Last week my daughter had her environmental studies exam. For the uninitiated, the topic has nothing to do with the environment as such, but it is basically a mix of history, geography, social studies, politics and with a bit of ethics thrown in.
The European Union was one of the topics tackled: how it started, how many countries there are, how it works, what is the job of the MEPs and what are the pluses of being a member. One of the advantages, her notes said, was mobility.
“What’s that?” my daughter asked.
“It means that wherever you go in the EU, it will be just like you are a citizen of that country. Let’s say when you grow up you want to go and study in a university in the UK, then you can do it and you pay just as much as a British student would. Whereas when I was studying, to do it I had to pay loads, loads more, because Malta was not in the EU.”
“Hmm,” she said after a pause. “Okay then, maybe I’ll go, but only if you come too mamà.” (Somehow I don’t think that in 10 years’ time, she’ll be saying that.)
“But of course, I’ll come,” I said. “And you know what? The good thing about being in the EU is that I can get a job there while you are studying.”
“Yes! You can work for The Guardian! It’s your favourite newspaper!”
There, then, that was our future sorted.
I said nothing about the British referendum until Thursday morning, when her exam was over. Then I briefly explained that maybe the British did not want to stay in the EU anymore.
As it happened on Thursday night there was not much sleep to be had; my heart and the Significant Other’s sank further and further, with each news report.
“Is England still in the European Union?” the daughter asked the minute she opened her eyes.
“I’m afraid they voted to go out.”
“Oh no. So now there’ll be 27 countries not 28. We have to change the teacher’s notes,” she said.
My Twitter feed was already alive with Danes and French wanting their own referendum – will it stop at 27, I wondered?
And then suddenly: “Oh no mamà! Now what about our plans?”
“Eh?”
“To go study in England! Your job!”
“Oh right. Well it looks like we’ll have to pick another country now.”
“But mamà will you keep siding with England now in football?”
Groan. I could not bring myself to answer that.
I realised then how many people must have woken up, to have their plans (real ones not castles-in-the-air like ours) properly shattered.
One Guardian columnist Johnathan Freedland (now I can’t even dream that one day we could share desks) aptly wrote: “We have woken up in a different country. The Britain that existed until 23 June 2016 will not exist anymore.”
First, there will be the disintegration of Great Britain: Scotland loudly and clearly wants to break free of the UK and stay in the EU. Northern Ireland, at the time of writing, looks very much like it wants to follow suit.
Secondly, there is the anger of the young people against the old. The demographics of voting were very clear: 75 per cent of 18- to 24- year-olds wanted stay in, whereas the majority of the 65+ voted Leave. “A heartfelt thank you to the older generation for voting for a future the younger generation do not want,” tweeted one youngster.
Indeed if I were a young Brit, planning to travel and work my way around Europe, I’d either be sobbing or planning to move to Scotland. (Incidentally, as I’m typing this my British friend who lives in Malta just texted me: “Google overloaded today with people searching emigrating out of the UK.”)
If we want to be precise, it’s not just the British who woke up in a different country. We all woke up in a different world, and we only need to look at the financial markets to see the horrible extent of it.
I’m hoping things will calm down, but if you’ve believed in the concept of a united Europe and suddenly you’re no longer part of it, then it’s ugly. I would have been crushed to wake up to a result like this when we had our own referendum in 2003.
But this is democracy. And I think it is unfair of people to point their fingers and insult the people who voted Leave. They did so because they had their own reasons. I’d say a good majority did it out of nostalgia of the Rule Brittania; others were taken in by that buffon of Nigel Farage; others truly believe that the EU is shackling the performance of individual countries.
I don’t understand this because for me the EU is a dream of peace, security and solidarity – and so many good things come out of this collusion of culture and politics, so many people have benefitted, so many lives have improved, all thanks to this thing called European Union, that it makes me want to cry.
No, for every Leave vote I point my finger at the EU administration. It has left itself to be painted as this scary boogeyman based in Brussels. The EU communication machine is hopeless. Sadly, most EU bureaucrats sit there in their little bubble and expect us to get what it is that they are doing, and if we don’t, then “we’re unappreciative/ungrateful/unknowledgeable” and what not.
No, Brussels we have a problem. Because the message is not coming across and the scepticism will keep growing until you get out of that bubble.
Meanwhile, for the rest of the 27 countries remaining, let’s hold each other’s hands tight. As journalist AA Gill wrote in The Sunday Times of London: “There is a reason why the Chinese are making fake Italian handbags and the Italians aren’t making fake Chinese ones. This European culture, without question or argument is the greatest, most inventive, subtle, profound, beautiful and powerful genius that was ever contrived anywhere by anyone and it belongs to us.”
Let’s treasure it.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti