The word politics stands for having conversations and making decisions regarding communal topics. Democracy means that communal topics are discussed and determined together in equality.
It is often said that in democracy ‘’those who participate are those who make decisions’’. But who exactly are the participants in the case of TTIP-agreement? The politicians that are preparing the decision have to go through major secure measures before accessing the reading room in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, which is the only place where the top secret documents can officially be read. Carrying notebooks, cameras or any other sorts of documentation devices into the space is strictly prohibited. Accessing the space involves signing a professional confidentiality form that disallows having conversation about the documents with anyone, which is maybe one of the reasons why the media hasn’t been able to cover the topic fully and thoroughly.
What are the possibilities of ‘’the average citizens’’ to take part on the decision-making on the case of TTIP agreement? The agreement and the politics related to it are somewhat of an extreme example of decision-making in the ‘’modern democracy’’, where the possibility to have influence is out of reach for the average citizen. By using the TTIP agreement’s own terms and means, the installation ‘’A reading room of the top secret TTIP documents’’ is concentrating on the problematic questions that arise from the whole case.
Arsi Keva 