London riots – news I could live without
10 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in BBC, Life, London, News, riots
London riots (courtesy of Business Insider 2011)
Quite a sensitive topic and I’m going to sound a little serious in this post. Take it with a pinch of salt and a large chocolate cake to remove the after-taste.
I’m not great with newspapers or indeed, keeping up with current affairs. Tube stops plagued with human stands of free Murdoch newspapers, social networks and countless online news feeds still manage to bypass my literary system most days. I have a lot in my head as it is and I could really do without filling up on potentially over-hyped propaganda. I know I know. Some news may affect me directly and I should pay attention. I do however catch things in conversations or on the radio news that may trigger me to investigate further. This is what kind of what happened on Monday.
I didn’t really know how bad the riots were until Monday evening; after work I got a text from my housemate about a riot kicking off in Clapham. I mean, I knew there was something going on during the weekend but my imagination only stretched to a few Asbos giving some authorities some grief…nothing unusual in London I thought. So I replied quite calmly that I didn’t notice any violence but the tube was unusually quiet and some restaurants closed earlier than usual. When I got on the tube, two women came on at Clapham Common and sat down. One of the women looked a bit disoriented and I overheard she got spat on by some youths. I thought nothing of it. Seemed to fit in with just another night out in London for the unlucky few.
When I got out of the station, I checked my social networks and read that Clapham had gone mental. Sh&t had hit the fan. Fires, police and vandalism. Wow. I live about an hour away from Clapham Junction but all was quiet in my neighbourhood. At this point, I thought to go home and investigate what these riots were all about.
I watched the live news feed on the BBC website. After I finished swearing at my laptop because Ken Livingstone was taking this opportunity to make himself look good, I realised it was pretty bad. Why was this happening and where did all these Asbos come from? So I found out that some gang member got shot by a policeman in Tottenham and it didn’t go down too well. But it was obvious that this was no longer about that. It seemed to be just an excuse to smash things up and have some fun with it. Not a great move guys. Not sure self-destruction is the way to go here. You risk getting arrested, obtain a criminal record if you haven’t already got one and no-one is ever going to employ you. Roll on the life of crime!
That’s the thing though isn’t it. What future do criminals have once they have offended? They’ll only keep re-offending because they have no choice. What else do that have? They’ve been black-listed for life. Instead of punishing them over and over, why don’t we listen to them? Why can’t we educate their parents that their children could be something other than a way to get benefits? Why can’t we see that problems at home make it harder for them to learn anything in life such as their true self-worth? We need specially trained tough-ass teachers because they need to be taught differently from other children who have safe homes to go to. Hundreds of Asbo children go through school not listening to authorities because they were never listened to. It’s a cry for help, not an attack on the system.
I went to school with Asbos. I’m sure most of you did too. I went to a type of school where 12 year olds had affairs with 45-year-old men in pubs. Where ‘skiving’ lessons to go smoking in the fields was a daily ritual. Where bullying was as common as swearing, ‘peanut’ing’ geek’s ties and stolen alcohol was consumed during breaks in plastic cola bottles. I was racially bullied from the age of 6 until I was 15. Unfortunate and unpleasant but I’m much stronger for it now. Asbos don’t play by the rules and will never listen to authoritative figures. They need role-models but they look to those who are strongly misguided, challenging the system they’ve grown to hate. Parents, teachers, schools, prefects, other authoritative figures and those who are richer than them are their targets for their hatred. Who have they got left to understand them and listen to them without prejudice?
I have lived in Hartcliffe in Bristol for a few years as a teenager. For those who are unfamiliar with this area, it’s one of the most run-down and roughest places in Bristol. Our house was constantly attacked because we were Chinese. Eggs were thrown at our windows daily, windows smashed, the nightly routine of having our windows hit by footballs, things being stolen from my parents chip shop, mum and dad being threatened by teenagers, lit matches were thrown through our letterbox, fires were set off to buildings next to us, cars were smashed and set alight in front of the shop and I never dared to go out unless I had to. Some days, I wouldn’t go to school because there’d be a gang of children waiting outside. I was frightened. I cried some nights because I hated it all. I hated them, and I hated my parents for putting me there. Then I got rage…
I imagine this was a tame example of what every young person went through in Hartcliffe. Suddenly it was very easy to get angry, to lose control and to find pleasure in destruction. Luckily, we only lived there for 3 years and managed to sell our house before I spiralled into depression at 14.
We can’t always rely on parents to guide children when they can barely look after themselves. Being told that you’re useless, dumb, stupid, thick, unwanted, a mistake, a waste of space etc isn’t going to give any teenager much hope for themselves. Only a few Asbos change and make themselves useful in society, others turn to crime. I have always thought that getting musicians they admire to teach in their school for a day would be a good. Or take them out of the theory based classroom and get them to do practical stuff like theatrical make-up or learning about motors. You don’t need to study books for 10 years to get a job. You just need a skill. Maybe we need to introduce more practical GCSE’s into schools for those who want it as the norm. Books aren’t for everyone and the world would be better off if we had more skilled mechanics or beauticians.
We should remove the prejudices around GVNQ’s which admittedly, are mostly from middle-class people who rant on on shows like BBC Radio 2. For example, this morning there was a very stuck-up-asbo-hater-highly-educated man who worked in the military (least he sounded so) arguing with a much softer, charity representative for young people. They were talking about whether it was a good idea to bring the army out. This irritated me somewhat something chronic that I had to turn off the radio. I can’t stand pompousness. Maybe I sound pompous in the way I explicitly express how I loathe pompousness, then I hate myself for sounding like a pompous. Besides, what do we know about what’s best for this country? It’s OK for them to sit there, eating duck pâté with bruschetta from Waitrose and saying we should bring out the army. Isn’t that going to make things worse? I’m sure that most middle-class people (and perhaps other social classes) secretly want them all dead. I think that’s a bit full-on don’t you think? It doesn’t make you any better than them if you do think so. Have you forgotten that they’re just children who have been ignored, mocked, abused, rejected, outcasted, and dejected by perhaps yourselves, but more so by the very role models they should be getting guidance from? The don’t know how else to behave, they don’t know how else to bring their point so eloquently across so they do what they know best – they smash things up and get violent. Is that really a surprise?
The riots are our own fault. We are responsible for breeding a legion of young haters in this country and no-one wants to take responsibility for the repercussions. Now, this doesn’t mean I love Asbos nor do I find them particularly great to hang around with. I find them as irritating and intimidating like any other. I did wish they’d all disappear at school and I do have some form of resentment towards them. However, whatever sh&t they went through at home or whilst growing up, is probably nothing compared to the bullying or abuse I got from them. I don’t want them hurt and I don’t think ignoring them is going to achieve anything. Something needs to change. We’ve made a mess. Let’s clean it up and help these people. Let’s stop treating them like sh&t and show some respect. Am I a hippy? Maybe. I see history repeating itself and can’t understand why people won’t break the chain.
Is anybody listening? No. Does anybody care? Most likely not. So we’re stuck like this forever I guess…
Rant over.
