It took me a long moment to find the subject of this essay, for I changed many and many times. Now, let me introduce you to an illustration of an average citizen: my mother. Our experience at My Europe was really interesting. I think I actually learned more than I had ever learned in my entire life about Belgian politics and government. That feeling is what still remains; I felt quite ignorant and uncultivated. And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. I have to admit, I was never really interested in politics, and when I read newspapers, it is still not the subject I would first look at. Therefore, it was a bit complicated to follow some of the debates on the 21st of November, although – and keep it in mind – I had the best intentions and I was craving to understand everything. I’m warning you thus that my political insight may be altered by my lack of knowledge of it. My mother never taught me anything about politics. And it is not because she doesn’t have time for it but because she has never been able to explain to me how this country works. Still, we sometimes had a conversation about the world and its problems. A discussion usually finished quickly because at some moment neither of us would understand the other anymore, and it would end in a confused silence. Yesterday I looked at a list of Belgian ministers with my mother beside me and I enumerated their names out loud. Most of them were familiar to both of us though; we’d read about them in newspapers, or we had seen them on TV. Mom said it was ridiculous to have so many ministers for such a small country. And that on top of that, they were the best paid in all of Europe (17 000 euros a month she said), which she had once seen written in an article. From the research I’ve made after, it came out to be incorrect. As a matter of fact, I think she confounded net and gross salaries. I guess she wasn’t too attentive when reading and she mixed everything up. My mother has no clue about politics. I don’t blame her for it though, as they never alluded to it in her family. She was not led onto this path, nobody told her that her choices might have an impact on society and that her voice, as small as it was, could make a mass call sound louder. Neither did she pass this message on to me.

Feeling this void in me was galvanizing. I began to get more interested in politics. But it’s starting slowly, and if I had to go to the ballot tomorrow, I would surely act exactly like my mother, putting some name on the paper haphazardly because I should have taken the time to inform myself, but I had not done so.

This brings me to the following statement: you never know how someone is educated within his or her family. When growing up, we’re expected to take part in a society we airily heard about during our years at school, while we did not even have a course in citizenship. I sort of went on investigation about politics at school and to every student I questioned I asked the following: When quitting school, will you be able to position yourself politically in society? All the answers came to a clear and ringing No! Most of them had never been interested in it, and I understood them – as it was kind of the same for me. Politics and government are badly known subjects to the majority of students.

Obviously we are lost then when it comes to electing a parliamentary representative. So we stick to the superficial, we choose someone because of his speech or we follow our parents as models, whereas they’re as ignorant as we are; we can’t think of the outcome of our vote. According to me, this is the main reason why there is such an enormous shortcoming in youth participation. Moreover, it is another reason why extremist parties get so many votes from young or ignorant people. They shout louder and clearer and since we’re not fully aware of the importance of our own implication, deaf by our miseducation, they are the only ones we hear.

Finally, what are my expectations for the next European parliamentary elections? Well, I expect enough, clear, diffused information, in order to reach as many citizens as possible, so that the EU will not be led by absolutely random chosen people. Besides, I really think that the future generations should have more citizenship courses at school, as education is key for a better society. If provided well, I believe people will make more conscious choices.