Reflections on CybaCity I thought it was a good idea When I first heard of CybaCity1 I was quite intrigued. What perfect common sense! An Internet system where people can make proposals. Where things can be discussed, knocked into a legislative proposal and voted on. What a wonderful way to inform politicians what people think and want! Certainly we have all heard of those proposals, mainly made in the USA, where presidential candidates promise to set up electronic "town halls" and "government" where the views of citizens will be heard. Ross Perot advanced this idea and so did Al Gore. But alas, they did not get elected. But then it is also true that many who promised this sort of thing and who were elected, somehow found other priorities and never delivered what they promised. As Ross Perot said, "Talk is cheap!" My friends who work in large institutions tell me that politicians, it would seem, do not want to really hand over the communications channels to the people and nor do they want people to decide what is important and definitely dont want people to decide what is important enough to vote on. The problem, it would seem, is once in power they want to keep their job and that means little forays into ways and means of consolidating their power. Did I kill my friend? I decided to test this theory out and, indeed, when I telephoned a colleague who is now high up in the Commission, he seemed to be completely horrified with the whole idea. .. it has always been a Commission monopoly .. He became quite excitable and very defensive, even although I did not accuse him of anything. He became progressively and rapidly incoherent. In a shaky voice he squeaked out a somewhat contorted "explanation" that such a thing would "weaken" the Commission. So I enthusiastically suggested that such a system could add legitimacy to ideas, which, might then be taken up by the Commission. He began to groan and I really could not understand anything he said, I heard some very strange sounds, I could just make out the words, "it has always been a Commission monopoly." I heard the telephone receiver go down and everything went dead. I thought, "Oh my God, I must have killed him!" I telephoned back but his secretary picked up his phone and she explained that he was in a "meeting". I haven't heard from him since. I have left many messages; these meetings at the Commission seem to go on for days. Getting things done I have come to realise that in the European bureaucratic ecology, paper, forms, reports, filing cabinets and, with the latest Kinnock reforms, personal assessments and survival, reign supreme. Harry Tuttle to Sam, "We are all in this together son!" So it is really good to have people on the outside whose lives are not driven by this sort of irrelevance. People who do things; who get on with it and solve practical problems. I am minded of Harry Tuttle the plumber in the film Brazil. Tuttle worked, not so much against the system, but for people, solving their problems, didn't even charge for the service. Fantastically efficient, a charming fellow, helping everyone. But he was messing up the system's monopoly and was therefore hated by all employed by the system; he was an enemy of the state. But then I think to myself, any small things which can reverse this awful downward spiral in initiative and problem-solving, has to be welcomed. As Harry Tuttle said to Sam Lowry, after fixing Sam's central heating system without filling in a form, "We are all in this together son!" and he was gone. It was paper that got him in the end But alas, poor Tuttle could not have come to a more ignoble end. As an efficiency-orientated free-lancer, he had an aversion to bureaucracy, paper and forms. Tuttle thought he could do without filling in forms, but, in the end, it was paper that did him in! But, in the end, it was paper that finished him off. Snuffed him out by smothering him, completely, in the thouroughfare of a downtown mall. No matter what poor Sam Lowry tried to do to save him, he just could not prevent the increasing onslaught of paper from suffocating Harry Tuttle. This was, perhaps, one of the most poignant passages in the film. Tuttle was gone. Oh dear. Was there no more hope? Let's make a run for it! Having refined my appreciation of the European environment and its challenges, I see CybaCity to be a reincarnation of Harry Tuttle. It has no particular angle, it is just helping the people. So what the hell! why not try? As Harry Tuttle said,"We are all in this together son!". Deep down, I really hope they succeed, don't you? 1  CybaCity is an Internet-based opinion review and voting system Article by Leonard Berry; © 2003 AAC Media Group International.