Wednesday, 10 August 2011

Day 109 - Great Britain

What started as geographic specific riots in parts of London have spread all over the place, sucking in town and cities to the mess that started and arrogance of kids on the rampage. Finally, communities have woken up and realised that action instead of blame would more likely get results. I wrote a few days ago that there would be a backlash, that it was only a matter of time. And would you believe it? It has started. Some call them vigilante groups, whatever, they are out to teach a lesson to the wankers that have made their lives and the lives of their families a misery over the past few days. They will catch one soon enough and I pity his soul. But I feel nothing.

I'm not an Englishman, but I feel what has happened is against the very fibre of what binds this hodge podge of a nation together. I have been interested in the few comments that I have seen on facebook recently about all this stuff. There seems to be a smugness, a told you so attitude, a 'and they thought SA was bad, surely the Olympics can't be there' type of approach. Here's my view. And please remember that I am a foreigner here too and that my allegiance is still, right now anyway, to SA. What has happened here is alien to this culture of general law and order. It is sporadic but also quite extreme and unlikely to happen again for quite some time. The difference to here and SA is quite stark. In SA, and you would have to very biased not to agree with me, there is a pervading culture of crime and disorder. We - you now - are so accustomed to living in the culture that you stop seeing it for what it is. The youth of all colours in SA are no different once they get going. Believe me I have seen this culture more times than I care to remember in the past ten years.

In SA you have barricaded yourself in your home to the best that you can afford. You have alarm systems, armed response, electric fences, a gun in your house, big dogs. You know it will come for you eventually, you expect it to happen to you one day but you plan for it. If what has happened here happens there you can be sure that the communities that you live in will not stand together. You can be sure that, like here, the violence will be gratuitous. You can be sure too that the difference will not be black and white but rather good and bad.

That the education system has failed these idiots here is not in question. That the discipline or lack thereof applied over the past generation or so has now come home to roost is probably some of it, but remember there is a generation in SA and many in Oz, NZ and the USA that similarly have no idea of respect and values either. I don't think that what has happened here is to do with discipline, I think it is more to do with mob mentality. In SA back in the day, mob mentality would force normally good people to kill others, it would coerce them to put a burning tyre around the body of the victim. As a white South African it led me into war and I believed at the time that it was the right thing to do. Just like these kids probably believe that they too are doing something that is right or something they believe in. To the rest of us it is a disgusting show of criminality and greed. 

If you know London you will know that its streets are a warren of avenues and pathways. To police them all would be at best impossible and the pure fact that in only a few days they have mobilised 16000 policemen onto the streets of London does hint at the scale of the problem. Do you realise just how many 16000 policemen is? And believe me they don't take shit but they do it politely most of the time and like I wrote, they, the police, will eventually lose patience and take up arms, they are doing this and some of these thieving bastards are going to die. Good riddance. Let them die. What has happened here is absolutely abnormal and should be seen in that context.The country is not burning. But it does need strong leadership and a steady hand.

Until tomorrow. God speed.

No comments:

Post a Comment