Upload: 8 June 2019, Last update: 9 June 2019

The democracy at this moment doesn’t work enough to reflect the citizens’ opinions. As Joi Ito who is the director of MIT media lab mentions that “I think the indirect democracy we know today has to change.”[1], it is time to shape and implement the new systems of democracy in a society. The more those new models appear, it would form the post-democracy.

One of the examples which can reflect more the public opinions is the citizens’ initiative referendum (= referendum d’initiative citoyenne/referendum d’initiative populaire in French) which hasn’t been installed yet in France, but in the movement of Yellow vests, the participants claim the necessity referring to the model of Switzerland.

Basically citizens have to assemble enough number of signatures decided in advance. According to the fliers spread by the Yellow vests demonstrators[2], there are four types of that referendum — “legislative” concerning legislation of a law, “abrogative” related to abrogation of a law, “revocatory” regarding “dismissal of political representatives”, and “constituent” is “modification of the constitution”.

For countries like Japan, this can be an option for their democracies since the current government doesn’t respect enough the voices of the public. Especially the recent Henoko landfill is one of the those cases.

I think the democracies in the future would be choosing not just persons as representatives, but more likely citizens make choices on policies such as laws they support. Supporting a person as a representative is harder. In most of cases just because a voter supports a candidate doesn’t mean that all of policies and opinions of the candidate is supportable.

A person is composed of various opinions complexly which means that there are some opinions of a representative a citizen support, but it is often found that the others are not supportable. In the meantime, politicians with higher skills of negotiations are necessary to have diplomacy in internationally and globally.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81uaRdwoF1c 2:08-. Accessed 7 June 2019

[2] In French they use the words “législatif”, “abrogatoire”, “révocatoire”, and “constituant”. https://www.giletsjaunes-coordination.fr/ressources.html Accessed 26 May 2019, “ricv3” Accessed 26 May 2019, “tract ric1” Accessed 26 May 2019, “tract ric2” Accessed 26 May 2019. “tract ric 3” Accessed 26 May 2019.

In April 2019[1], it was shockingly reported that Julian Assange was arrested. After that happened, it is often talked on the Internet and news programs whether he will be extradited to US or not.

UK should not extradite him to US. He had sought asylum at Ecuadorian embassy in London in the first place while there’s always been huge pressure on him. And this case is hugely influential on the future journalism including freedom of press.

Some of the revelations that WikiLeaks did in the past was that the secret US military informations related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the video of “a US Apache helicopter killing at least 12 people – including two Reuters journalists – during an attack in Baghdad in 2007″[2].

What if WikiLeaks didn’t publish those information to the public?

UK should not have arrested him. It increased the risk of extradition immensely. Given the powerfulness of US over the world, any threat has to be minimized and his safety has to be protected.

While catching up with this news, I was wondering if there’s any international law or if we can set up a law in global level which can protect a publisher of information hugely giving contributions to the public. That is because what Julian Assange made public was what people couldn’t know without him. When a person publishes information clearly contributing to the public interests, the person should be protected from threats.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47891737 Accessed 31 May 2019

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-10757263 Accessed 1 June 2019

Decentralization of power is essential to improve democracy. Assume when a dictator governs a country, decisions are made in top-down without respecting public opinions. Even though democracy is more respecting citizens’ opinions, it is not working enough.

In the case of recent Okinawan referendum, even though “72%” of Okinawan people voted was against the landfill in Henoko[1], the government is continuing to stick to their plan. The government doesn’t reflect the public opinion enough.

In order to reflect citizens’ opinions, we need to introduce systems which enables us to make a proposition, gathers the voices, and be authorized to reflect in public. For example, the citizens’ initiative referendum (= le referendum d’initiative citoyenne whose acronym is RIC) which the Yellow vests demonstrators claims in their movement is an option (I am thinking about writing this type of referendum in another article). I think this is decentralization in a way that it allows people to have chance to reflect their opinions based on their opinions.

At present, people can express their voice on the Internet. The scale of influence depends on each person, but the capacity of spreading one’s own voice is not just limited to the government or the media, each citizen have the power.

Like above, the power is decentralized, or in some cases generated among citizens after the emergence of the Internet.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/japanese/47366904 Accessed 27 May 2019

On 16 March 2019, there was a big manifestation called “March of the century” which “more than 350 000 persons” participated based on a post on Facebook page of “Il est encore temps”[1]. It was on the same day of Act 18 of the Yellow vests movement and some of them joined as well[2]. The day before, students went on strike[3].

I think this movement as well as other movements happened before shows the higher consciousness for climate issues and citizen’s power to speak up to problems they see.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/notes/il-est-encore-temps/marche-du-si%C3%A8cle-rendez-vous-r%C3%A9ussi-avec-lhistoire-/454868488585605/ Accessed 20 May 2019

[2] https://www.lemonde.fr/climat/article/2019/03/16/marche-pour-le-climat-des-centaines-de-milliers-de-manifestants-partout-en-france_5437162_1652612.html?xtmc=marche_climat&xtcr=120 Accessed 16 May 2019

[3] http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2019/03/13/01016-20190313ARTFIG00052-affaire-du-siecle-manifestations-une-semaine-chargee-pour-la-mobilisation-climatique.php Accessed 17 May 2019

Upload:13 May 2019, Last update: 28 May 2019

Media distrust of citizens is one of the topics often talked in French society. This aspect can be seen in the Yellow vests movement. In my impression, more French people do care the influence of media.

Some Yellow vests demonstrators participated in “marche sur les médias” on 27 April[1] which comes from the media distrust among French people.

Especially BFMTV whose reporters were attacked before boycotted on 7 January[2]. Before that, the reporters of BFMTV were attacked for example, in Rouen on 5 January[3].

The violences of demonstrators is not acceptable.

But in terms of media literacy of its citizens, people in French society is not obedient to mainstream media, they try to analyze information.

Mainstream media is useful to get dairy information, but it is not wise to completely trust them. The severe eyes of citizens to media facilitates the media to think about themselves. Even some TV programs of France Télévisions themselves have fact-checking parts. Many French people care the media problems like independency or arbitrariness. Among Japanese, it feels like that more people are obedient to media and just receiving information as it is. Being obedient to information is risky and easily manipulated when it happens.

More citizens in French society tend to think about the information from media, not receiving it as it is.

[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2019/04/27/deux-jours-apres-les-annonces-de-macron-les-gilets-jaunes-mobilises-a-paris-et-strasbourg_5455740_3224.html Accessed 13 May 2019

[2] http://www.leparisien.fr/culture-loisirs/tv/pourquoi-les-journalistes-de-bfmtv-boycottent-les-gilets-jaunes-ce-lundi-07-01-2019-7982478.php Accessed 13 May 2019

[3] http://www.leparisien.fr/societe/journalistes-agresses-par-des-gilets-jaunes-a-rouen-j-ai-eu-l-impression-qu-ils-voulaient-en-decoudre-06-01-2019-7982001.php Accessed 13 May 2019