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Ajouter un commentaireA new generation
The Pirate Party membership has recently grown significantly, making it the third largest Swedish political party in terms of members with the current and increasing figures of 46000 members, including 20000 young members. These figures further describe how young the members and supporters of the Pirate Party are, which is particularly popular among men between 18 and 29 years old. Sweden had a widespread use of Internet early on and young entrepreneurs have developed products such as Skype, Spotify and The Pirate Bay, probably the biggest peer-to-peer site in the world and subject of police investigation since years.
- Amelia Andersdotter, one of the many young activists of the Pirate Party.
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Photo : Anders Jensen-Urstad
The Pirate Party represents the Internet generation that has come to see information and culture as something to get for free. Young Swedes use the Internet for spreading information and ideas, as well as for socialising and they master Internet communication better than the established parties. Several of the party’s candidates to the European Parliament election are young : Amelia Andersdotter, second candidate on the list, is born in 1987.
EU is the best arena
The Pirate Party suggests that the EU is the right arena for them to act. Much of the legislation affecting the Internet is decided upon at the EU level and then more or less directly transposed into national legislation (such as the Telecom Package currently underway). Furthermore, the Pirate Party has a high chance to enter the European Parliament because of the low participation rate that is expected in the election. In the EP election in 2004 the new eurosceptic party June List received 14% of the votes in Sweden, making it the third biggest party just a few months after it was formed. This exemplifies that the EP elections in Sweden may include surprises. Once elected, the strategy for the Pirate Party in the EP would be to join an influential party group, probably the liberal ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) or European Greens, through a mutual political agreement between the members of the group and the MEP elect of the Pirate Party.
An eventful year for the Pirate Party
- « Vote Pirate on 7th June »
During the last year file sharing and personal integrity on the Internet have been a hot potato in Swedish politics, and the issues have frequently been debated in media. „The past year has been very eventful for our key issues, and the development towards less integrity on the Internet has not been popular among the Swedish citizens. Since we are the only party that consequently has had positive policies towards file sharing and protection of the personal integrity we have gained popularity“, says Amanda Andersdotter. Last summer the FRA law evoked massive debate in Sweden authorising the state to wiretap all Internet and telephone traffic crossing the country’s borders without warrant. In January 2009 the Swedish Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement law was voted, based on the EU’s IPRED directive, and allows copyright holders to force Internet service providers to reveal information on Internet users sharing files. In the same month, the trial against the persons behind The Pirate Bay resulted in one year of prison for the four accused and in total 30 million SEK (2.8 million EUR) in fines and damages.
Only computer nerds ?
Some prejudiced commentators have called the Pirate Party activists to be geeky computer nerds and hackers. Skimming through the pictures of the elected representatives and candidates at the party’s homepage, several of the younger persons indeed look like the scurrilous portrait of hackers. However, the originality of such candidates might help young Swedes to recognise themselves. „There are also several purely cultural workers, and the creativity among our members and activists in terms of music, writing, art etc is high. People accusing us for threatening a vivid culture should take this into consideration“, says Amelia Andersdotter.
Still uncertain
- The Pirate Party’s logo.
During the past few weeks it has become obvious that the Pirate Party is an actor to take into consideration in the approaching EP election, and the established Swedish political parties have started to identify a threat. Nevertheless, the uncertainty is significant since almost 45% of the Swedish voters in early May did not know that the EP election would take place in June, according to an opinion poll by DN/Synovates. Back in 2004 only 38% of the Swedish voters went to the polling stations.
Article logo : http://press.piratpartiet.se/pressb...
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