I recently became the holder of a dual citizenship. Upon recommendation from a friend, last week I became a 'citizen of Hopenhagen'. I'm one of over 300,000 people worldwide to have done so.
The citizenship was easy enough to get. No queues or re-directions or anything like that. I just followed the website link and signed up. A few clicks and I was a citizen.
But what would this new citizenship get me? Was I entitled to vote, to apply for social benefits? It sounded like it was somewhere in Scandinavia, so I was quietly confident that I'd stand to gain a few Euros or Kroner or whatever they had there. And could I move there for the summer?
It didn't take long before the penny dropped. This place was not so much a city-state as a state of mind.
On the homepage, a map of the world had messages of hope scattered over it. Someone from Canada had posted, 'The future gives me hope'. 'Hope gives me hope' read another. It was all becoming a little more conceptual than I'd initially contemplated. Not to worry, I thought, perhaps this citizenship was still going to be of some value.
The site invited me to sign the UN Climate Change petition, which urged world leaders at the upcoming climate change negotiations in Copenhagen to do the right thing by our planet. So I did. I agreed with the idea. And certainly, it was no skin off my back.
But I couldn't help but be reminded of that Make Poverty History campaign of a few years back.
Certainly, just like that one, this flashy campaign, launched by the UN and the International Advertising Agency, would do well to attract support. Soon enough it would be splashed all over Facebook, and any company wanting to display its social responsibility would provide the link on its website. Celebrities would be wearing T-shirts for the en vogue cause. Channel 9 would jump on board and soon Richard Wilkins would be interviewing Madonna.
But I don't wear my Make Poverty History wristband anymore. I suppose it's somewhere in my top drawer. It wasn't a conscious decision to stop wearing it, and it's not like I no longer agree with it. But one day I looked down at my arm, and I just wasn't wearing it anymore. Nor was anyone else, it seemed. The concerts had finished,