We're Number 1??!!?

This week’s good news: I and just shy of four million of my compatriots now live in the best place in the world.

Lots of people think they live in the best place in the world..

Americans all think they live in the best place in the world, mainly because they’re told that repeatedly by their government, media and educational systems, and as few of them have passports they have no reason to disbelief them. One Floridan asked by a BBC reporter what gave Uncle Sam the right to go round bullying other countries replied “This is the Land of the Free!” as if that was some sort of self-evident, a priori truth.

But drat and darn it, buddy, if ya want to live in the real land of the free better sell you’re condo and pack your bags and move to the southern part of the Emerald Isle. Because an international survey of 110 countries indicates that the Republic of Ireland has become the best place to live in the World.

Huh?

I’m writing this in my flat in the Northside of Cork City on the sort of damp November day that used to provoke the remark, “Soft Day, Thank God.” You don't hear that so much now, as people living in the best place in the world are hardly going to offer orisons to the almighty just because they get some drizzle.

Across the road from me are two abandoned buildings in which trees are growing and pigeons nesting. I’d love to think that was part of some integrated biodiversity strategy but this patently isn't the case. Between these buildings is a dark, dirty narrow lane where teenagers gather to drink and smoke every Friday and Saturday, because there’s fuck all better for them to do. On my side of the street there’s a lane where a woman was raped on a dismal night about a year ago. At the end of the street is a bar where my old landlord was beaten up because he didn't furnish someone’s house properly. (Or so I heard)

So you’ll forgive me if there’s an element of scepticism in my tone. But I’ll try not to be too subjective.

Most of the other countries in the top ten are the usual suspects, most of which can offer at least one right or liberty that’s denied us. In all of them abortion is legal. In many of them people can by recreational drugs without the threat of imprisonment. In most the nightclubs stay open till 5 or 6, here we’ve got to start looking for a taxi at 2. In Sweden mothers get three years paid maternity leave, fathers get three months paternity. In Holland you can drink beer in the cinema and listen to the Concertgebouw for free every Wednesday afternoon, whereas her a symphonic recital will set you back at least E10. In Britain and Germany you can watch state-run, ad-free television and be free from relentless consumerism.

What he we got to offer in return? Apparently political freedom and stability, community and faith in our institutions.

Ya Wha?

I can’t argue with political stability, when Fianna Fail have been in power for all but 18 years of the state’s existence. Freedom is a thornier issue. If the people who compiled the survey were aware that Irish people who distribute fliers for protests, marches, etc., can be arrested for littering, or that people had been jailed for protesting against the use of Shannon Airport by the US military they might be reluctant to praise our political freedoms.

Community may be stronger here than in some countries, but the failure of many people to accept that the country is becoming more multicultural doesn’t bode well for the future.

Then there’s faith in institutions. Who are these people who plainly aren’t aware that faith in the police and judiciary is at an all time low after one keystone kops episode after another and that people are leaving the church in droves as they don't want to be lectured on morality by a group which contains so many paedophiles.

Is it the UN? Nope, we only came 10th in a similar survey that they did. Not bad, but there won’t be any flood of immigrants from Switzerland seeking a better way of life. (We still did better than the U.K., which is the important thing) Wasn't the OECD either. They rank us 2nd most unequal and worst in Health Care in the industrial world

It was actually the Economist.

Ah.

I read one quote from this august journal that things had gotten worse in every measurable way for Venezuelan peasants since Chavez came to power. Which is reasonable enough, because if anyone knows what it’s like to be a Venezuelan peasant, it’s a Comm graduate in an office in London.

This sort of thing leaves us highly sceptical about whether they actually visited all the countries they ‘surveyed’, though one night during the summer I came across a rowdy, foul-mouthed group arguing in Oxbridge accents about whether it was sustainable in the short-to-medium term for the ringit to be pegged to the dollar given the current volatile nature of the South-East Asian equities market before one of them vomited in an alley off Patrick street.

Economists tend to think in left-brained, black-and-white terms so the notion that quality of life is a relative, nebulous one might be alien to them, that one man’s right to party all night might diminish another’s to a good night’s sleep.

But there is one thing they understand pretty well, and that’s money. And it seems we have more of it than most countries in the world right now. As a result, things are certainly better than they were in 1848, when we were getting foreign aid from Amerindians and the city of Calcutta. What’s more we’ve become rich largely by following the Economist’s free market agenda, hence their kudos.

But hang on a minute. Who’s this ‘we’? I probably have more money than most people in the world, but as a struggling writer I’m a pauper by western standards. But on the other side of the scale property developers are raking in so much money that they can afford their own private airplanes.

Right wing economists argue that if one person becomes richer than everyone becomes richer, which is wildly counterintuitive, as if someone broke into my house and stole my TV, video, DVD player and stereo they’d get around E180 for them in Cash Converters while I’d have to fork out at least E350 to replace them. So everybody would become richer, except me.

They argue that a rising tide lifts all boats, which shows that none of them have ever been out in a currach off the Aran Islands.

The truth is that the countries which are growing fastest at the moment are the ones which offer the lowest wages and least job security. This was brought home to financial journalists themselves when Reuters outsourced their money pages to Bangalore.

Then there’s the fact that more money doesn’t necessarily make you happier, especially if it means that you have to work longer hours, spend more time travelling to work, have no time to cook food and have to rely on prepared food with all the nutritional problems this implies. This is what’s been happening in the US for the last two decades and similar trends are emerging here, though to be fair we do have a much better social security net than our American cousins.

Last year I visited some of the poorest countries in the world, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Nepal, and like many tourists I was struck by how much happier and more relaxed people seemed.

So when I read surveys like this that are based primarily on economic data, I’ll be taking them with a pinch of salt.

But at least we’re better than England. Ha Ha!