She looked surprised at the question, slightly confused. “It’s our Square, so it’s our responsibility to clean it”. She paused, and looked quizzically at the reporter. She continued, holding her sweeping brush, “We made it untidy so we have to clean it.” The young woman was standing in Cairo’s Tahrir Square late on Saturday evening. The celebrations of having forced Mubarak to resign had developed into the sense of responsibility for ownership of the Square that had been the focus of the world’s attention over the past couple of weeks. There were families there each equipped with cleaning equipment and rubbish bags. Other people were replacing the cobbles that Egyptians had recently been hurling at each other. I found it very powerful television.
Less powerful – and rather concerning – was the report in yesterday’s Times newspaper (12 February 2011) regarding the EU and how it spends its money. According to research by the Open Europe think-tank, last year Eurocrats and MEPs spent €274m on travel costs and allowances to visit overseas nations. That’s more than €1m per working day – on purely travel and associated allowances. That’s a huge amount for one year. It would be interesting to hear some of them explain the return we as EU citizens have gained from their investment. This total included, for example, €55,000 for seven MEPs to undertake a two-day trip to the Seychelles. The think-tank’s research pointed out that this total was more than the EU spent on food aid over the same period – this humanitarian budget only contained €237m.
Perhaps the EU has lost focus on what it should be seeking to achieve with its financial muscle – a little like British society apparently has. ‘Call me Dave’ continues to talk up his ‘Big Society’ in an attempt to address this issue. In simplistic terms, my understanding of the ‘Big Society’ is helping people to help each other to take responsibility for themselves and their communities rather than relying on the state. Whilst many people support this idea (and long before it was labelled ‘Big Society’), the culture of our nation has become very financially and materialistically based – thus making such a concept very difficult to achieve. But it would be a wonderful place to get to.
I was at the Manchester United v Manchester City ‘local derby’ football match yesterday, and experienced the euphoria of Rooney’s spectacular goal and United winning the match. The place was rocking and no-one had any troubles, everyone was smiling. That was only a football match. I considered how many times greater the euphoria must be for the Egyptians in central Cairo? The euphoria of the derby win has almost passed. That experienced by the Egyptians will last a while longer, but there will undoubtedly be more difficult and challenging times ahead – there always are when a country attempts to make such a seismic cultural change from dictatorship to democracy. Achieving the ‘Big Society’ may register slightly less on the Richter Magnitude Scale than the proposed Egyptian cultural shift, but they will both be very challenging.
I really hope that the Egyptian people’s hope and belief lasts, and that MEPs and Eurocrats spend a little more time on the ground here in the EU proposing how they can use some of their travel money to support the Egyptians. The woman with the sweeping brush in Tahrir Square demonstrated a really clear understanding of a ‘big Society’ and – perhaps tellingly for us here in Britain – seemed a little confused that such responsibility wasn’t obvious to all.
Her words, and how she said them, will stay with me for a long time.
Paul
