I have been more or less glued to the BBC news website over the last 2 days, watching sections of our society break down with no semblance of law and order. Normally I don't get very affected by the news, I tend to employ my doctor emotional detatchment skills (rightly or wrongly), but the riots have really upset me. This is probably partly because I am pregnant again, and rather emotional all the time, but also it seems like the kind of thing that ought to be happening somewhere else, not in England, especially my home city of Liverpool. It's also just so sad to see people terrified, people losing everything and people dying for no particular reason that I can fathom. These things would almost seem more understandable if there was at least a reason, an actual protest about something that degenerates into violence is easier to understand than just sheer destruction and looting because people think they can get away with it.
The most terrifying thing about the whole situation for me has been listening to the one or two snatched interviews with "rioters" on the BBC website, found here and here. The young people interviewed betray a shocking lack of any moral compass at all or even any logical train of thought. Eg. "it's all about the govenment isn't it - the Conservatives whoever they are, it's all about showing the police we can do what we want." Or the young men who claimed that young girls looting was wrong, if someone broke into their own house that would be wrong, but for them to be looting was ok - well not ok, but they were going to do it anyway, it was the government's fault because they couldn't stop them. There was no real anger here, not even any clear idea of who they were rebelling against, no justification at all, but just a sense that if nobody would stop them, they would do whatever the hell they liked. I found it chilling to listen and to think - has anyone ever even spent half an hour one on one with this child, teaching them about personal responsibility, or what society is, or any kind of empathy, or even how to think about something? Or did they just decide not to listen? I do believe that there is "a darkness in the heart of man", as Geoff blogged about here, and I do believe that those involved in the rioting should take the full consequences of their actions - any attempt to exonerate people because they come from a deprived background seems misguided, but listening to these kids made me wonder - how can so many people be growing up to think (or rather not think) like this?
