Think of and write down 5 questions the answers to which this text might contain

3. Now look through the text to see:

a) if your guess about the contents of the text was correct;

b) what questions can be answered. (Answer these questions).

1. Today how many of us seeing a group of 11- or 12-year-olds vandalizing a phone box or picking on a younger child would actually intervene? Yet if we don’t, who will? Intervening would be an example of ‘active citizenship’, in which citizens should become guardians of their own communities. Instead of asking for more and more policemen, we should take minor law and order into our own hands. Frankly, this strikes me as unrealistic to the point of lunacy. In a highly disciplined society — Japan, for instance — you might well get away with rebuking someone for antisocial behaviour. But this is because the Japanese have a very highly developed sense of respect for authority. I remember sitting in a subway train in Kyoto and noticing, to my surprise, that a young man sitting opposite me had put his feet up on the seat without removing his shoes. As a foreigner, and with limited Japanese, I did not even think of rebuking him. But he caught my glance, obviously read my unspoken thought, blushed and removed his feet. Try anything like this on the London Underground and you might find that even an unspoken, but obvious, thought will call forth a lot of abuse which has become such a notable feature of our society.

2. We all have at the back of our minds the notion that we are entitled to make a “citizen's arrest”. But I have never met anyone mad enough to try a citizen's arrest — and with good reason. If you get your facts wrong and jump to a hasty conclusion that the man lying on the ground is the victim when he actually started the fight, then you could be guilty of 'false arrest' and be held responsible for it. Surely, there are times when we have to do something. The French actually have a strict law that makes it a criminal offence if you fail to assist someone in danger or distress.

3. In Cairo a few months ago, coming out of a restaurant, I was approached by three ragged boys begging for money. They were obviously just about to snatch my wallet and run off when two passers-by on oppose sides of the street bellowed at them in a real fury, and sent them off their way. I doubt this would happen in London. But in Cairo everyone smokes on trains and buses, everyone drops masses of litter and everybody hates the police.

4. A few years ago an elderly, publicly spirited woman I know saw a well-built mugger snatch a handbag from a girl on the Underground. She followed him down the escalator, found him standing on a platform waiting for a train, marched up to him and said: “Young man, give me that handbag.” He was so startled that he meekly handed it over. Then she really did behave like an active citizen: “You will now come with me upstairs and we shall find a policeman and he will arrest you.” “Ma’am”, he replied, “don’t push your luck.” This is what I would say to anybody prepared to take these ideas of active citizenship too seriously.