{"id":185,"date":"2011-02-13T13:36:58","date_gmt":"2011-02-13T13:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/?p=185"},"modified":"2021-06-08T13:37:16","modified_gmt":"2021-06-08T13:37:16","slug":"work-like-an-egyptian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/02\/13\/work-like-an-egyptian\/","title":{"rendered":"Work like an Egyptian"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She looked surprised at the question, slightly confused. \u201cIt\u2019s our Square, so it\u2019s our responsibility to clean it\u201d. She paused, and looked quizzically at the reporter. She continued, holding her sweeping brush, \u201cWe made it untidy so we have to clean it.\u201d The young woman was standing in Cairo\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.\u00a0 I found it very powerful television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less powerful \u2013 and rather concerning \u2013 was the report in yesterday\u2019s Times newspaper (12 February 2011) regarding the EU and how it spends its money.  According to research by the Open Europe <\/a>think-tank, last year Eurocrats and MEPs spent \u20ac274m on travel costs and allowances to visit overseas nations.  That\u2019s more than \u20ac1m per working day \u2013 on purely travel and associated allowances. That\u2019s 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, \u20ac55,000 for seven MEPs to undertake a two-day trip to the Seychelles. The think-tank\u2019s research pointed out that this total was more than the EU spent on food aid over the same period \u2013 this humanitarian budget only contained \u20ac237m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the EU has lost focus on what it should be seeking to achieve with its financial muscle \u2013 a little like British society apparently has. \u2018Call me Dave\u2019 continues to talk up his \u2018Big Society\u2019 in an attempt to address this issue.  In simplistic terms, my understanding of the \u2018Big Society\u2019 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 \u2018Big Society\u2019), the culture of our nation has become very financially and materialistically based \u2013 thus making such a concept very difficult to achieve. But it would be a wonderful place to get to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was at the Manchester United v Manchester City \u2018local derby\u2019 football match yesterday, and experienced the euphoria of Rooney\u2019s 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 \u2013 there always are when a country attempts to make such a seismic cultural change from dictatorship to democracy.  Achieving the \u2018Big Society\u2019 may register slightly less on the Richter Magnitude Scale than the proposed Egyptian cultural shift, but they will both be very challenging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I really hope that the Egyptian people\u2019s 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 \u2018big Society\u2019 and \u2013 perhaps tellingly for us here in Britain \u2013 seemed a little confused that such responsibility wasn\u2019t obvious to all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her words, and how she said them, will stay with me for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She looked surprised at the question, slightly confused. \u201cIt\u2019s our Square, so it\u2019s our responsibility to clean it\u201d. She paused, and looked quizzically at the reporter. She continued, holding her sweeping brush, \u201cWe made it untidy so we have to clean it.\u201d The young woman was standing in Cairo\u2019s Tahrir Square late on Saturday evening. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[200,199,187,201],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}