CAIRO: Seventy-three percent of a sample surveyed in Egypt said they identify themselves as Egyptian citizens, while 13 percent said they identify themselves as global citizens, with the remaining 13 percent seeing themselves as a balance between both.
The World Public Opinion Organization, a collaborative research project involving research centers from around the world and managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, released the global survey on May 19.
It explored global identity in Egypt and 21 other countries around the world, and concluded that people who are exposed to different cultures through befriending people of different nationalities and traveling abroad are more likely to view themselves as global citizens.
The survey sampled 600 respondents from Egypt. It also revealed that 19 percent of Egyptians traveled outside the country during the past five years, in contrast to 79 percent who did not.
“You can see now that there are a lot of young people in Egypt nowadays who receive a foreign education, they can barely speak Arabic and barely know anything about their country, meanwhile their parents are happy, so by default they grow up having this loyalty to that country, said Saeed Sadek, professor of sociology at the American University in Cairo.
The survey found that around the world, younger generations tend to be more globally oriented than older generations. Twenty-four percent of respondents that are 60 years old or above see themselves as global citizens, as opposed to 34 of those aged 18 to 29.
Another key finding is that global identity increases with education. Among those with less than a high school education, 28 percent think of themselves as a global citizen, in contrast to 39 percent among those with education.
“These findings suggest it is likely that in the future people will increasingly think of themselves as global citizens. Young people are more prone to see themselves this way, Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, said.
“Also, with economic development people travel more, meet foreigners more and become more educated; all these developments are related to greater tendencies for people to see themselves as global citizens, he explained.
“These findings also suggest international exchange programs, where people meet people from other countries, may increase the likelihood that people will think of themselves in more global terms, Kull added.
The poll of 21,307 respondents was conducted in 21 nations between July 15 and Nov. 4, 2008, when they were asked “Do you consider yourself more a citizen of [your country], more a citizen of the world or both equally?
The majority said that they think of themselves primarily as citizens of their country. On average 66 percent say they primarily think of themselves as citizens of their country, 10 percent as citizens of the world and 20 percent as both equally.
Among those who say they do not know people from other regions of the world, only 29 percent say that they see themselves as a global citizen as much, or more than, as a citizen of their nation. Forty-seven percent of those who have acquaintances in five or more regions view themselves as global citizens.
Among those who have not traveled outside of their country in the last five years only 29 percent say that they see themselves as a global citizen as much, or more than, as a citizen of their nation. Among those who have traveled outside their country at least once in the last five years, 39 percent say they see themselves as a global citizen as much or more than as a citizen of their own country.
“I was born in Egypt, grew up in Saudi Arabia where I received an American education and when it came time for university I went to Paris. See how many cultures I have been exposed to? And I’m still in my 20s, said Sally Abdou, who currently works in the banking sector in Cairo.
“A lot of people are like that nowadays with the world becoming a global village as they say, she added.
