London

The events in London this past week certainly shocked many people.  The British Prime Minister may have been partially correct when he said that one of the causes was poor parenting, but I’m sure there’s much more to it than that.  As someone said long ago, “It takes a village to raise a child.”  It’s not only parents who have failed, but society.  On the other hand, apparently some of the looters not yet caught are quite pleased with the loot they stole, for example, a plasma tv.

I’ve been thinking about recent history.  In the 1960’s there was violence in the black ghettos of the United States – Gordon Lightfoot’s song “Black Day in July” is about Detroit in 1967.  There were the protests against the Vietnam war and around civil rights for negroes.  The March on Washington occurred in the United States in 1963 with Martin Luther King (his phone was tapped by the FBI) giving his famous “I have a dream” speech.  Organizations such as Students for a Democratic University (formed first at McGill and Simon Fraser) and Students for a Democratic Society (originally American) sprang up even in Canada.  In May 1968 students protested and 11 million workers and went on strike in France.  There were street battles with police in the Latin Quarter in Paris.  And then there were the clashes between police and protestors at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968.

In Saskatchewan students at the U of S in Saskatoon occupied the Arts Building in 1971 to protest the firing of a faculty member and to ask for representation on university committees.  At the University of Regina the office of the Dean of Arts and Science was occupied in 1972.  It seems to me there were well articulated political reasons for demonstrations and protests in the 60’s and 70’s as there are in parts of the world today. 

I haven’t heard any political views from the so-called looters.  Are any of the young people in Britain this well organized or are they just angry and disaffected?  Maybe all they want is some of the consumer goods that everyone else has.  If so, their lives are pretty drab.

I read an article in the (UK) Guardian on line in which a young man named Chavez Campbell predicted riots (before they happened) because of youth unemployment and cuts to youth services.  It’s probably more complex than that.  I imagine there are criminal elements and perhaps “hierarchical” gangs (according to British PM Cameron) involved, but there also seem to be ordinary people caught up in some bizarre reality tv show.  However, people charged by the courts appear to be overwhelmingly young, male and unemployed.

I hate watching pictures of police battering down doors to find and arrest people, even if they are guilty.  Let’s not forget that the police are a hierarchical, para-military organization and that’s not meant to be a positive comment.  I can’t believe that some British MP’s are talking in admiration of 1971 in the United States when troops were brought into Washington and thousands of people were arrested and put into the DC stadium.  Shades of Chile in 1973, except there of course people were shot as well.

Young people are a country’s future.  If you ignore your young people, don’t find ways to bring them into the society, make them feel a part of it and want to contribute (and make needed changes), what kind of future are you building?  We in Canada had better wake up.  It’s not impossible that something like the London riots could happen here.

If you want to know more about the 1960’s in Canada read Long Way from Home by Myrna Kostash.