Our Turn Now! – young generation steps up again

Ivaylo Dinev tries to reconsider in his book what happened, viewing events in the context of similar student sit-ins in 1968, 1997 or the Arab Spring. The author says that the several  months of occupation helped the students gain precious experience, growing as citizens. One of the models that it can give to society is the one for the strive for direct democracy.

“I think the occupation was a local example for a revolutionary institution that can be used as a project for the future,” Ivaylo says. “Every one of us had the right to propose, to discuss, to vote. Sometimes we had 14-hour-long sittings and finally we took a decision that was totally legitimate. My experience was that direct democracy was not that risky and that people involved in it grew as citizens day after day, slowly and gradually. That is why I think that if referendums take place more often in Bulgaria, along with other forms of direct participation of the majority in the decision-making process, we will get the awareness we need to develop faster as a nation.”

The mistake from last autumn that counters for the entire protest was that no way was found for the involving of the majority of Bulgarian citizens. The danger lies in the fact that people might lose faith once again in the protests’ effectiveness, as the same heroes and parties from the past entered parliament afterwards. The protests led to no political alternative, but achieved at least the small goal - to be a moral corrective of politics. Now each and every one, who wants to rule here knows that people might get out in the streets and make him resign in case he or she abuses their public trust.

“Our goal is revolutionary, but our steps should be evolutionary,” says the author of It’s Our Turn. “The most important of those steps is the building of a new political culture within Bulgarians via suitable education. That is where Ivaylo sees the participation of those, involved in the occupation last year. The experience gained should be used at the educational system for the forming of the new generations.