Civil Liberties: They Just Got Interesting

However, it’s not just the students and the coffee shop goers who are beginning to express their interest in civil liberties and where they might be taken in the 21st century. It appears that the music and literary industries have caught on too, artists as famous and prolific as the industrial band, Nine Inch Nails, are producing widely listened to records that tackle dystopic near-futures not at all dissimilar to something from 1984. Whether you’ve heard of Trent Reznor, Zach de la Rocha or Serj Tankian or not is irrelevant: a large chunk of today’s youth is listening to the social messages they’re producing. The same is true of authors such as John Twelve Hawks, whose popular Fourth Realm series has re-introduced Orwellian perspectives in the light of the present to yet another generation of readers. The film V for Vendetta has also spurred another modern audience into political and social consideration, as did documentary maker, Michael Moore’s, Fahrenheit 9/11. The same can be said of the increasing interest in young people’s becoming politically aware as a result of reading a copy of Banksy’s Wall and Piece. They’ve generated interest in something quite new, and that interest is evolving.

So what is the result of all this talk of civil liberties and political and social awareness?

In the last six months interest in matters of civil liberties has reached a new high in internet forums and the media, people are beginning to express their opinions on the great open internet. Especially teenagers – the importance of youth-interest should not be underestimated, for it is they who will hold the power of the vote in the near future. Many worry that the current moves in the UK and USA towards a more heavily regulated and policed state may open the door for more totalitarian future; there are some who are tired of what has come to be widely viewed as the media’s fear mongering and its manipulation of its customers. A few are even concerned with the increased use of CCTV in our society, a contentious issue in its own rights. Actually, there’s a huge range of issues revolving around civil liberties being discussed. You just have to know where to look.

The end result has been a boom in the publicity of such campaigns as NO2ID and an increase in membership to websites on which these matters are openly discussed. Kia’s World is one such website, specifically mentioned here for its nature, unattached to any specific part of the media but instead something of a safe-house for people who want to discuss what should be done to prevent the loss of these liberties.

In fact, that is what it’s all about. The fact that people are expressing interest is good, it is reassuring that there are gradually more and more people who will act to hold on to the freedom that we enjoy today.