The subject called 'citizenship' was added to the secondary school curriculum as recently as 2002, but the concept of citizenship goes back 2,500 years, to the ancient city-state of Athens.
In ancient Athens citizens would gather in a huge assembly every nine or ten days
to propose laws and vote on them. It
was an example of direct democracy.
Every citizen had the right to speak and put forward their proposals but not
everyone could be a citizen. You had to be a male property owner, over the
age of 18 and born in Athens. Women, slaves and foreigners were not allowed
to be citizens. Citizens had rights and responsibilities: they had the right
to make laws but they also had to pay taxes, volunteer for judicial service
and fight in the army when necessary.
Many of the ideas of political and legal rights developed by the Ancient Greeks in Athens and other city-states were adopted later by the Ancient Romans. But Roman emperors came to be more influenced by their chosen advisers than by the people.
Road to democracy
It took many centuries for citizenship to apply to the majority of people in society and for their participation to be welcomed. For hundreds of years most countries were governed only by those who owned most of the wealth. It is very difficult to have true political democracy and effective citizenship without economic democracy.
There are still countries in the world – dictatorships and one-party states – where people are made to carry out the responsibilities of citizens, such as paying tax, but where they can have little effect on changing laws or making new ones. In South Africa before 1994, under a system called apartheid, the black majority population were prevented from being full citizens by a white minority government.
The apartheid government was eventually forced to allow elections where every adult could vote and a democratic government came to power. The new South African government takes citizenship very seriously throughout the society, including in schools where it has ensured there are Learner Representative Councils, which work in a similar way to school councils in the UK.
Historic struggle
The fact that Britain has many democratic institutions today, and that all adults can vote, owes much to the struggles of the Chartist Movement in the 1830s and '40s. At a time when parliament was primarily a club for the rich and privileged who attained their position through knowing the right people, the Chartists called for annual General Elections, in which all adult males could vote, by a secret ballot regardless of their economic circumstances.
The Chartists called for MPs to be paid a salary and for an end to the requirement that only property-owners could stand for election to parliament. The aim was to make it possible for MPs to be elected from the poorer classes of society. At the time their demands were seen as very radical and threatening, and the movement itself was strongly opposed by people in power. Their demands were defeated but many years on, the Chartist Movement's principal ideas and proposals took root. Early in the 20th century similar demands, but especially for women's citizenship rights, were made by the Suffragette Movement.
Citizens of the world
Today people look at citizenship not only in terms of their own country but internationally. This is usually called global citizenship. The most embracing global citizenship statement of the last 100 years is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted through the United Nations in 1948. This has support all over the world. It sets out the rights that everyone is entitled to wherever they live, whether they are young or old, black or white, male or female, rich or poor. And where people have still not attained these rights, the declaration provides a detailed list of demands to campaign for.
The rights of young people are specifically set out in another UN document – the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). This has been ratified by every country in the world with the exception of two – Somalia and the USA. The main principles of this convention are that children have a right to survival, development, protection from harmful influences and, crucially, as far as citizenship goes, the right to participation.
Take action
Citizenship education is aimed at encouraging young people to be involved in community activity by enabling them to gain the skills of participating and to learn about political institutions and processes. Ironically, though, the Government wasn't too pleased when young people took them at their word and walked out of schools on strike during the Iraq War to protest in Parliament Square, directly opposite the House of Commons.
Aware that voting levels seem to be very low among under-25s, the major political parties are starting to engage with political questions about young people's participation. Both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party are sympathetic towards lowering the age at which you can become an MP to 18, and the Liberal Democrats argue that both the voting age and the age at which you can be an MP should be lowered to 16.
But participation in politics is not just centred on parliament. Young people can influence decisions by joining pressure groups working on single issues, they can write to the media, as well as to their local MPs and councillors, and they can form their own pressure groups.
