To Subsidiarity… and beyond!
claire daley, 7 August 2008
Superheroes are back with a vengeance. Following the recent spate of blockbuster movies, superheroes are sexy again and no longer the exclusive territory of geeks and superhuman-timewasters. However, the originality required to keep demanding audiences engaged has seen the definition of “superhero” extended to distortion…
Today’s definition stretches from super-strength to simply donning of the correct suit: Superman has his extraordinary superhuman strength, Spiderman has the superhuman ability to “do whatever a spider can”, but don’t get me started on Iron man. The man wears a powerful suit. End of story. That doesn’t make him a superhero in the same way that my access to Wikipedia doesn’t make me super-knowledgable. Notes are most often banned from the exam room because we test the person, and their no gimmicks ability. A simple, and not improbable, mix up at the dry cleaners and Iron man would simply be the emperor in the wrong clothes, the next guy would be a superhero… But I’ll admit that Iron man has a superhuman suit.
So let’s extend the definition of a superhero a little further. Bringing us to the newest candidate for superhero status; Subsidiarityman.
Subsidiarityman is currently rallying supporters, and breaking world records, in the name of European “subsidiarity”, which is the principle that decision making should be kept as close to the people it affects as possible. Subsidiarityman is a new European hero and subsidiarity is his cause.
Subsidiarity is a major theme of the Assembly of European Regions’ (AER) campaign to strengthen the powers of the European regions by increasing democracy and decentralisation within the EU.
Subsidiarityman was most recently in action in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, atop the beautiful stone bridge that once again defiantly spans the river far below. Mostar’s bridge was brutally destroyed in the near complete destruction of the town during the 1990’s Balkan conflict. The bridge is usually home to the Mostar diving club, whose Speedo-wearing members can be seen, toes over the edge of the bridge wall, limbering up for the terrifying dive (from the bridges steep, pointed centre the river below looks like a shallow trickle, flagged by steep rocky banks). Although, to be honest, when I spent a few days in Mostar last year there was plenty of limbering up to be seen, but not a single dive was actually attempted…
But Subsidiarityman was up for the challenge! On 28th July 2008 he dived from Mostar’s great bridge.
However, Subsidiarityman was merely the warm-up act, technically a distraction from the main event. Subsidiarity man’s feat drew attention to a world record attempt, but not for diving. Subsidiarityman gathered a crowd in Mostar in an attempt to break the world record for the largest number of people ever to chant the word “Subsidiarity” in unison. These two events were an effort to draw attention to the AER’s campaign to see the term subsidiarity added to dictionaries across the world “to ensure that citizens make the connection between an unfamiliar word and a familiar principle” (AER acting President Michèle Sabban).
An irony is that because the term “Subsidiarity” is not recognised by Microsoft, my draft of this blog in Microsoft Word highlights the term with the familiar squiggly read underline –a marker of sloppy spelling. (Note to reader: if you spot a stray “subsidiary” where a “Subsidiarity” is expected, please hold your helpful comments because I am currently battling the destroyer of grammatical flexibility and dampener of creativity – the Microsoft auto-correction for misspelt words and mistaken grammar.)
The AER’s “Subsidiarity is a word” campaign is part of its broader programme to “Increase the regions’ political influence within the European institutions”; a battle cry for European decentralisation and regional democracy. Less regional representation will result from the Lisbon Treaty’s reduction of the number of Commissioners, which is thought to have been a key factor in Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in June 2008.
So, if one man’s leap for “Subsidiarity and beyond” can increase regional democracy and the decentralisation of the EU, it really would be a feat worthy of a superhero.
But Subsidiarityman will certainly need a new outfit. Despite the de-geeking of superheroes in recent years, skinny Speedos are unlikely to ever be sexy. However, a European-flag cape and a jazzed up “Ode to joy” theme tune could really give the eurocrats something to rally around! He’d need a good villain though; a challenger of EU decentralisation, a nemesis of centralised control and dictatorship appearing in many disguises… his evil deeds can be seen amongst certain paragraphs of the Lisbon Treaty…