EARTH DAY 2006: FUN, AND FUTURE POLITICS

Imagine your city without any cars just for a day, or even an afternoon. This is the idea behind Critical Mass, when thousands of cyclists take to the streets in a carnival atmosphere, and often with scant regard for the rules of the road. My earliest memory of this event was making wide arcs in the middle of Tottenham Court Road in London, reclaiming a street from its usual association with slavish Saturday shopping, for the delighted amazement of childhood. You could hear birds sing and a distant faint rushing sound was the only reminder of cars.

The Budapest Critical Mass is an annual event, which makes it more of a crowd-puller than its London equivalent. Imagine a procession of bikes, almost unbroken for a mile or so on the banks of the Danube on both sides and right across two of the bridges. Policemen bargain with the crowd to keep order and the good-natured participants agree to let a tram pass. Every so often the procession halts and cyclists hold their bikes aloft triumphantly, whooping with unrestrained glee. As we head through the tunnel beneath the castle, it’s almost deafening. It’s the sound of a spontaneous, albeit pre-arranged discovery of ‘people power’, a rare enough thing. People smile easily at each other; some have rigged-up sound systems; people of all ages take part. A toddler in a child’s seat gazes round himself mutely; a dreadlocked adolescent experiments with a series of wheelies. Somehow, everyone manages to respect everyone else’s space, gracefully coordinated like birds in flight.

Close to the end of the route, there’s a Brazilian style drum-out, a well-practised band whose thumping music matches exactly the enthusiasm of the crowd, which must be at least fifty thousand, if not twice that.

There’s no real agenda to Critical Mass. There’s probably a vague green leaning here, but nothing resembles a focussed political programme. And so much the better. The contrast between the joy of today’s crowd and the carefully staged pre-election political rallies of two weeks ago (on behalf of both major parties) is marked. Today was the free expression of the human spirit; the former events the result of manipulation. The electorate are far from apathetic - the politics of the future can emerge from such a self-aware, vibrant and non-institutional movement as Critical Mass.