Disengagement costs us all far too much

Yesterday’s announcement that the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded to the European Union is an acknowledgement of what can be achieved through politics.

It is an acknowledgement of how successful a commitment to the common good, expressed through proactive, co-operating parliamentary democracies, can be. It is an acknowledgement of how once unimaginable stability and peace can be sustained across generations and national boundaries by political organisation. The award itself is an enviable honour with little or no tangible value, however the peace the European project has fostered is priceless.

It may be that in Ireland we have too quickly forgotten, if we ever really knew, what a terrible place Europe was just a lifetime ago. Because we were not directly involved in the war that defeated almost unimaginable evil we may underestimate the great achievement a Europe at peace represents. Scores of millions of lives were lost before Europe realised it is better to resolve conflict around a table than on a battlefield.

It is ironic and more than a little worrying, though, that at the very moment the award was announced disenchantment with Europe’s politicians at national and EU level is deeper than at any time since the foundation of the EU, possibly even since the end of World War II.

Increasingly violent protests in Spain and the very real prospect of a vote for independence in Cataluña; strikes, political, public sector and public corruption on a grand scale in Italy; something approaching national collapse in Greece and the violence that might ensue; a Germany, and its supporters, increasingly reluctant to paper over the cracks in the eurozone; a France feeling the strain of taxes introduced by François Hollande; and, here in bankrupt, dependent Ireland, an electorate growing disenchanted with a Government struggling to match the realities of power with the grandeur of their pre-election promises. That feeling is exacerbated by the unfortunate reality that our Government has lost authority and power because we have lost our economic independence. There is a sense of disengagement and pointlessness that, in the long term, cannot but disappoint. Unfortunately it is far easier, as any hurler on the ditch will confirm, to offer an opinion about this disengagement from the process earlier generations thought so precious than it is to do anything about it. However, one more excuse has thankfully fallen.

Earlier this week a website — Dailwatch.ie — was launched and it will facilitate citizens publicly asking TDs to declare their position on any issue. A similar conduit exists in Germany and 90% of politicians there engage with it and if the Irish site gains momentum it will be very hard to ignore.

This may not be the kind of social media activism that got Barack Obama elected or drove the Arab Spring but it could be a good way to re-engage and hold politics to some sort of account. Citizens are already far too remote from the political process and must re-engage or prepare to become ever more dispensable and ignored.

Maybe the awarding of the Nobel prize to the EU might just be the catalyst needed to reawaken the latent politician in all of us.