London Riots - what's to blame?

I know that every right-minded individual in this country will feel anger at the wanton destruction of the past few days. Many of those same people will also feel threatened and scared of the possibility of the events escalating into general anarchy.

Perhaps somewhat fewer people will try to analyse and rationalise what has actually occurred. As a Christian I have tried to come to terms with my own thoughts on the subject and I don’t believe this is a recession issue or even a reprisal issue.

We are not talking about massive levels of violence against the person here, although clearly the police have been targeted for the brunt of it. No, we are talking about young people, children in some cases, taking advantage of a situation as young people are prone to do.

I saw on the news a reporter walking through Clapham, bravely admonishing these kids but clearly not in mortal danger from them. He passed by a bunch of giggling girls who tried to block the camera and run away. These girls looked like young teenagers caught up in the typical gang mentality that has existed through the ages whether we glorify it as in the Gordon Riots or Swing Riots of the 18^th and 19^th century or condemn it out of hand as with the 20^th century rampages by mods, rockers, skinheads and hells angels.

It is interesting that the first thing we all do is study the scene and imagine it to be a race problem; after all the touchpaper was lit by the death of a black resident of Tottenham!.

It is easy for us to make assumptions by studying the TV pictures and concluding that many of the looters are black, but truth be known the areas of London affected have predominantly black populations. However, I clearly saw gangs of white youths acting aggressively towards police and also looting. I don’t believe this is a race issue either.

When we are young we are not fully developed emotionally and we are prone to peer pressure, acts of stupidity carried out to impress our friends and general distrust of the establishment. I have no doubt that a large proportion of these looters will be horrified at their deeds in a few years time. I believe this is a youth issue.

So do I believe our Government have acted in the correct manner? To hell no

I believe the riot act should never have been dispensed with in 1973 because if these kids knew the repercussions of their actions could end in serious harm to themselves then they would think twice about answering Twitter appeals and using their BlackBerry devices to seek out areas where there is no police presence.

I also believe that in a time when the country, indeed the world, is in such serious economic strife we cannot afford to absorb the cost which far exceeds the immediate replacement of buildings and although paid for by insurance companies in the main, inevitably adds to the burden of every household.

So I would have called in the army to maintain order on the streets with a brief to ensure no torching of buildings and no looting.

I would have gone further and used water cannons and rubber bullets and ensured a strong armed police presence as well as a strategic military showing.

I abhor violence of any kind but this sits perfectly well with my conscience as although I know young people do silly things (how did I ever make it out of my teens I’ll never know) they do have to be held responsible to some extent and are very able to understand corporal punishment, in fact sometimes it is all they can respond to as part of the growing up experience.

At the end of the day these people are law breakers and are causing worry and anxiety across the nation and do need to be kept in check. I don’t agree with the deputy mayor of London who was calling on local citizens to band together to try and reason with the perpetrators. This is not a case of locals failing to put their heads above the parapet, it is a case of locals being apathetic as they couldn’t care less about the local PC World store – why should they?

If these gangs honed in on residential areas I have no doubt we would have had many deaths on our hands by now, so please don’t misunderstand what I ‘m saying.

We simply cannot have gangs roaming the streets looting in broad daylight as the whole fabric of society will break down, but I do not believe that these people are generally more criminally-minded than the next person, although clearly there is also an element of hardened criminals that would be trying their luck irrespective of riot acts or curfews. This defiant element must be stamped on summarily. Warn them now to cease or be punished further. Warn their parents to keep them off the streets. Those that have been caught on camera must pay the price of their crimes. Those that have been fortunate today must know that tomorrow is not an option for them. The government must act now before the innocent are dragged in as they surely will as communities will only tolerate a certain amount and when local resources are drained tempers will fray.

Today must be the last day.

For God’s sake this human life can be such a struggle at the best of times and if only these youngsters knew that what they are doing will change nothing for the better in their lives or in the lives of society as a whole.

But of course one day they will know