular WSIS Fora and a WSIS Community further

contribute to connecting, recording and coordinating stakeholder initiatives to implement the action plan.

The World Summit on the Information Society also called—following a recommendation of the Working Group on Internet Governance—for the establishment of the Internet Governance Forum, which convened for the first time in 2006 as a multi-stakeholder forum for policy dialogue on internet governance. The IGF intends to bring together all stakeholders in the internet governance discourse on an equal basis, from governments and the private sector to civil society and the academic community.

The Internet Governance Forum has met in

2006 in Athens – Report (pdf) | 2007 in Rio de Janeiro – Report (pdf) | 2008 in Hyderabad – Report (pdf) | 2009 in Sharm El Sheikh – Report (pdf) | 2010 in Vilnius – Report (pdf)

and will next meet in Nairobi in September 2011. (Its mandate has been extended by the United Nations’ General Assembly (resolution, pdf) for another five years – from 2011 to 2015).

In May 2011, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, published a report on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression (pdf), exploring key trends and challenges to the right of all individuals to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds through the Internet. In its introduction, the report

underscores the unique and transformative nature of the Internet not only to enable individuals to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression, but also a range of other human rights, and to promote the progress of society as a

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whole. Chapter III of the report underlines the applicability of international human rights norms and standards on the right to freedom of opinion and expression to the Internet as a commu­nication medium (),

La Rue, Frank (2011): report on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Page 1.

and the conclusion stresses that

the full guarantee of the right to freedom of expression must be the norm, and any limitation [prescribed by international human rights law] considered as an exception, and that this principle should never be reversed.

La Rue, Frank (2011): report on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Page 19.

Further publications of the United Nations on digital governance include:

• Implementing WSIS Outcomes: Experience to Date and Prospects for the Future (2011, pdf)
• Measuring the WSIS targets: A statistical framework (2011, pdf)
• Report on the WSIS Stocktaking 2010: Tracking Progress (2010, pdf)
• Measuring the Information Society (2010, pdf)
• Towards inclusive knowledge societies: implementing the WSIS outcomes (2010, pdf)

The United Nations work on internet governance is coordinated by the United Nations Group on the Information Society (UNGIS) together with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

The work of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on internet governance is based on UNESCO’s basic approach of creating the conditions for dialogue among civilizations, cultures and peoples, a dialogue that aims to achieve sustainable development encompassing human rights, mutual respect and the alleviation of poverty.

UNESCO runs two programmes related to internet governance, namely the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) and the Information for All Programme (IFAP).

UNESCO’s work on communication and information centres on six thematic areas:

Access to Information | Capacity Building | Content Development |
Freedom of Expression | Media Development | Memory of the World

Publications of UNESCO on digital governance include:

• Freedom of Connection – Freedom of Expression: The Changing Legal and Regulatory Ecology Shaping the Internet (2011, pdf)
• Professional journalism and self-regulation: new media, old dilemmas (2011, pdf)
• The Importance of Self Regulation of the Media in Upholding
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  Freedom of Expression (2011, pdf)

UNESCO published the World Report “Towards Knowledge Societies” (2010, pdf).

Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Information are two core areas of UNESCO’s work. Additionally, UNESCO has a strong focus on information and communication technology in education, starting from the belief that technology can contribute to universal access to and equity in education as well as efficient education management, governance and administration. The organisation maintains a Portal on Open Educational Resources and an OER-Wiki.

UNESCO’s work on internet governance is coordinated by the organisation’s Communication and Information Sector, headed by Jānis Kārkliņš.

The work of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on internet governance is rooted in the mission of OECD to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.

The organisation has developed key indicators on information and communication technologies, which are updated annually, to provide a knowledge-base for digital governance policies. The fifteen indicators mostly cover availability, accessibility, affordability and usage of landline, mobile, broadband and internet connections.

The Information Technology Outlook is a complementary regularly OECD updated publication.

The OECD’s work on internet governance spans across several themes, including information economy, information security and privacy, broadband and telecom and e-government.

The OECD has published a number of Digital Economy Papers, among them

• The Protection of Children Online (May 2011, pdf)
• The Evolving Privacy Landscape: 30 Years After the OECD Privacy Guidelines (April 2011, pdf)
• National Strategies and Policies for Digital Identity Management in OECD Countries (March 2011, pdf)
• More OECD Digital Economy Papers

The OECD has developed a privacy statement generator, building on the OECD guidelines on the protection of privacy. They regularly publish policy guidelines on internet economy issues, reviews of good governance in information society, reports — including “Reducing Systemic Cybersecurity Risks” (January 2011, pdf), a

report outlining what types of cyberattacks and large scale disruptions hold potential for causing a global shock, and “The Economic and Social Role of Internet Intermediaries” (April 2010, pdf) — and OECD Outlooks including the OECD Communications Outlook and the OECD Information Technology Outlook. Additionally, the OECD releases regular statistical updates on the future of the internet economy (June 2011, pdf).

At the occasion of a High Level Meeting entitled “The Internet Economy: Generating Innovation and Growth” in June 2011, the OECD developed an Issues Paper (June 2011, pdf) outlining some background to

the issues discussed at the sessions of the High-Level Meeting, including broadband access, the role of broadband in developing the internet economy, the balance of policy goals to strengthen growth, and policy making principles for an open internet.

Prior to the High Level Meeting, the OECD worked on developing a “Communiqué on Internet Policy-Making Principles” through a multistakeholder discussion. On June 28, the Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council (CSISAC) announced that it has declined to support the Communiqué, stating that it could undermine “online freedom of expression, freedom of information, the right to privacy, and innovation across the world.” More information is available on the website of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) — EFF Declines to Endorse OECD Draft Communiqué on Principles for Internet Policy-Making — the website of the Internet Governance Project (IGP) — Civil Society defects from OECD Internet Policy Principles — and the website of CSISAC — CSISAC Declines to Support OECD Principles on Internet Policy-Making.

The OECD’s work on internet governance is coordinated by the Department of Information and Communications Technologies.

The work of the European Union on internet governance is strongly related by the overarching themes and policy initiatives around economic integration, the single market and the four freedoms of the Union – the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people.

The Digital Agenda is one of the key documents of the EU and is described as Europe’s strategy for a flourishing digital economy by 2020. Starting from the assumption that the free flow of online services is still blocked by too many barriers, the Digital Agenda aims to update the single market rules of the European Union for the digital era. It sets out and defines in total 100 actions for eight pillars:

Digital Single Market | Interoperability and Standards | Trust and Security | Very Fast Internet | Research and Innovation | Enhancing E-Skills | ICT for Social Challenges | International Dimensions

The Council of the European Union, the European Parliament and the European Commission have adopted a number of declarations, directives, recommendations and frameworks related to internet governance, among them:

Communications

• Communication (2011) 287 (pdf) on a single market for intellectual property rights
• Communication (2011) 222 (pdf) on the open internet and net neutrality in Europe
• Communication (2010) 609 (pdf) on a comprehensive strategy on data protection in the European Union
• Communication (2010) 472 (pdf) on European broadband investing
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  in digitally driven growth

• Communication (2010) 245 (pdf) on a digital agenda for Europe
• Communication (2009) 532 (pdf) on copyright in the knowledge economy
• Communication (2009) 277 (pdf) on internet governance: the next steps

Directives

• Directive 2010/13 (pdf) on the provision of audiovisual media services
• Directive 2006/24 (pdf) on the retention of communications traffic data
• Directive 2002/58 (pdf) on privacy and electronic communications
• Directive 2002/22 (pdf) on universal service and users’ rights relating to electronic communications networks and services
• Directive 2002/21 (pdf) on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services
• Directive 2002/20 (pdf) on the authorisation of electronic communications networks and services
• Directive 2002/19 (pdf) on access to, and interconnection of, electronic communications networks

Resolutions

• European Parliament Resolution 2010/66 on a new digital agenda for Europe: 2015.eu

Recommendations

• Recommendation 2006/952 (pdf) on the Protection of Minors and Human Dignity

Reports

• European Digital Competitiveness report (2010): Volume 1 Main report (pdf) and Volume 2 Country profiles (pdf)
• Background reports on the economic impact of ICT (pdf) and the social impact of ICT (pdf)

The legislative and political work of the EU on digital governance is complemented by initiatives on media literacy, user rights, e-safety, e-health, e-government, e-inclusion as well as a wide range of research projects that are organised in four different strands.

The European Unions work on internet governance

is coordinated by the EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes and her team.

The work of the Council of Europe on internet governance centres on human rights issues, most notably freedom of expression, data protection, accessibility and cybercrime.

With the Convention on Cybercrime, the Council of Europe created the first (and so far only) binding international treaty on the subject. The convention outlines guidelines for governments wishing to develop legislation against cybercrime. It entered into force in July 2004, has been signed by 43 states and ratified by 20 countries.

Other relevant treaties are the Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, which entered into force in

July 2010, has been signed by 42 states and ratified by 12 countries, the Convention on Cybercrime, which entered into force in July 2004, has been signed by 47 states and ratified by 31 countries, and the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing, which entered into force in October 1985, has been signed by 46 states and ratified by 43 countries.

The judgements of the European Court of Human Rights related to new technologies constitute another main pillar of the Council of Europe’s work on digital governance. The Court maintains a fact sheet (pdf) on all rulings on Articles 8 (Right to respect for private and family life) and 10 (Freedom of expression) of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

The Committee of Ministers and Parliamentary Assembly have adopted a number of declarations and recommendations related to internet governance, among them:

• Declarations by the Committee of Ministers
• Declaration, September 2010 on the Digital Agenda for Europe
• Declaration, May 2005 on human rights and the rule of law in the information society
• Declaration, May 2003, pdf on freedom of communication on the internet
• Recommendations by the Committee of Ministers
• Recommendation (2010) 13 on profiling and data protection
• Recommendation (2009) 1 on electronic democracy
• Recommendation (2008) 6 on measures to promote the respect for freedom of expression and information
• Recommendation (2007) 16 on measures to promote the public service value of the internet
• Recommendation (2004) 15 on
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  electronic governance

• Recommendation (2004) 11 on legal, operational and technical standards for e-voting
• Recommendation (2001) 7 on measures to protect copyright and combat piracy
• Recommendations by the Parliamentary Assembly
• Recommendation 1950 (2011) on the protection of journalists’ sources
• Recommendation 1906 (2010) on rethinking creative rights for the internet age
• Recommendation 1860 (2009) on electronic democracy
• Recommendation 1670 (2004) on internet and the law

The Council of Europe is publishing an Internet Literacy Handbook, a guide intended to explain how to get the most out of the Internet and, at the same time, how to protect and maintain privacy. It has developed Human Rights Guidelines for Internet Service Providers (pdf) and Human Rights Guidelines for Online Game Providers (pdf). The organisation also co-hosts the European dialogue on Internet Governance, an open platform for informal and inclusive discussion and exchange on public policy issues related to Internet governance between stakeholders from all over Europe.

Internet Freedom Conference

In May 2009, the Council of Europe organised a conference of ministers responsible for media and new communication services in Reykjavik, for which a background document on internet governance (pdf) was prepared and which led to a declaration by the ministers (pdf).

In April 2011, an Internet Freedom Conference From Principles to Global Treaty Law? took place in Strasbourg to discuss internet governance principles and to explore viable options for creating an architecture for multi-stakeholder participation in international Internet-related public policy-making (Source). A draft document on internet governance principles (pdf) and a draft document on the protection and promotion of the internets universality, integrity and openness (pdf) were prepared for debate at the conference.

An information document entitled Internet Governance — Developing the Future Together (pdf) is regularly updated, last in May 2011.

The Council of Europe’s work on internet governance is coordinated by Lee Hibbard and his team on information society and internet governance.

I am currently in Belgrade to facilitate the New Media Summer School together with Ivana Davidovska. The New Media Summer School is organised by the European Students’ Forum AEGEE, the Young European Federalists JEF, Youth for Exchange and Understanding YEU and the European Youth Press EYP.

It precedes the European Dialogue on Internet Governance 2011 Conference, where various stakeholders from governments, civil society and the private sector will try to answer questions such as

• What should tomorrows internet look, feel and be like?
• Who will decide which content youll be able to find online?
• How can the web strengthen democracy and human rights?

The European Dialogue on Internet Governance was created in 2008 and understands itself as

an open platform for informal and inclusive discussion and exchange on public policy issues related to internet governance between stakeholders from all over Europe. (Source)

The New Media Summer School orchestrates the youth input to the European Dialogue and wants to:

• take stock of the status quo of policies and identify the needs for young people in terms of future policy action in the fields of youth participation, human rights and education related to new media developments
• explore various ways of youth participation in the online world and how to use them effectively for the benefit of society as a whole
• identify the specific needs and channels for education through online media for young people
• bring together young people from various intercultural and social backgrounds to exchange experience, perspectives, roles and needs of participation, human rights and education related to new media
• weave a multicultural European network of young people with an understanding of human rights, education and participation perspectives on new media empowering young people to actively contribute to new media policies and debates

We will be covering the event extensively on newmediasummerschool.eu

and here on nonformality.org, on Twitter with the hashtags #nmss11 and #eurodig.

Right.

Much has been written about the Copen­hagen Climate Summit, as the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference—inc­luding the 15th Conference of the Parties [COP15] to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC] and the 5th Meeting of the Parties [MOP5] to the Kyoto Protocol—has come to be called.

Hundreds of millions of US Dollars were spent on this chaotic, disastrous nightmare of a frantic summit. That is a hell of a lot of money to burn for bickering and filibustering to finally take note of the “Copenhagen Accord“, which no spin-doctoring can mispresent as anything use- or meaningful.

But it's not the failed negotiations that upset me most.

It is two other aspects – it is how we were ridiculed by power twice.

The ugly face of power | Photo by thousand.wor(l)ds

Firstly, I am upset about the unashamed and disgusting display and abuse of state power. More than 122 million US Dollars—$122.000.000,00—were spent to secure Copenhagen, and none of it was pretty.

The tip of the iceberg: protests were undermined by deployed undercover officers, phones of activists were tapped, meetings were infiltrated…

Protesters were kettled and arrested in vast numbers—thousands—to be wagoned off to steel cages in a former beer warehouse especially constructed for the

climate conference apparently called “Guantánamo Junior”. It's difficult to see how this could not be called mass repression.

While there is hope that most of this shit will turn out to have been violating the European Convention of Human Rights, we would be lying to ourselves if we continued to praise existing channels of participation as meaningful if even our most basic democratic and human rights are violated so shamelessly.

Secondly, I am upset by the idiocy of the civil society movement. Most NGOs were quick to blaim Obama and claim that the US had wrecked the climate negotiations by demanding too much while offering too little, a sentiment speedily reproduced in the media. But as Mark Lynas—a British author, journalist and environmental activist—points out, many developing countries have much more to lose by legally binding agreements because it would impact their coal-driven growth more directly and more quickly.

Lynas, who was advising the Maldives delegation during the summit, argues in his eyewitness account of the final negotiations behind closed doors that “China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful 'deal' so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame.”

In an interview with the New York Times, Mark observes that

“the NGO movement is ten years out of date. They're still arguing for 'climate justice', whatever that means, which is interpreted by the big developing countries like India and China as a right to pollute up to Western levels. To me carbon equity is the logic of mutually assured destruction. I think NGOs are far too soft on the Chinese, given that it's the world's biggest polluter, and is the single most important factor online pharmacy no prescription in deciding when global emissions will peak, which in turn is the single most important factor in the eventual temperature outcome. Too many leftist activists are therefore tending to side with the big polluters because they think they're standing in solidarity with the world's poor.”

Meanwhile India has confirmed that it co-operated with China and other nations to torpedo any legally binding targets at the talks – and while I love the new video of the global youth climate movement, I would much rather hear a well argued response and, more importantly, see a shift in logic and argumentation that leaves antiquated sentiments behind.

Act the fuck now! | Photo by thousand.wor(l)ds

battle for the youth vote in France heats up, BBC reports.

It was quite interesting to observe the effects described by Sloterdijk as “identification with one’s nation for a few hours” during the conference on the Youth in Action – Quality in European Youth Work in Bonn. People like me, who would never agree being boxed as German, for a few hours went totally berserk. So did the Italians, by the way…

Anyway. May Portugal win!

Here comes an excerpt of the interview, the original German version can for instance be found here. The translation is courtesy of Peter Lauritzen (thanks!).

Extract from an interview on the forthcoming World Championship in football with Peter SLOTERDIJK, Der Spiegel No 23, June 3, 2006, p. 72

Sloterdijk: “National football teams have practically no real existence outside such a tournament. Within the tournament they function as ‘Nation-simulators’, which remind a population that they can identify with them, if they wish.”?

Der Spiegel: “And this functions?”

Sloterdijk: “Very well, because the desires of people to participate would be chronically underemployed otherwise. We do not live in a world which addresses needs to participate. On the contrary: one belongs all the time to oneself, or to one’s own future, in the best case. One has a few relations and on top of that one may be part of networks, as we say today. But people in networks are already in a postnational situation anyway. Generally, one does not want any more to be obsessed by a community. The drift of civilisation goes towards dissolutions of communities and this for a very good reason: because self-conscious individuals can no longer or only with difficulty bear to be bothered by ‘groups of belonging’. We do not want to be representatives of our own tribe and we do not want to represent our nation elsewhere. But then there are situations where one wants to identify with one’s nation for a few hours.”

Der Spiegel: “If national identity comes through in the national team, would it not be logical then to write into the questionaires meant to legitimate immigration questions such as: Who has played for Germany in the final of 1974? As a kind of proof that somebody is really interested in the country?”

Sloterdijk: “Why not? But then the possibility should exist to show by answering the opposite, that one belongs to this country. The bad Germans have been the good Germans so far – this should also be allowed to foreigners. Who intends to immigrate should have the freedom to say:’ I am a bad patriot, this is why this is the right country for me. This whole mischpoke of Beckenbauer and consorts can go to Coventry. I find sport idiotic and it would be best, if we loose. This is why I have a right to join this nation.’”

Personally, I have neither been a politician nor a journalist nor a scientist in 2001; so possibly I am failing to have the right background to understand the continued public gasps of irritation and disbelief.

On the other hand I simply cannot imagine how, to give you but one example, the permanent ghettoisation of immigrants in no-go-areas of suburbia could have no or little effect on the learning of anyone.

It is quite striking how powerfully PISA (and a good amount of research well before PISA-times) has shown that educational achievement is so highly sensitive to the initial socio-economic conditions of students – one of the characteristics of complex systems. And it is similarily eye-catching that those countries where the social background plays little or no role in relation to educational success, are exactly the countries which have chosen to balance inequality. One example is Finland, where every student is entitled to financial support from the state – thus disconnecting the educational system from the financial possibilities of the parents and giving independence to the student.

I might be wrong but does this not suggest that Johann Wolfgang Goethe is still right in saying “Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine”?

Public discourse, all the same, has remained disgustingly simplistic by suggesting that educational failure had mostly

to do with little potential of the individual and, remotedly, little potential of the educational institution. But alas, not everyone is refusing to see the beauty of complexity which is often referred to as ‘common sense’ — and which is, it seems even more often, excluded a priori from dwarfish-sectorial political arenas.

One example is Jean Anyon, a professor of urban education at the City University of New York. She is an internationally acclaimed critical thinker and researcher in education and has published a number of influential and powerful texts on the relation of education and social-class contexts. In her contribution “What ‘counts’ as educational policy? Notes towards a new paradigm” to the Harvard Educational Review in Spring 2005 she writes that “the effects of macroeconomic policies continually trump the effects of education policies”.

I could not agree more.

You might ask yourself: Why is her work so interesting for us in Europe? Why is it relevant to non-formal education?

I can, of course, only give you my personal perspective, and you make your own choice: I find her work so interesting because she has observed a strong influence of the socio-economic background – in other words: social class – on the success in the education system of the US, a country which was founded after medieval times, feudalism and all that and which was based on the equality of people stated as a fundamental principle in the declaration of independence.

Nonetheless, differences between class have been reproduced in a hurry, prompting Jean Anyon to quote Max Weber and Karl Marx who “suggested that there were identifiable and socially meaningful differences in the educational knowledge made available to literati and peasant, aristocrat and laborer.”

Already in her early works in 1980 and 1981 she observed a “hidden curriculum” in school work in the sense of Marx and Weber, providing empirical support and qualification to show that “differing curricular, pedagogical and pupil evaluation practices emphasize different cognitive and behavorial skills in each social setting” and in consequence that these differing sets of skills “contribute to the development (…) of certain potential relationships to physical and symbolic capital, to authority, and to the process of work.”

In other words: Education reproduces the social class it is embedded in — and thus reproduces inequality. Just like in Europe…

A second element makes her work worthwhile some reading and thinking time in my humble opinion: With our current practice in European-level non-formal education we only reach youth workers and youth leaders from particular backgrounds. I would myself make the populist claim that even with our work targeting disadvantaged young people and minorities, we mostly reach out to elites of one kind or another – our information only reaches certain groups of people, it is relevant only for certain groups of people, and it is multiplied towards certain groups of people.

This is evident from practice — but it also manifests itself in the theories of participation we have been discussing in our community with researchers, policy-makers and practitioners. All important policy documents clearly state in rare harmony with current research that participation is only an option for those who do not have to worry about their food on an every-day basis. This implies that socio-economic well-being is a precondition for participation, and therefore a fundamental prerequisite for democratic societies to work.

Taking it from Jean Anyon’s research and thinking, one question comes to mind:

Are we, then, currently reproducing social class and inequality?

To you.

Available from Amazon or any decent bookstore:

• Anyon, Jean (2005): Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, urban education and a new social movement. Routledge, New York. At Amazon.
• Anyon, Jean (1997): Ghetto Schooling: A political economy of urban educational reform. Teachers College Press, New York. At Amazon.

Available as a pdf for download (via)

• Anyon, Jean (1980): Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work.
  Journal of Education, 162, 7-92. (pdf, 2 MB)
• Anyon, Jean (1981): Social Class and school knowledge.
  Curriculum Inquiry, 11, 3-42. (pdf, 4 MB)
• Anyon, Jean (2005): What ‘counts’ as educational policy? Notes towards a new paradigm. Harvard Educational Review, 75-1, 65-88. (pdf, 150 KB)

Linking back to what Alana wrote in November 2005, when the riots began in Clichy-sous-Bois, the International Herald Tribune went back to the Eastern banlieu of Paris at the times of rising youth protests against the C.P.E.

Read on to see what the International Herald Tribune came up with.

Clichy-sous-Bois, France. © IHT 2006

This article was written by Katrin Bennhold for and published by the International Herald Tribune on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 under the headline “Even those it’s supposed to help, it seems, oppose French jobs law.”

Donga Brahim is the kind of young person Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin might have had in mind when he drew up a new labor law that has set off student protests across France.

Brahim, 21, a Frenchman of Malian descent, left high school without a diploma. For the last three years he has struggled to make ends meet via short- term contracts followed by bouts of unemployment.

His world in Clichy-sous-Bois, the rundown immigrant suburb northeast of Paris where last year’s riots started, could not be further from that of the students blockading most of France’s universities. But Brahim is just as opposed as they are to the new labor law, which seeks to encourage companies to hire young people by making it easier to lay them off.

“The students are also demonstrating for us,” he said, leaning against a friend’s dilapidated car outside a row of suburban tower blocks. Like the protesters, he says he believes the law will make young people more vulnerable to losing their jobs. “This is not about color or about whether you are in the suburbs or not,” he said. “This is about all young people – white, black and Arab.”

For Villepin, who has made the new law a symbol of his leadership, this could be about his political future. The Gaullist prime minister faces a crucial week, with protests against the legislation growing stronger by the day and even those it was designed to help speaking out against it.

The measure was conceived in the wake of the November riots, which took place in neighborhoods with jobless rates that sometimes reach 40 percent among the young. Passed last week and due to take effect in April, it created a new contract allowing employers who hire people under the age of 26 to fire them without justification during the first two years.

This sharp departure from standard French ideas about job security was pounced on by students and labor union members, who marched in the hundreds of thousands last week to protest the law. Villepin’s political opponents have joined the fray, with the opposition Socialists vehemently denouncing the law and even some politicians on the right now questioning its wisdom.

Villepin went on television Sunday night and refused to withdraw the law, sparking new protests by students. The disturbances have disrupted about 45 French campuses, the Education Ministry said, and a growing number of deans are calling for the legislation to be suspended. More nationwide protests are set for Thursday and Saturday.

As students in Paris’s Latin Quarter prepare for the protests, Brahim, in Clichy-sous-Bois, proudly exhibits the back of his hooded black sweatshirt: It bears the outlines of a large “93,” the number identifying the Seine-Saint Denis department north of Paris that is home to a large immigrant population.

Brahim says he does not know any university students in Paris and has little in common with them. He is now employed at a car workshop on a temporary contract. But he says he prefers that to the contract proposed by Villepin, which he says would make young people of immigrant origin even more vulnerable to being fired for no reason, without creating any more jobs.

“They say this is their answer to the riots,” he said, “but what we really need is a law against discrimination.”

Not all young men in the disaffected suburbs outside Paris share Brahim’s opinion. Press reports have quoted youths of immigrant descent as saying that the new contract would be better than being trapped in long-term unemployment.

Villepin has argued that the contract would benefit the youth in difficult neighborhoods the most. His minister for equality of opportunity, Azouz Begag, goes further, arguing that the lack of protest in the areas where riots exploded in November shows that many suburban youths back the effort.

“The youths in the suburbs don’t fear the new contract because they’ve had enough of job insecurity,” said Begag, who grew up in an immigrant suburb outside Lyon. Begag acquired a higher profile in France after the autumn riots, which exposed the mass unemployment that affects a generation of descendants of immigrants and forced the government to look for new approaches.

According to a study published by the national statistics office Insee in September, the jobless rate among French-born children of immigrants from 19 to 29 years old stands at 30 percent, more than three times the national average. The contrast is even starker in the 751 neighborhoods in France that were identified by the Labor Ministry as volatile: For those under the age of 26, unemployment often reaches 40 percent, compared with the 22 percent for the same age group in France as a whole.

Economists say that suburban youths have the most to gain from the contract. A similar contract, also with a two-year probation period, was created in August for companies with fewer than 20 employees. From August through January, 335,000 people were hired under the new rules. About a third of those hires would not have been made without the August contract, according to a survey of French companies by the Ifop polling institute.

But dozens of people in Clichy-sous-Bois appeared unconvinced by such arguments. Jamil Logmane, a high school student, for one, said he does not know anyone who backs the law.

“It’s a contract that will help companies, not students,” said Logmane, 15. “It won’t reduce unemployment.”

A few kilometers away, in La Courneuve, another suburb, an Algerian youth of 20, who gave his name only as Benaissa, had just been turned down for a job in a supermarket – his 16th rejection, he said with frustration. Would he accept a job under the new contract if it was offered to him?

“Of course. When you’re unemployed you take anything you can get,” he said bitterly. “That doesn’t mean I’m in favor of it. And it doesn’t mean that I will vote for Villepin.”

Link to the original article.

Will it exist in a corresponding line to their participation in voting at all sort of levels, local, national, European? Or is there a very different pattern of participation preparing itself; efficient, real but not reflected in voting procedures? What is the key to understand the power aspect of participation of young people in public policies?

Looking at this, a reflection on the changing nature of public policy in the youth field comes to mind – from government to governance, from purely state action to a negotiated co-production of public policies in co-operation with the civil society, i.e. non-profit organisations, including youth associations. The role of the state might become less and less visible in the future and what a country can mobilise in terms of voluntary energy can become crucial for fields such as social services, health care, ecology and education. All this has to do with being able to associate young people to public affairs and to do this with the clear intention to also give them roles and responsibility very early. Someone who can develop a computer company in the garage can also have his or her voice heard in the city council; who understands complex computer programmes at young age can also contribute to the teaching of mathematics and informatics at school and trendsetters in modern lifestyle sports can also say a lot about the organisation of urban space. Everybody in politics claims the participation of the young – in what exactly? In what they think young people should participate in? Or could they also engage in some risky co-operation project? It is true that youth participation is crucial to overcome apathy in the political process – but honest policy, close to the people, can do this job even better and if there is none or not enough of it, there is no need to spread moral panics about the young and their distance to public policies instead. Youth participation cannot be had cheaply any more; it has to come over as a real offer to share the power and it is time that this happens.

For the Council of Europe and the European Commission to work on the participation of young people in public affairs is part of their youth policy mandate, be it in the new policy following the publication of the White Paper on youth for the Commission or in the daily practice of co-management of funds and programmes between public youth authorities and NGOs in the Council of Europe.

But this is not enough; the institutional practice needs to communicate with research findings. This way the couple public authority – civil society enlarges into the triangle public authority – civil society – research community and intentions are confronted with evidence. It is for you to judge whether recent research enlarges the quality of the discourse on participation.