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John Dewey, a distinguished American political philosopher, said on his ninetieth birthday, "Democracy begins in conversation". nef and Charter 88 are working together to set up a democracy café in London to encourage such conversation.
Such cafés have roots going back to the eighteenth century coffee houses of London. These were so politically effective that the government tried to ban them. Later they became known as ‘penny universities’ – in Turkey they were called the ‘schools of the wise’. Recently there has been a revival in the use of cafés for talk on issues that matter, especially in America.
The democracy café will allow all-comers to turn up and debate for one evening each month from September 2003, for a trial period of 6 - 12 months. There are British examples that we shall be following, as well as the American ones. Cafe Society, launched with Channel 4, ran for several years in the 1990s. This encouraged people to reserve a table in a bar or restaurant every so often, announce a topic, and debate it with anyone there. Talk Shop began in 2002 as a series of six debates in Sheffield about the future of the city and will be repeated on a larger scale in 2003, looking at the future of cities in general.
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