Politics - Nicolás Ried, an interview about politics

How important are politics in every day?

Nicolás Ried: From my perspective, all is political. I mean, each thing what we do, act or perform, in relation to others is a way for construct the political, our polis, in a specifical sense. I think that politics is the way how we have a relation with any other person, not only the day when we go to vote for a candiate (or not). Anyways, I think that one can do things in the world of two ways: focused in constructing a relation with others, a relation with the community; or, we can be individuals that care about itself. Of course, all of us are communitarians or individualist sometimes, but we can think all our actions from this relation. Politics are important, in the sense in which we have to decide construct a community with others or not.

Do you vote? Do you believe people must vote?

NR: Yes, I vote. I believe hardly in a participative community, without this aspect of democracy we have no one. In Chile, ten years ago, participation in elections was obligatory for registered people. Then, much young people didn’t  sign up to vote, because they didn’t believe in anything. For change that mind, was implemented a system in which all are signed up to vote, but the act of voting is voluntary. This new system have provoked a massive abstention from voting, and it results in a real problem for our democracy, because representants are not elected by a real majority of people. I’m a supporter of a stalinist way in this point: obligatory inscription to vote, and obligatory duty to vote. And if we go beyond, I am really supporter of eliminate votation and select our representants in an aleatory way… But that is for another question.

How informed are people before voting?

NR: People are not very informed before voting (me too). I think that our actual political system has a trap: they say that we have to vote informed, but government programms are really big and they don’t say anything relevant! So, there isn’t a way to know the way of government of a coallition for beforehand. What we can know? Grandilocuent principles. Politics are very spectacular nowadays, in the sense in which we only can know slogans from candidates: “I’m Catholic”, “I’m from left”, “I’m pinochetist”, “I hate Pinochet”, “I will do the same of my predecessors”. In this scenario, people must to ally with candidates whose ideals are shared or similar. It results in a distance between voters and representants, distance that deals damage to our democratic principles.

What kind of change do you think could bring the most positive results to a country?

NR: It’s difficult to think in just one change for a country. Actually, I think that the question for “just one change” is a conservative trap, because in politics we don’t need to choose one way to progress. Anyways, we can think in Chile and indentify one real problem. I think that the biggest problem in Chile is a thing that I said before: Chile was defeated by a neoliberal individualism, breaking all sense of community. It’s utopical, in a way, but I think that is the nuclear problem in Chile is the neoliberal logic in all dimensions of our life, from education and health, to how we act with our neighbours and if we say “Hi” on an elevator. It’s a cultural thing, but if I could change just one aspect of Chile, it will be.