Despite noble origins, town twinning must evolve if it's to remain relevant – and not be just a holiday perk for local dignitaries
There are 40,000 across Europe and more than 2,000 in the UK alone. Since forming the very first in 1944, Coventry has gone on to collect 25 more, giving it more than any other city. But, other than providing a destination for councillors in need of a holiday, what is the point of twin towns and have they had their day?
When Peter Davies was elected mayor of Doncaster two years ago he asked the same question and went on to ditch Doncaster's five town-twinning arrangements, as well as slashing his own salary from £73,000 to £30,000, retiring the mayoral car and scrapping the council's free newspaper. He drew both scorn and adoration and was labelled the "Marmite mayor" for being "Britain's most gloriously un-PC super mayor". According to Doncaster council, killing formal town-twinning has saved £4,000 a year and the twinning arrangements are continuing informally. So why aren't other councils prepared to pull the plug?
Here in Coventry, I doubt there's a councillor – or a resident – in the city who could name all 26 of the towns we're twinned with, and so far no one has been able to tell me why Coventry is twinned with Kingston in Jamaica. Twinning had a noble start in 1944 when Coventry partnered Volgograd (then Stalingrad) as one war-ravaged city supporting another. After Lidice and Kiel came Dresden – a controversial and poignant twinning at a time when the devastation of the blitz was still fresh in the mind of citizens of both places. But now, with more than two-dozen twins in tow, many in the city will say that we got a bit carried away.
Despite having fallen head over heels for twinning in Coventry, a trawl of the local newspaper archives finds many mentions over the last five years of local dignitaries jetting off to various twin towns, but comparatively few tales about ordinary people benefiting. The traditional community involvement and school exchange programmes seem to have dwindled in significance and now business and commerce takes centre stage.
The original ideas of peace and reconciliation are still going strong in Coventry (especially with Kiel, Dresden and Volgograd), but the buzz now surrounds trade links and mutual economic prosperity, particularly with Jinan in China which, in 1983, became Coventry's most recent twin. According to the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), twin towns should not be merely symbolic, but about citizens developing links in social and economic issues, sustainable development and environment. No mention of tawdry tradition and businessmen.
There are grassroots community initiatives in Coventry that are living up to the CEMR ideals. A team of citizens has developed strong links between Coventry and Hiroshima, with Coventry children receiving 1,000 perfectly crafted origami cranes (a symbol of peace) last Christmas from their peers 5,000 miles away. The local founder of an expedition company has used pictures, video footage and Skype to forge links between Coventry pupils and teachers and a Nepalese school in the Himalayas. And in the neighbouring Warwick district, a 25-year-old grassroots partnership with Bo in Sierra Leone involves schools, sports clubs, scouting groups, round tables, churches and businesses.
These initiatives don't rely on a document sitting in a town hall, they rely on ordinary people devoting time and effort to nurture an international partnership. And, unlike official twinning arrangements, where city leaders – with the exception of the Marmite mayor – are far too British to pull the plug on a dormant twin, each grassroots arrangement will last as long as the citizens of each place believe it to be beneficial.
Twinning was born before cheap flights made international travel available to the masses, and before the internet made overseas communication as simple as talking to your next-door neighbour. Communities have evolved over the last 60 years while town-twinning, with mayors exchanging Christmas cards and annual visits on behalf of their citizens, has stayed largely the same. If town twinning isn't evolving isn't it time we replaced it with something better?
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/27/twin-towns-relevant-holiday-perk
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