IF I WERE 18 YEARS OLD…

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ (GREEK) TÜRKÇE (TURKISH)

Nikos Christodoulides has publicly issued an invitation to the other candidates for the Presidency of the Republic to conduct a joint campaign with the aim of registering young voters on the electoral roll. Andreas Mavroyiannis, Achilleas Demetriades and George Colocassides accepted the invitation. The campaign teams of the four candidates have already held a meeting and exchanged ideas on how to convince young people to participate in the upcoming elections, as well as in all future electoral processes. And this needs to happen by December 27, which is the deadline for registering new voters on the electoral roll. That is, within the next 19 days. 

How do you even start erasing what has been etched into someone’s mind and consciousness for more than 18 years? Are you going to assume that young people don’t keep track of what’s going on in public life and just tell them that voting is the bedrock of democracy – as if they have never heard it before? That if they want to have a say in public life, they have to make this choice? That there have been struggles to win that right and that they are turning their backs on it?

This generation in particular, the generation born within the last two decades, has lived through a series of scandals, with the one freshest in their memory being the ‘haircut’ and the collapse of the economy. A scandal that resurfaced when a group of people involved in the selling of passports became very wealthy. They have experienced the dashing of all hopes for a solution to the Cyprus problem, the continuation of which, even if it does not concern them directly, has serious repercussions on their lives. This generation is living through climate change and inevitably one of the issues that concerns them is saving the environment. Yet all they are seeing is its shameless destruction. The word that has become prevalent in the daily life of this generation is corruption. They hear the word constantly, and no attempts are made to combat it: No investigations, no punishments, no confiscations of property or anything else that could bring about justice.

And instead of hearing solutions, feasible and honest solutions to issues that concern them, they hear people talking about Grivas. Once again, Grivas has emerged as a major issue. Pronouncements of hero-worship and hate are being issued left and right, events are being prepared, already people have taken to the streets with banners. And yet young people are being called upon to vote and to determine their present and future.

In 19 days, young people would probably have to be lobotomised to forget all this and acquire hope.

Source: IF I WERE 18 YEARS OLD