Political awareness, in general, simply means being informed about what is going on in politics, how it impacts you and your community, and what the ramifications are for the state as a whole. Political awareness is defined as the extent to which an individual pays attention to politics. Certainly, there are more than one view as to what constitutes political awareness. However, it is undeniably true that most people are not naturally politically aware. Too many people simply focus on their lives and are not aware of the politics that are part of their work and social environments, the politics that are actually affecting their daily lives, the politics that have a direct bearing on their future and wellbeing. Most people would rather be left alone or stay away from politics. Those who stay away from politics are mainly because of a misconstrued understanding of what politics is, because of a lack of political awareness. Again, there are also people who engage in politics with a flawed understanding of what politics mean. These people focus on “how politics impact me” instead of “how politics impact everyone.” It must be stated that political awareness is knowing and understanding all sides of the story. Political awareness is not only about elections and political parties but about a wide range of political aspects including governance, issues, policies, politicians, ideologies, principles, events, culture and political debates.
‘Political’ means relating to governance or the public affairs of a state, country or nation. ‘Awareness’ means knowledge or perception of a situation or fact. Political awareness, therefore, means your knowledge or perception about your government. A population without political awareness, a citizenry who is not aware of the politics that affect their lives, will be used by the government as mere subjects. Thus, they say, you get the government you deserve. It is up to the people themselves to choose if they want to be politically aware or not. Unfortunately, most people choose not to because it is more convenient.
Without political awareness, people are often (mis)guided by emotion and sentiments rather than practical issues that affect their reality. Human memory is short and we forget very easily. Thus, we forget to learn from the mistakes of the past and keep repeating them and we wonder why we find ourselves in a perpetual state of political quagmire. As long as we are not politically aware, we will not want to hear the truth if it runs against our flawed belief system. Our rights, both natural and constitutional, bear very little meaning when we are not politically aware.