I'm terribly sorry to start yet another thread on the London (and other city) riots.
These are terrible, terrible events - so many people placed in danger, property and businesses destroyed, emergency services even being attacked (!). But I haven't managed to spot many posters who are as unsurprised as me that these large scale disturbances are happening (please link to threads if I've missed any where this is the case, as I was genuinely confused at the seeming lack of "well it's hardly a surprise" thread base).
I live in a really, really shitty area. We don't open the door after dark; most of the "nicer" neighbours in the area have moved on since we bought here 4 years ago. The elderly neighbour who lived next door found kids/youth pettiness so stressful that she moved in with her daughter miles away; my neighbour across the road gave notice on her rental agreement after teenagers set upon her cat with an airgun so badly that they thought they'd have to put the poor thing down (they didn't, it just had to have a leg amuptated, and it survived). There are regular muggings, and robbery attempts at the local corner shops, to the point where I'm not even surprised when I see the posters asking for witnesses these days. I've reported or been witness to crimes an average of two-three times a year since living here (car breakin attempts and vandalism to cars/shops mostly, a fight or two on the corner where people hang out, cruelty to a dog for a neighbour who we believe is one of the local drug dealers, my car was stolen and joy ridden, written off after being crashed into a lamp post).
Whilst I know not all teenagers are bad (DS falls into that category now!), I have had a feeling that large scale disturbances might become more common over the last few years. Several things:
1) The attitude I see in school from parents. It appears that teachers get a massive lack of respect from a significant number of parents - something unheard of in my own upbringing. When it's as widespread as I've witnessed, that's a good indicator that future generations are being brought up to not understand how responsibility and respect works.
2) The economy. Whether you agree that big bankers aren't suffering after sending us down this path, or it was our own greed that caused the crash - the outcome of this is that the job situation in our area has gotten even worse. And opportunities were limited enough during the "boom years".
3) Common sense. I recall 3 years ago during the summer of 2009 when the nice neighbour with the injured cat told me she was moving out (and the reason why) when she came to say goodbye - she said "if those little bastards are doing that at 14, I don't want to be here when they turn 17, 18 or 19 and move from shooting cats to stabbing people - what's it going to be like around here then?" ... and I suspect this is the case in a lot of rundown communities. As generations of families who have never known order, peace or a sense of community grow up, and it's occured on a mass scale, is it any wonder we would start to see a breakdown and this undercurrent of an "underclass" venting its frustrations?
So AIBU to be sitting here thinking: "well that's absolutely awful, but hardly surprising?"
This isn't intended to be a political post,btw, I'm not sitting here also thinking "well look what a mess the labour lot gave us / look how the tories are screwing us up". I'm talking about a wider picture of social disconnect that's happened with a HUGE number of young people today, which i can see with my very own eyes.
AIBU?
... to think the riots, although terrible, are not particularly surprising?
fgaaagh · 09/08/2011 14:13
Meant to add - I'm not a teacher, even though I come across in 1 above potentially like that. I work in the charity sector, tho not in a non-profit org (95% of our work is related to charity organisations though). For the record! 
And when asked why they joined in the looting they said it was to show 'the rich' and 'the police' that they could do what they liked. They also blamed 'the government' but didn't actually seem to know who they were....
That is interesting, but again I'm not surprised that they spoke like this, and that when they were prompted for some deeper analysis (and hopefully soundbite-worthy 
) they just came up with very vague ideas about "the man" (or whatver these younger generation term it - the girls called it the gov and the rich but the idea is the same).
I'm sort of reminded about the quote from 1984:
The only evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in your own bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived in were intolerable and that at some other time they must have been different.
I think that whilst there are opportunists jumping on the loot bandwagon, I'll agree - there is also a huge set of very real problems that have been simmering for years - obvious, literal problems that can be felt, touched and (if you live amongst them) endured, and have been endured, for years, for certain segments of society.
So there are more than opportunists - there are youth of today who know it shouldn't be like this. They sense the growing disparity between the "haves" and the "have nots" despite not being able to articulate it! Which is irony in itself, because the failing education system has made them unable to communicate what they know in their bones.
There's the ones who have never been encouraged and have lived amongst bad parenting (say), but there are also the ones who have worked hard (relatively, for them) and still gain no reward from it - e.g. in my local area where there are no jobs beyond a part-time contract at Tesco or these zero-hour warehouse work which stops your benefits and essentially forced you into a poverty cycle of being the working poor on minimum wage without even the advantage of having a guaranteed income each week like you would get from social security.
that is my perception, living amongst this community, and it's why I'm not surprised at all that these riots are happening in London, terrible as they may be.
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