Generally, maybe, but not totally. When it is condoned, it is enabled further, just like not responding to looting encourages more looting. Establishing Law and Order, establishing Justice, is not always an easy thing to do, though throughout the Centuries we try. We have to work within our means, even ensuring that the solution does not compound the problem. You do need to consider training your Military to lend a hand in National Emergencies, in a way that works with and compliments the police force. We do it here through the National Guard, which our Governors control. It does free up resources. Tear Gas is great at dispersing ans steering crowds too, when used properly. There is always intent, capability, competence, and effectiveness that need to be weighed in when examining the short comings, when this is over. Measure twice and cut once.
That is your way. I hope we start to find our way again. How about a different look
They are not part of the society the people reading this belong to. Rioting last night gave them a sense of power and control, over the police, and over their neighbours. It's a huge oversimplification to say these are simply poor areas. Patterns of housing - particularly the rental market - in London are way more complex than that and Hackney, Clapham, Brixton etc have been increasingly gentrified over the last thirty years. The communities are much more mixed than many commentators will acknowledge. What these riots - which aren't demonstrations, but parties got out of hand, with fires and prizes - is the degree of alienation from their own communities, their inability to acknowledge that they are part of any community. They also don't see themselves as angry or even oppressed, because they cannot look beyond the circumstances they are in and the peer pressures around them. And it is about bad parenting, to the extent that when the 13 to 20% become parents they have no aspirations or responsibilities for their children to inherit. That won't change if you treat merely them as victims, and enhance their sense of entitlement to trainers and TVs, nor if you treat them merely as criminals and process them through a judicial system that encourages recidivism.
I commented to two of my former pupils last night, who were posting on FB about feeling scared, that they were the reason I felt less scared than most of my friends. I have been watching their responses, particularly the kids who live in the areas affected. The teenagers and younger kids I know, of all ethnicities, have cheered me enormously over the last few days, with the maturity and compassion and concern in their responses and comments. They put a lot of my reactionary acquaintances to shame. They are what I think of when I think of 'London youth'. The future is, I suspect, pretty safe in their hands. And they are only just a percentage point or two, most of them, above the dispossesed 13 to 20%. What lifts them above that is the ability to read and talk and think and the self knowledge and aspiration that comes with those abilities.
If you think you are an idealist, get off twitter, put down your placard, stop gazing at your navel to examine your privilege. Put your money and time where your mouth is. Go and volunteer in a primary school and sit with those who are struggling to read, go and become a school governor, go and do a bit of training to become an adult advocate so that when one of these kids goes through the judicial system and their parents can't or won't participate in the process, you can be called on to speak to and for them. If you can't do any of those things, work an extra shift or do some baby-sitting to free up a colleague or friend who can. Unlike gesture politics, these acts will make a difference. I've seen the difference they can make; I've seen the tragically slight difference between the 20th and 21st percentile. It's the difference between me and my brothers, between prison and college. It's the difference between the young offender I taught in Cardiff and his cellmates. His daughter, proudly ruffled in a dozen layers of pink lace, was christened with his probationer officer's and my first names, because as he said, without us, he'd be 'dead, not a dad'. I was touched by that comment, but I also thought the tragedy was that most boys who started out like him were both not dead and serial dads. His daughter is very lucky, she'll be brought up with different values to those he grew up with. Aspiration, like alienation is very easy to spread. You just have to get off both your arse and your moral high ground to spread it.
Adult Content Notice
That is your way. I hope we start to find our way again.
I hope You find your way too. I'm not trying to impose, just trying to get you to think outside of the box a little. Some of this was coordinated, and I'm not talking about the kids. You need to look into that, because it is not going away. We, the US have contingency plans that even involve Canadian Troops, in a bad enough situation. Our Troops sometimes are the First Response in International Aid and Rescue during Emergencies. Our Coast Guard was the Hero of Katrina, saving countless lives. What I am suggesting is looking at your Military as capable of something more than it's current function.
In relation to reforming Undesirables, We Each have Angels and Demons doing battle, I don't see too many beyond redemption. That happens when we establish values, not when we corrupt them. Just a thought.
No, I was responding to your belief that anyone would condone such behaviour and your seeming belief that we must. Of course not. Nobody could possibly condone such behaviour. It was late and perhaps I should have responded specifically to what you said.
When it is condoned, it is enabled further, just like not responding to looting encourages more looting.
I do not condone this action. The only people I have seen condoning it also do not when pressed condone it. But there are some people who believe they understand it and that there was a reason for it. These are a small number and frequently get shouted at. Parliament yesterday was overwhelmingly speaking of punishment. Everyone is in agreement that the first thing is for Law and order to be restored which I understand has pretty much been done.
Establishing Law and Order, establishing Justice, is not always an easy thing to do, though throughout the Centuries we try. We have to work within our means, even ensuring that the solution does not compound the problem. You do need to consider training your Military to lend a hand in National Emergencies, in a way that works with and compliments the police force. We do it here through the National Guard, which our Governors control. It does free up resources. Tear Gas is great at dispersing ans steering crowds too, when used properly. There is always intent, capability, competence, and effectiveness that need to be weighed in when examining the short comings, when this is over. Measure twice and cut once.
I think we are in disagreement here. It was a definite choice not to bring in the army. A definite choice to keep what was criminal activity dealt with by the police.
Regarding tear gas, it must be understood that this was a very unusual phenomenon. We were getting small groups 20-40 people looting in one place for a few minutes and then moving on. I doubt how useful tear gas would have been and it would have made the streets awful for normal residents in their homes. Water canon was also allowed but the police said it was a completely inappropriate tool in the situation. One policeman who was asked rubbed his head and said that although people wanted this, they did not understand how it worked and it would not be appropriate.
What worked was massive police presence. Scottish police for instance came down to Manchester to reinforce Manchester police. For this reason one of the top arguments in Parliament yesterday was the reduction in funding for our police.
The first day needs to be seen as different to the general looting which took place later as it came from a genuine grievance and took people by surprise and there was a lot of anger on the streets.
Now obviously we will be looking to developing security initiatives should something like this happen again as no one could ever have foreseen nationwide organised looting.
The police also were allowed to use plastic bullets. Our police work on a knife edge of how much force they use. In all this sorry picture, I think the one thing I personally do feel proud of, is that we took care of life. I am glad that there was not an over reaction, that we kept civil society and did not bring in the army, that we dealt with this on it's own level - that of criminal activity.
Now with cctv, those who thought they had escaped are being rounded up. We are now faced with 3 issues
1. a strategy to deal with such a situation should it happen again which will of course be developed
2. bringing to court and finding appropriate punishment for those involved
3. Looking into what gave rise to this situation with a view to making changes which would make it unlikely to arise again.
Some of this was coordinated,
Yes, and that I hope will be looked into. There were clearly some hard nosed criminals co-ordinating things and obviously they will need to be treated differently to the young kids having a ball, defying authority, feeling big and owning the town for a couple of hours.
There also needs to be investigations if there was any political involvement with such people as the EDL trying to stir up racial conflict. The killing in Birmingham certainly put that on a knife edge but was dealt with in a calm, proper and dignified way that we should be proud of.
In relation to reforming Undesirables, We Each have Angels and Demons doing battle, I don't see too many beyond redemption. That happens when we establish values, not when we corrupt them. Just a thought.
You may remember I said in the post you believed I was condoning that question time had felt that for the vast number of kids what was required was boundaries and opportunities. I do not move from that. At the moment they do not see the boundaries, responsibilities if you will. That needs to change. However along with that there needs to be a way found for them to be able to see positive possibilities and opportunities.
To go back to that article I posted
I said elsewhere that I'd often wondered what happened to the 13 to 20% of kids who walk away from school with no qualifications and very limited numeracy and literacy skills. many of you assumed those are precisly the kids I used to teach, but I taught the ones who scraped through with low grades and went on to vocational courses, or who were resitting their GCSEs in the hope of doing better. Each year's 13 to 20% largely end up on benefits or in jail or in the grey area between the two, claiming what benefits they can and supplementing that income with criminal activity. This is not a recent development; those kids at the bottom have always been there. I know the stats for the last thirteen years only because I've been a teacher for the last thirteen years. These kids often have virtually no social skills. By that I mean they literally cannot sit in a room and hold a conversation with someone other than those in their peer group. That doesn't matter. They don't have the skills to fill in a job application form, they have nothing to put on it if they did, so no one is going to sit them in a room and give them an interview, unless that someone is in a blue uniform, and they are recording the interview.
Pretty much every time I've been served a coffee or a sandwich or walked past someone cleaning the streets and noted they were a recent immigrant, I've wondered about the 13 to 20% leaving school each year and going straight onto the dole. The last government, with its bold claims of 'an end to boom or bust' boasted of our growing economy needing all these extra workers from abroad. Many were coming in to fill gaps in the UK labour market. We kick up to twenty percent of our kids out of school illiterate, innumerate and socially dysfunctional, then we import people to the lowgrade jobs those kids cannot do, so the immigrants can pay taxes to pay the benefits that just about keep that underclass quiet. The last government merely consolidated the neglect of the previous ones. All governments of all hues since the seventies have failed to address this problem; the only difference between them is the narrative they have fed their respective voters about it.
Adult Content Notice
and I need to yet again include the last paragraph I put in last night
If you think you are an idealist, get off twitter, put down your placard, stop gazing at your navel to examine your privilege. Put your money and time where your mouth is. Go and volunteer in a primary school and sit with those who are struggling to read, go and become a school governor, go and do a bit of training to become an adult advocate so that when one of these kids goes through the judicial system and their parents can't or won't participate in the process, you can be called on to speak to and for them. If you can't do any of those things, work an extra shift or do some baby-sitting to free up a colleague or friend who can. Unlike gesture politics, these acts will make a difference. I've seen the difference they can make; I've seen the tragically slight difference between the 20th and 21st percentile. It's the difference between me and my brothers, between prison and college. It's the difference between the young offender I taught in Cardiff and his cellmates. His daughter, proudly ruffled in a dozen layers of pink lace, was christened with his probationer officer's and my first names, because as he said, without us, he'd be 'dead, not a dad'. I was touched by that comment, but I also thought the tragedy was that most boys who started out like him were both not dead and serial dads. His daughter is very lucky, she'll be brought up with different values to those he grew up with. Aspiration, like alienation is very easy to spread. You just have to get off both your arse and your moral highground to spread it.
It is a situation which needs to be dealt with on many dimensions. Not one anyone wanted, wants or condones. People may have different beliefs on what will sort it. It is of vital importance that we do make sure we get that right or we will just be seeing the same again. That will not be done unless we are also able to understand what the situation is like for these people and pull them out into the rest of society. They will soon be having kids themselves. Yesterday a 15 year old looter was at court in Manchester. The Judge asked where his parents were. He said no one could come. The judge remarked that that was a situation which was happening too often. Maybe as in that last quoted paragraph, community needs to help community, giving those who need a hand to come out safely. Do we not all in some way create out own societies?
