Since the rioting first broke out late Saturday night, Martin Luther King’s “Rioting is the voice of the unheard” has appeared in numerous blogs, opinion columns and social networking sites. However, many people have been quick to refute the argument that the rioting is a manifestation of exclusion and disenfranchisement but instead pure thuggery and greed carried out by a few “feral rats” (to quote one member of the public interviewed on Sky News).
So what exactly has gone on and why did the riots take place?
I am not sure I have the answers to many of the legitimate questions being asked about the why’s and how’s, but I do think this is an ideal opportunity for us, as a society, to ask ourselves a number of critical questions about how we view and treat our young people. One thing I certainly find interesting is how violence has cropped up in a many people’s vernacular, underpinning any response to those young people who took to the streets. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting the police should hand out boxes of Milk Tray to the rioters but to hear so many people advocating the use of rubber bullets or other forms of “tough love” raises some interesting questions about how we should deal with the social problems we face. Without getting too psychoanalytical, I wonder whether this is a cathartic expression of the general resentment many adults feel about today’s society?
I have been saying for a quite a while now, drawing mainly on conversations with young people and their youth workers, that there is an ever-increasing lack of empathy between young people and adult society which is creating a vacuum of misunderstanding and ignorance between them. Of course in many ways young people are not meant to be understood by adults – indeed that is often the point of being young. However, I feel what is lacking is what Carl Rogers talks about in the relationship between client and patient: Unconditional Positive Regard –acceptance of the individual. We seem as a society to have lost our ability to accept young people unconditionally, that is not to condone young people’s misdeameanours but instead, a belief that they are fundamentally trustworthy and have the capacity to do good. The consequence is that young people, on the whole, do not participate in the decisions that affect them the most. Indeed, the United Nations defines social exclusion as “A lack of participation in decision making and in civil, social and cultural life” – if we are searching for answers about why the riots took place maybe we might like to provide young people with some real power to influence and shape their own lives.
One further reflection was triggered by Robert Peston the other day on BBC Radio 5 Live. He mused that in the past 3 years there has been major corruption in the financial sector (banking), media (hacking) and Government (expenses) and wondered whether this was purely coincidence or instead something more endemic to our society. He left it at that (which was probably the safest thing to do!) but it got me thinking. There has been a great deal of verbatim since the riots took place about the lack of suitable role models – primarily parents – young people have in today’s society. Of course we would all want to revert back to the 1950’s nuclear family with Don (warning: plot spoiler) and the now separated Betty Draper as our misogynist fag smoking butt slapping dad, but unfortunately these are modern timez (sic) and thus moral panics are abound about the state of today’s parenting.
Parenting aside, arguably the three (and now four with the police and whole News of the World saga) most important and powerful institutions that shape so much of what young people see and do are corrupt and pretty much rotten to the core. What underpins it all is greed.
I find it unbelievably hypocritical for those individuals within the aforementioned institutions to lambast young people for looting the luxury goods stores when these institutions have been nicking stuff for years. The difference of course is one is blue collar crime, the other, white. My point however is not that both are wrong – they obviously are – but instead how in recent years young people have been exposed to a society in which serious elements of our Government, media and financial institutions – ones which help to shape our own understanding of how we see the world – have been shown to be systematically and institutionally corrupt and built on greed. No wonder some young people may act in a greedy, and hyper-consumerist fashion. We reap what we sow.
My final point is about how young people see what we value in society. In a burst of spontaneity brought on by my fury of Tessa Jowell and her beloved “legacy” of the olympic games, I did some maths, which for anyone who went to JFS, is pretty impressive. £9billion (cost of the games) divided by £25,000 (a decent London wage) x 5 years (a decent job lifespan) = 360,000.
If I am not mistaken (and if I am, I blame JFS) we could’ve used the cash to generate 360,000 well-paid jobs over five years. I can’t begin to think about the good that would’ve been done to young people by funding apprenticeships, teachers, youth workers, coaches, etc.
Instead, we have opted for a penis extension of a project lining the pockets of the “exclusive” corporations and sponsors that are involved paid for by the tax payer. Rant over, however what message does it provide to young people that we aren’t prepared to fund the services most valuable to young people e.g. youth clubs, local leisure centers, recreational grounds let alone the ‘role models’ the money could pay for e.g. teachers, youth workers sports coaches etc but are prepared to fund two weeks of a corporate vanity project designed for elite (adult) athletes. Don’t for one second believe the “army of volunteers” “legacy”, its bullshit spouted by the very people who bid for it for their own self-service.
So what now? There certainly isn’t a quick fix and the answer like most things probably isn’t to be found in politically opportunistic posturing. I think a good start can be found in a comment made by one of the leaders of the social protest movement taking place in Israel at the moment.
“Solidarity between us and the young generation is what will determine this social campaign in the land.”
