Riot Ranting

Apparently the riots were a protest against the cuts. The man said we have been overpaying for petrol for many years now and you don’t see scores of road users stealing massive tellies from Curries in protest. I am sceptical as to whether or not any of the ‘protesters’ knew what they were ‘protesting’ against, I mean, make your mind up kids, was it the shooting of Mark Duggan or having your youth club shut down? In my opinion, the answer is neither. The very fact that the riots spread to so many different areas of the country just goes to show how bored the ‘yoof’ of today are, pumped up full of pubescent hormones and looking for the next adrenalin hit. They are not content with what they have, because our society values possessions over principles and money over morals.

Maybe the police should have stamped it out the moment it started. But can you blame them after the death of Ian Tomlinson? We were all very quick to criticise them when an innocent man was hurt while they were protecting our country, how could they possibly guarantee that innocent bystanders would not be injured by rubber bullets or dry clean only trainers not ruined by water cannons (and lets face it, there were an awful lot of trainers on the street those nights)?

Being ‘poor’ is a delicate subject, it’s always easy to sit in a position of privilege and judge those who have less than you. But these people give those who are truly poor a bad name. I think it’s pretty strange that the ‘poor’ rioters were walking round in £100 jeans and expensive trainers, and come to think of it, how come they all had Blackberries to organise it in the first place? Are Blackberry’s even available on weekly payment options from Freemans catalogue?

 “There is nothing for young people these days”. Well the truth is, our current ‘yoof’ have more amenities and resources available to them than ever before.

Just take a look at your local library notice board. Groups, helplines, out reach projects, all for young people. I don’t see many “middle class out reach project” or even “wine appreciation society for mothers on the verge of alcoholism” (kind of describes my book club but still) notices, it’s all about the kids. Our parents, or even those of us in our thirties, didn’t have access to half the amenities there are today (the most exciting addition for my generation being the launch of Childline, a service I was fortunate enough not to need except in response to “you’re grounded” “I hate you. I’m gonna call Childline on you”) and you didn’t see us rioting in the streets, helping ourselves to anything we could lay our hands on.

I remember very well how hard it was to be young. Everything is boring (I’d give my back teeth to be bored these days). Hormones are off the chart (I know how that feels, but for different reasons these days) making everyday life uninteresting and you are constantly searching for the next big adrenalin hit, whether a snog behind the bikesheds or pooling your dinner money to buy ten B&H and a bottle of White Lightning at lunch time. So much of the ‘fun’ I had as a child involved being naughty in some way. But I would never, ever have considered doing anything like what has happened this week, bored or not.

Can we blame a lack of discipline? This is the first generation of kids whose parents were not allowed to smack them, is that some kind of coincidence? We all use the naughty step, and hang on Supernanny’s every word, but would our kids be better behaved if they got a good smack every now and then? One father said on the news that he couldn’t control his kid because he wasn’t allowed to tie him to the bed or give him a smack. I kind of see where he’s coming from, what’s he going to do? Put his 16 year old on the naughty step? Ooh I’m scared.

The reason why me and my mates didn’t do anything that naughty was because we knew that repercussions would stretch further than taking a ball out of one jar and putting it in another, or moving one space down on a reward chart. My mum wasn’t a smacker but my Dad was (“just wait till your father gets home!”), in the pull your pants down and smack your bum in the middle of the shopping centre kind of way. And when we  were too old for that, he’d already done the ground work so we understood the look that said: “I WILL pound the crap out of you and if that means taking you to the shopping centre I bloody well will, don’t test me.”