Sebastiaan Wolswinkel (1994) is a Mathematics teacher and chairman of the political youth organization of the Dutch Partij voor de Dieren (Party for the Animals), an organization with two thousand members whose aim is to make the values of compassion, sustainability, individual freedom and personal responsibility central to political thinking.
Due to a chronic headache, Sebastiaan knows what it`s like to continuously suffer. He wouldn`t wish that on anybody, and thinks it`s horrific that this is the fate that the many millions of animals in factory farms are knowingly subjected to, aside from the little wildlife that remains and the many fellow humans who are just as unlucky because of circumstances they have found themselves in.
Sebastiaan is currently writing a book about the political movement the Partij voor de Dieren catalyzed, and the global impact he believes it can and must have. Central to his thesis is that our concept of indirect democracy must be transformed from one in which citizens have the opportunity to indicate their particular wants once every few years, to one in which the wisdom of the crowds is used to select the individuals who are most capable of taking responsibility for their nation`s role in an interconnected world, whilst it is being threatened as a whole. This responsibility would require them to take into account all sentient creatures, not just humans – but not non-sentient entities, such as corporations or governments. Publication is planned for early 2019.
presentation:
Transforming democracy for the sake of systematic change - animal rights in politics