One thing about having a housemate who has a 6-year old child is that you get exposed to some of the goings-on in schools today, away from the distortions of the media. Back in the early 2000s I used to volunteer to read in schools to show children that men actually read (seven of us men used to go from our work once per week as all the staff and governors at the school next to the works were female and schoolboys, many of whom had no fathers at home, saw reading just as something that girls and women did), so was aware at least of the happenings in one school, but nowadays I am dependent for any information on UK education for the various media and other sources such as the child in the house. This latter source is revealing quite startling developments in UK education.
As I have said before, I live in a prosperous suburb where people are obssessed by consumption of cars, electrical goods, houses, etc. I have lived in very much poorer areas, notably in East London and Coventry. The crime rate is not very high, even burglaries seem lower than you would expect maybe because it abuts a very wealthy area with presumably much better pickings. I am giving this context to show that it is not a part of the UK where muggings are daily occurrences and there are drive-by shootings on the weekend. A couple of times a year a young person gets stabbed and once per year a middle-aged person gets kicked to death, but that seems typical of most medium-sized towns I pass through as I drive around the UK and pick up local news. What startled me was revelations about how normalised violence in schools seems to have become even in a prosperous area such as my neighbourhood. The boy in question last month was involved in a gang of seven boys who surrounded a girl in a classroom and proceeded to kick her. The cause seems to have been one of the boys, a very charismatic ringleader it seems, being embarrassed because his parents were friendly with the girl's parents and she was often at his house, something a 6-year old regards as uncool. (The whole incident alarmingly resembled a gang rape). This month, my housemate's son decided for seemingly no reason to start biting another boy he was arguing with about switching off a computer. He sunk his teeth in so deep that marks were still visible hours later.
In the UK the age of criminal responsibility is 10 years old. Which means that if this boy keeps up such behaviour for another four summers he will soon be off to youth court on charges of assault or ABH (Acutual Bodily Harm) and presumably some kind of detention. Now these incidents happened in a school, in fact a Christian faith school and you do ask what were the teachers doing in terms of monitoring what was happening. The school seems to be so fearful of being sued by one parent or another that it appears to be unwilling to admit any responsibility for anything and accuses parents who try to find out what has happened of improper interference. Surely the school has some responsibility for what happens on its grounds? Can someone with legal knowledge tell me if 'loco parentis' has been removed from teachers? This washing of their hands of such incidents (and I assume there are many more going on given this is just one boy from one class, though he may be exceptional, from the previous incident there seem to be at least six others who behave the same). Primary schools usually have their 'golden rules' emblazoned everywhere around the school, but from what I gather this school does not under some assumption that Christian children do not need such explicit rules about not bullying. Even adult Christians need the word of the Bible interpreted for them often, let alone 6-year olds.
Putting aside the school and its unwillingness to face responsibility, what about the behaviour of the child. Surely someone should be communicating that such violent behaviour is not appropriate anywhere let alone in the school. The child had no explanation for why he did it, so it seems that he regards biting deeply as part of the normal arsenal of things he can use when another child annoys him. I know in London bites by humans on people exceeded bites by dogs on people back in the 1990s, so maybe many people consider it somehow 'normal'. Even if in the school they choose not to refer to normal behaviour in society, or the risks in coming years of police action, as a faith school do they not say something about God watching and noting such behaviour?
What is alarming for UK society as a whole is, if there seems to be no way to stop violence which goes beyond horse play or pushing and pinching, among children in their second year at school (and when did it change to the fact that UK children now start school a year earlier than we did, i.e. at 4 rather than 5? - clearly this is related to the Blair/Brown governments' obsession with targets for pre-school and school-aged children, the teachers have to get them in early to get through it all), then what hope is for when they are teenagers and begin to see carrying a knife as normal. This is clearly where the murders of Stephen Lawrence and Damilola Taylor (who was only 10 when he was murdered by other boys) stem from. This is clearly going to be a problem facing the whole UK, wealthy suburbs are not going to exempt. Even religious schools though they are much lauded by the government seem impotent and parents seem to be unable to communicate a sense of how severe such behaviour is. It is alarming at how normal events which should be seen as frightening and unacceptable seem to have become even in a school that seems well-funded and without other major problems.
Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
Saturday, 19 January 2008
Friday, 18 January 2008
Removing One 'Wrong' Does Not Automatically Put A 'Right' in its Place
It is always interesting listening to apologists of something who know that general consensus about what they are saying will be hostile so they wrap up their statements in conciliatory phrases especially if they are eating in your house at the time, but then with rather veiled statements proceed to make outrageous statements. In the UK it is not the done thing to say to them 'your views are entirely offensive stop', society requires you smile and admit they have a point. I would support this view, because I heartily support the view that whilst I may disagree with someone they have the right to express any views they choose and if I tried to prevent them then I would be behaving as badly as the views they outline. As noted in a recent post, some will see that as a weakness of the liberal humanist approach, but in fact in line with a comment I saw in a newspaper recently referring to the BNP (British National Party the main UK fascist party) 'given them enough string [i.e. not even rope] and they will hang themselves' as typically bigots show themselves up as stupid and hateful far better themselves that we could ever hope to do.
Now, in this context, I had a white former South African woman in my house last week. She is 28 so was born in 1980 when apartheid was in place but still only a teenager when it finally ended in 1994. Like people interested in the country she has seen the difficulties with crime, violence, poverty and AIDS that have plagued it since and she now argues that many Blacks in South Africa would prefer a return to the apartheid system because it at least had stability. To some degree that is a rather rosy view of the 'stability' of South Africa especially in the 1970s and 1980s with its economy suffering spiralling inflation and heavily armed police riding around beating and shooting people and internicine murders between different Black factions. It is clear that many Whites who grew up during the period were oblivious to the severity of events going on. They say the British had exaggerated information, but it is clear that having a free press we did not have to have exaggerated reports to see how bad the situation was. South Africa had no television broadcasts before 1977 to help keep people in ignorance and even then news was heavily censored. The one incident that they are most suprised to hear about the attack of the extreme AWB against the ANC conference in 1990 which almost triggered a civil war.
Apartheid South Africa was a society divided on racial grounds denying people access to areas and facilities such as schools and hopsitals based on their racial categorisation, something that had only otherwise been seen in Nazi Germany, hardly a good role model. The woman knew I had been in the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the UK in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which for liberals in the UK was almost assumed and I recognise now I could have been much more active than I was. Anyway, she said to me, had I been to South Africa and I said no (partly because flights there are beyond my income) but I also said because I knew how violent and crime-ridden the country was. She ridiculed me saying well, surely those were the people in control that I had campaigned to liberate. Of course that is a foolish statement but you can see why Whites in South Africa see a direct connection between the end of apartheid and the rise on social problems. This, however, is a very simplistic view and is similar to the difficulties in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is right to campaign against dictatorships but you cannot assume that simply removing them will create peace and democracy; that is actually the harder job than removing the dictatorship and yet it is the one people pay least attention to.
The Anti-Apartheid Movement campaigned not to create a South Africa which was crime-ridden and violent, it aimed for a state which did not have a divisive social and political structure and gave the majority a voice but in the context of freedom for all people no matter what their ethnic background. It also gave people the freedom to be criminals and to be violent in a way that they have that freedom (and use it) in the UK, USA, France and so on. There are some points to note. Democracy does not suddenly manufacture a feasible economy. As in the USSR before its collapse, a distorted economy of the kind which is prevalent in Africa and was also in the Communist state is going to leave certain people in poverty to an even greater extent than they are in the democracies, because the authoritarian state can restrict their movement to find work and to protest against conditions in a way democracies cannot do. So in Russia and South Africa you still have the weak economy from before but people can take action to improve their situation and the easiest way is always to commit a crime. In addition creating democracy does not overnight erase social inequalities and whilst Blacks and Coloureds are now in a position to become prosperous in South Africa, the richest people there are still White as they were in previous decades. This will also take time to change and the Mugabe model in Zimbabwe has proven itself to be the wrong way to go about it.
Democracy itself (let alone a fair society and despite many Americans' views the two are not necessarily linked) takes a long time to establish. In the UK it took centuries and as yet we are still not a truly democratic state as half of our parliament is unelected. In France it took centuries and a bloody revolution. In Germany it took two world wars and the Nazi regime before enduring democracy was established. The USA had a colonial war, a vast civil war, rioting and unrest to even establish its current form of democracy, again taking centuries. So why does anyone think that democracy can really truly be established in South Africa, Russia (which had never even tried democracy before the 1990s), Iraq, Afghanistan in the space of a few years and peacefully, when the bulk of the lauded democracies had to go through decades and decades of bloodshed to get to often quite imperfect democracy now.
It is a human tragedy that when dictatorships end it takes so long to establish some degree of stability, even to reduce the 'normality' of violence to an extent when it becomes exceptional rather than taken for granted. However, this is no excuse to say, well as democracy is so violent and unstable in the first few decades then we should not bother and stick with authoritarian regimes instead. This is like saying a woman should not let the baby out of her womb simply because it is going to be a painful process often needing lots of input from doctors and nurses. When things change you need to look forward. No-one fights to help criminals prosper, they fight for all the ordinary people, the bulk of South Africans and Iraqis who simply want to be able to go work in the morning, feed their families, come home, eat and go to sleep; to not be stopped and checked all the time, not to be arrested with no cause, to disappear, to be tortured or shot. In addition, they would like to be able to shape the government in the direction which fits with their values (though most people are quite happy if it just leaves them alone) and to be able to protest freely when things upset them. These are the people that anyone opposing a dictatorship is campaigning for. Yet, everyone, especially governments must remember, that taking away the dictatorship is not the end of the process rather it is just the brief introduction to a process that will stretch over the following decades.
Now, in this context, I had a white former South African woman in my house last week. She is 28 so was born in 1980 when apartheid was in place but still only a teenager when it finally ended in 1994. Like people interested in the country she has seen the difficulties with crime, violence, poverty and AIDS that have plagued it since and she now argues that many Blacks in South Africa would prefer a return to the apartheid system because it at least had stability. To some degree that is a rather rosy view of the 'stability' of South Africa especially in the 1970s and 1980s with its economy suffering spiralling inflation and heavily armed police riding around beating and shooting people and internicine murders between different Black factions. It is clear that many Whites who grew up during the period were oblivious to the severity of events going on. They say the British had exaggerated information, but it is clear that having a free press we did not have to have exaggerated reports to see how bad the situation was. South Africa had no television broadcasts before 1977 to help keep people in ignorance and even then news was heavily censored. The one incident that they are most suprised to hear about the attack of the extreme AWB against the ANC conference in 1990 which almost triggered a civil war.
Apartheid South Africa was a society divided on racial grounds denying people access to areas and facilities such as schools and hopsitals based on their racial categorisation, something that had only otherwise been seen in Nazi Germany, hardly a good role model. The woman knew I had been in the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the UK in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which for liberals in the UK was almost assumed and I recognise now I could have been much more active than I was. Anyway, she said to me, had I been to South Africa and I said no (partly because flights there are beyond my income) but I also said because I knew how violent and crime-ridden the country was. She ridiculed me saying well, surely those were the people in control that I had campaigned to liberate. Of course that is a foolish statement but you can see why Whites in South Africa see a direct connection between the end of apartheid and the rise on social problems. This, however, is a very simplistic view and is similar to the difficulties in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is right to campaign against dictatorships but you cannot assume that simply removing them will create peace and democracy; that is actually the harder job than removing the dictatorship and yet it is the one people pay least attention to.
The Anti-Apartheid Movement campaigned not to create a South Africa which was crime-ridden and violent, it aimed for a state which did not have a divisive social and political structure and gave the majority a voice but in the context of freedom for all people no matter what their ethnic background. It also gave people the freedom to be criminals and to be violent in a way that they have that freedom (and use it) in the UK, USA, France and so on. There are some points to note. Democracy does not suddenly manufacture a feasible economy. As in the USSR before its collapse, a distorted economy of the kind which is prevalent in Africa and was also in the Communist state is going to leave certain people in poverty to an even greater extent than they are in the democracies, because the authoritarian state can restrict their movement to find work and to protest against conditions in a way democracies cannot do. So in Russia and South Africa you still have the weak economy from before but people can take action to improve their situation and the easiest way is always to commit a crime. In addition creating democracy does not overnight erase social inequalities and whilst Blacks and Coloureds are now in a position to become prosperous in South Africa, the richest people there are still White as they were in previous decades. This will also take time to change and the Mugabe model in Zimbabwe has proven itself to be the wrong way to go about it.
Democracy itself (let alone a fair society and despite many Americans' views the two are not necessarily linked) takes a long time to establish. In the UK it took centuries and as yet we are still not a truly democratic state as half of our parliament is unelected. In France it took centuries and a bloody revolution. In Germany it took two world wars and the Nazi regime before enduring democracy was established. The USA had a colonial war, a vast civil war, rioting and unrest to even establish its current form of democracy, again taking centuries. So why does anyone think that democracy can really truly be established in South Africa, Russia (which had never even tried democracy before the 1990s), Iraq, Afghanistan in the space of a few years and peacefully, when the bulk of the lauded democracies had to go through decades and decades of bloodshed to get to often quite imperfect democracy now.
It is a human tragedy that when dictatorships end it takes so long to establish some degree of stability, even to reduce the 'normality' of violence to an extent when it becomes exceptional rather than taken for granted. However, this is no excuse to say, well as democracy is so violent and unstable in the first few decades then we should not bother and stick with authoritarian regimes instead. This is like saying a woman should not let the baby out of her womb simply because it is going to be a painful process often needing lots of input from doctors and nurses. When things change you need to look forward. No-one fights to help criminals prosper, they fight for all the ordinary people, the bulk of South Africans and Iraqis who simply want to be able to go work in the morning, feed their families, come home, eat and go to sleep; to not be stopped and checked all the time, not to be arrested with no cause, to disappear, to be tortured or shot. In addition, they would like to be able to shape the government in the direction which fits with their values (though most people are quite happy if it just leaves them alone) and to be able to protest freely when things upset them. These are the people that anyone opposing a dictatorship is campaigning for. Yet, everyone, especially governments must remember, that taking away the dictatorship is not the end of the process rather it is just the brief introduction to a process that will stretch over the following decades.
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