Politics.
The word alone will make eyes roll, induce sighs and in some cases result in horrific arguments.
Well, that's generally been my experience with it anyway.
I find politics fascinating-honestly- but I wasn't always this interested or involved. I would go as far in saying I always tried to avoid talking about anything politics related or buried my blissfully ignorant head in the sand.
This isn't uncommon in teenagers, in fact it's the normal response but it shouldn't be. Just because the voting age is 18 in the UK that shouldn't mean politics doesn't get discussed at home or taught in schools. By 18 the next generation of voters should understand who they are voting for, what policies and manifesto's mean and most importantly, that they need to vote.
Not voting is not rebellion.
It allows those in power to shift the blame onto the 'ignorant, lazy and young' voters.
Not voting is not cool.
It's the same people not voting that complain when things change that they could have easily helped stop.
Not voting is not normal.
35% of the population didn't vote this year which is huge and far, far too many people.
This past month has been exciting. For the first time in my life, as a first time voter, I actively took an interest in politics because I realized, this election effects the next 5 YEARS of my life. That's important. That's my entire time at university and then some. Whoever was elected had the ability to affect my tuition, my ability to buy a house, my job prospects, my entire future.
It's with some luck that the newest assignment on my course was politics. This meant I got a crash course in the basics and was able to link this to the upcoming election. In this day and age the internet allows anyone, with a few clicks on a keyboard, to discover anything and everything they have ever wanted to know. The ability to self educate is out there. There is no longer an excuse to be ignorant apart from choice. This knowledge of politics should begin earlier. I firmly believe that schools should have a brief compulsory politics module so that everyone, interested or (probably) not, will have a very basic understanding of the power of government.
It should not have to come to protesting on the streets and mass media blanketing the issue by not reporting the protesting.
A social media site should not be deleting hashtags to keep the people uninformed and ignorant.
A racist, sexist, homophobic party should not be getting 4 million votes because it's 'funny' the leader is always down the pub.
It should not have to come to people seriously considering leaving the country because they are a student, mentally ill, disabled, elderly or poor.
It shouldn't have to come to this.
