I’m sitting in the Indonesian House of Representatives Parliamentary Chamber for the official opening ceremony of the Youth G20 (Y20) summit, surrounded by fellow delegates from G20 member countries and organisations. To my right are the delegation from the US, and to my left the representatives from Türkiye. There are over 100 young people here, gathered in Jakarta to discuss youth priorities and propose youth-centred solutions to the problems we all face.
A milestone for the Y20
I didn’t initially realise, but we were lucky to be sitting in a parliamentary chamber at all: the opening ceremony this year was the first time that the Y20 was welcomed into an official parliamentary chamber in its 12-year history.
Being in a parliamentary chamber was special, but following the ceremony, we were also directed to the steps of the People’s Parliamentary Chamber where, only 24 years ago, Indonesia’s young people had occupied the steps following weeks of protests, forcing the dictator President Suharto to finally step down.
Indonesia’s history has been driven by the actions of its young people, and that attitude was reflected in a much-repeated adage from Indonesia’s first president Soekarno, who said “Give me 1,000 adults then I will pull out the roots of Mount Semeru, and give me ten youth then I will conquer the world”. Throughout the conference, the Indonesia organising committee centred our voices, and were generous with their time and resources.
We were addressed by several high-ranking government ministers and public figures; and hosted at the personal residence of the governor of East Java, Khofifa Indar Parawansa. Throughout the negotiations, I never once felt that we were welcomed as a token gesture. In short, we were taken seriously.
Valuing young people’s contributions: the importance of consensus
Sitting within the parliamentary chamber, and participating in the week’s events, I couldn’t help but compare the content of the speeches and the activities overall with our current government and leadership figures … and the UK didn’t come out looking good.
Indonesia isn’t a young country, but it is a young democracy. As a stage for the Y20 and G20, it was a fascinating backdrop for an event about the inclusion and active engagement of young people in decision-making. ‘Diversity and inclusion’ was a policy track advocated by the Indonesian organising committee, and there were frequent mentions of the importance of diversity throughout the speeches from Indonesian politicians.
Importantly however, the concept of consensus and unity with diversity was always emphasised. Even in our own negotiations within the summit itself, consensus was crucial. Without unanimous support, clauses weren’t able to make their way into the final communique.
A striking example of this philosophy in action was a visit to the Istiqlal Mosque and the St Mary of the Assumption Cathedral in Jakarta. Both are beautiful buildings, and we were welcomed into them as part of our organised tour of Jakarta.
At the mosque, we were addressed by the bishop and the imam, who both spoke about the importance of unity. The cathedral and the mosque are linked by a tunnel which runs beneath the busy road and allows people to travel easily between the two.
At the cathedral, it was pointed out to us that the two communities work closely together, a practical example of this being that they shared parking facilities on their respective holy days. This, amongst other examples of inclusion, meant that when Indonesian speakers espoused the importance of diversity and unity, it rang true.
Adversarial Britannia
Now I know that as an international visitor to Indonesia, I wasn’t able to witness or understand the problems that they, like every other democratic country, face. But there was something especially pertinent about the quality of rhetoric given the debates that were going on back home in the UK.
While we were practicing consensus and relationship building at the conference, our prime ministerial candidates and their campaigns opened on an adversarial note, seeking to divide the country, identifying “leftwing agitators”, trans people, refugees, diversity training and the media for ruining the country; one “woke witch trial” after another. Instead of seeing politics as a vehicle to build consensus on the big issues that affect us all, they chose to pretend that these attacks were examples of legitimate political debate, and that, more than anything else, saddens me.
The UK is supposedly a beacon of democracy, and yet our standards have been denigrated in a deliberate attempt to redefine our concepts of public service. In 2009, an expenses scandal rocked the country, resulting in the resignation of dozens of MPs, including the Speaker of the House. Fast forward 11 years, Johnson is fined by police, and he “takes responsibility” by … remaining in power until the news that he appointed a man that he knew had been accused of sexual misconduct to a senior post finally pushes his Cabinet to the edge. In 2017, the then international development minister Priti Patel is forced to resign after it was revealed that she neglected to declare 14 unofficial meetings with Israeli ministers, businesspeople and a lobbyist. In 2021, Patel is once again in the spotlight for breaking the ministerial code, but this time, the civil servant who headed the inquiry resigns instead.
I know it’s not true that every politician is out for themselves. Politicians are people, and people run the gamut of qualities from altruistic to self-serving. But slowly, the standards of public service have been lowered, and we have been persuaded that “all politicians are the same”, a statement which demands people accept less and less from democracy and our elected representatives. After all, why should we care if our prime minister reneges on an election promise – they’re all the same anyway. Why should we care if ministers awarded multimillion pound contracts to friends during the pandemic – they’re all the same. And why should we vote for someone else – they’ll do exactly the same if they get the chance.
‘O wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us!’
It’s only when looking from the outside that I realised that what we are doing isn’t democratic, it isn’t productive and it will never deliver the change that we need. The Indonesian people fought for democracy. We once fought for it too. Historically, whole groups of people were denied the vote, and even today, a vote doesn’t mean we can influence the decisions which impact our lives.
Many of us live in constituencies defined as “safe seats”, where certain political parties have dominated for decades, and where opposition votes rarely yield a change of representative. Even more of us cast our vote at a general election, only to have our priorities and ideas side-lined by a system which discourages consensus building. And some of us, 33% of us to be exact, don’t vote at all.
Democracy is resilient, but it’s not invincible. When we allow divisive rhetoric to go unchallenged, when we allow our leaders to denigrate our standards of governance, we do our country, our global reputation and our future a huge disservice. Sustainable futures can’t be determined by an elitist sub-group, and when we turn away from democracy, we allow other people to make decisions for us.
Summits like the Y20, or even the G20 are not going to save us. But they provide insights into global thinking and a model for cooperation. To invoke Robert Burns, they gift us with opportunities to view ourselves as the world sees us.
And as a country, the UK has been characterised by our decision to turn away from the difficult decisions and conversations. We turned away from the EU in 2016, we have refused to handle the influx of illicit money coming through London, we abandoned the people of Afghanistan, and instead of adopting a fair immigration and asylum policy, our leaders have decided to deport desperate people to Rwanda.
And it’s not just the UK suffering a democratic identity crisis. We hear about the demagogic populists like Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and former President Donald Trump regularly, but I found that even fellow delegates from robust social democracies were indifferent about their governments and elected representatives. A recent OECD survey seems to support this assertion, finding that across the OECD, only an average of 41.4% trust their national governments, and 41.1% distrust them. Importantly, the survey reveals that young people trust their Governments less, and in the UK, only 20% of respondents said they trusted our political parties, with only 6 OECD countries having lower scores than us.
One of my proudest contributions to the conference was my proposal about trust, which ultimately made it into the final communique. The final wording, unanimously approved, called on G20 leaders to “recognise trust as the building block of good governance”. Its widespread support confirms what research suggests, that other young people also feel disillusioned and distrustful of politicians and their governments.
Envisioning the future
But I don’t believe that the fact that a problem is entrenched should prevent us from tackling it.
We need to reconsider the direction of our country, and we need an inclusive and exciting vision and narrative about who we could be. There isn’t a single solution that will help us create our shared ideas for the future, but at the very least, we need to remind ourselves that there is strength and value in diversity, strength in disagreeing but acknowledging the shared values that connect us and fighting to make sure they continue to exist. We may not trust our current government, but we need to be able to trust each other.
