Creating Change is not Sexy

With politicians in Waitangi and in front of the cameras this week, you can tell the election campaign is clearly underway.

An election year stress-tests our democracy. But above all, it tests whether we’ve shouldered our civic responsibility long before election day.

Initiating change and political influence can seem distant for some, like something that happens on TV, in the grand rooms of Wellington and Parliament, far from ordinary people. That assumption is dangerous.

If we value democracy and freedom, we can’t let this mindset take root. We can’t surrender influence, change, or the hope of freedom to defeatist thinking that insists real power belongs only to a distant few.

In recent months, I have encountered too many people who see the future of our country as predetermined, and politics as something that happens in the distant realm of “theys.”

“Oh they are a sneaky bunch”

“Oh they just care about themselves”

“Oh it doesn’t matter what we do, they’ll get their way” …

Yet when asked whether they are members of a political party, whether they have donated to a cause, or whether they speak publicly about their concerns, the response is an indignant sigh and a firm “No”. Again, this is dangerous thinking, self-fulfilling and corrosive.

When we leave the civic space empty, “they” inevitably fill it.

Political agency and influence is not what happens on the floor of Parliament or in grand speeches and headline interviews. It happens in unglamorous places, through acts that offer little recognition and no stage for self-promotion.

It might look like becoming a member of a political party. It might look like attending local policy events in rooms with dim lighting. It might mean donating a dollar or two. It might mean volunteering forty minutes a week or dropping flyers into letterboxes.

It certainly looks like sitting down and working out what you truly believe and where you stand - an act that will serve both you and our democracy more than you realise.

These acts are often uncomfortable and require commitment and sacrifice.

So yes, creating change is not sexy. In the dull scenarios described above, you do not make a name for yourself or build a public image. These are simple and quiet acts of civic responsibility.

This election year, Friend, be involved. Engage with the democracy you have been gifted.

PILLAR is here, in part, to be a vessel for your civic engagement, to give you the ideas, the words and the opportunity to engage.

But ultimately, the responsibility is left with you.

P.S. Friend, PILLAR will be heading to court on Thursday to represent @aucklandcitizen for a case of wrongful arrest as he was exercising his rights.

Would you consider donating to help us represent him in court?