I am amazed by the extremity of the responses to the riots. One article criticised this as a 'knee-jerk' reaction, a term I'd like to appropriate; in most circles the knees are up and back to the wall. The level of hatred and fear on both sides, and lack of moderation from our leaders, appals me as a human, a young person and a christian.
As much as I would love to find an explanation and support the underdog in this, I am unable to condone the rioters. I watched with you all the muggers who robbed an injured boy and breathed a sigh of relief when projected riots failed to appear in my own town. Above all, what horrifies me most is that these people where not fighting for a cause, even if they fought because of one; they were motivated by greed, self-interest and boredom, inspired by the wrong people, morals and ideals, and causing great pain to innocent citizens for a laugh. Their actions bear no justification. This places them on a different platform for than, say, when the protests about higher education fees kicked off into chaos because they had a cause behind them even if their actions were unnecessary and destructive.
My question is this: Why?
And by 'Why?' I don't mean what drove selfish ruffians to smash shop windows. What I want to know is why do they resort to gang violence? why are we shocked when this happens? why do we let it happen, or why don't we care until they cause trouble? why didn't people see this coming?
Why have adults crossed the street to avoid passing me and my friends?
And why are the generations that brought us up, that control every aspect of society from education to healthcare to government, negate all responsibility to the poorest and most vulnerable people in society, whose only voice is in their fists?
I am angry at the rioters too. After all, they've just smashed a fragile image of young people into pieces, and made life harder for your law-abiding, hard working younger person like myself. But I blame has been apportioned too quickly and that once again, our 'big society' is attempting to make itself smaller, cutting out those who embarrass it.
NEWS FLASH: These people are part of our society, like it or not. And that makes it societies responsibility to bring them back to the fold. It's time to let the outsiders in.
'I will not always be with you.' Jesus told his followers, 'But the poor always will be.' As a follower of the God who drank with tax-collectors (read: politicians/inland revenue officers), travelled with uneducated manual workers, and made died a gruesome death in-between two common thieves (imagine the sunday times front pages...) I see no goodness, no godliness, no hope in the rejection of these people. Society - by which I include all of us, myself as well - has pushed these people to the outside. Labelled as 'chavs' or 'foreigners' or 'white trash' 'sluts' etc in the news, in conversations, in the looks we give them when they pass us in the shops or doctors, they are marginalised and only a very few wonderful people take the time to reach outside of their social spheres to these people.
I am becoming more aware of this in my own life. Having moved from a poorer area to a more middle class area just before my tenth birthday - and at the same time, our family made the social jump from upper working class to lower middle - I have been lucky in that I escaped not only a rough area and background but also an education system where those who made the grammar schools had a future and those who made the comprehensives...didn't. Having escaped, I have become very proud of my working class heritage, feeling it makes me a commoner, one of the people, but watching the riots detached me all those false impressions. Admittedly, I have a better idea than many, especially our dear government, but now I know how little I understand what it is like to be marginalised, to suffer under a system that offers the rest of us protection, to be suffocated by money and class and stereotypes. I'm on the inside looking out, from the comfortable bubble of 'us' and 'them'...
Proposed solution A: Let Them In.
Problems: If you listen to the rioters, you will have realised they aren't over keen on coming in. Why should they be? Society has made it rather clear we don't want them.
Proposed solution B: Go out to them.
This is the solution all the scared, scared letters to the papers don't want to hear. It's so much easier to call for punishment and clean up our homes than go round to theirs and clean up their places, so much easier than questioning ourselves and our responsibility.
Yet the only way to bridge the gap between 'Us and Them' is to go out ourselves, into the rough areas we like to frown upon from safety, to get dirty in filthy streets and see the world from those places....
I also like to call this solution 'community'. It means no us and them, just the people living and working together, differences celebrated, doors open, problems solved together.
- Firstly: Who is in these communities asking them why the riots happened? I'm sure they know best: we need to listen to people who know, not just experts but ordinary people, get their knowledge heard and used.
- Secondly: Anger and looting might well be part of a moral degeneration, and kids putting their values in the wrong places. If so, than we need to re-examine the whole of society and what we teach our children. We need public-eye figures to stand up against consumerism, companies to give back more to communities, and ordinary people to show just a little altruism as part of their daily life...A little love goes a long way.
- Thirdly: Half the kids in Tottenham come from disadvantage backgrounds. People don't necessarily want to give them jobs, they won't have had all the privileges of holidays and trips to museums and castles and all that. At the bottom of the heap the education system is pretty rubbish and teachers don't want to be there (understandably). No-one believes in these kids, police don't trust them automatically, they are the weekly victims of the tabloid press and, to compound it, poor education and financial struggles combined with the introspective, defensive communities necessarily created by the poor and uneducated to tend to produce more problems like teenage pregnancies and gang culture. Instead of solving it, we simply apportion more blame and talk about policies at high levels that never reach these people. So...
- Instead of blaming etc, we need to make a bigger effort than ever to reach out to these people. The government can make a tremendous difference by speaking out for these people, sorting out reasonable and constructive punishments (i.e. community service repairing damage done), improving education, keeping Sure Start centres open etc. Charity support is another major thing the ordinary person can do to make a big difference for these kids. But most of all, it's down to us. Not just asking our MP's this and that but changing our attitudes to people on the outside, and being creative with what we can do i.e. a successful mum's and toddlers group in a well off area might start/support a less successful in a disadvantaged area. Small things can make a huge difference as they accumulate, with everyone putting in a little: Imagine for a moment you are on a train and a 'white trash' family comes on, lots of kids, music, smells of fags, whatever. Usually the whole train sits and prays they chose another compartment. Instead, smile. Let them through, move your bag so the littlest kid can sit down...I know, reading this, you're probably the kind of person who would do it anyway, but it's amazing how many people wouldn't. It's time for a social attitude adjustment.
- Finally - these kids think that their voice is their fists. Do any of them know how to argue, how to get themselves heard safely, how to change their communities positively, or how to get their concerns heard? No. Tick. Tock. It's time to give them voices properly, hear what they have to say and educate them on a better way to say it. Education & Social Attitude changes.
When these people finally get their voices there will be a lot of people embarrassed or ashamed by what they have to say, but those voices must speak out now, for the sake of the children of tomorrow. Heal the cracks in society and perhaps one day...
...community.
Until then: Stay strong and speak out.
God Bless,
J.
