By Michael Ozioma Samuel
Michael Samuel |
This is
the England
I carry with me. And though this beautiful land of freedom is scarcely all of a
piece, it has had not a pittance of goodwill among its admirers, and a steady
stream of enviable blessings even as it gives
hope to the despondent and dignity to the crushed in spirit- otherwise
consigned to the plaything of degrading existence in their nativity. Which begs
the question, why is a society that has devoted itself to the freedom of man
been itself exposed to being the victim of its own pursuit and struggle?
The events of the recent past seek to address this
enquiry. To explain away the orgy of looting and frenzied torching of property
that has engulfed the nation, in which 100 families have been made homeless
according to housing minister, Grant Shapps, attempts have been made to lay the
charge at the door of the impassive culprit: a fleshed-out economy. This
hurried stance to establish a scapegoat has shifted the focus away from the
primary cause, namely, poor parenting and the almost limitless latitude of
governance and policy makers to indulge a society that shuffles to the edge of
explosion.
The prime minister’s diagnosis of the situation,
recalling that over 1000 have been arrested and 371 charged, on the statistics of
the Metropolitan Police, and himself
terminating his holidays in Italy and equally recalling Mps from their summer
break for an emergency debate on the riots, is no less apposite: ”a fraction of
the British society, he laments, is sick.”
But how does David Cameroon arrive at such sober assessment, and on whom
does the onus of responsibility lie? Put simply, where are the light-bearers?
To be certain, any defence of the gory incidents in
Britain, in which 26 police officers were injured and two remain in hospital as
a result of the fatal shooting by the police
– of Mark Duggan, 29, a supposedly no-gooder, having been implicated in drug
related offences, offends all sizes of commonsense and
legitimate reason. To pilfer away at the labours of others and deliberately
torch them is, indeed, a shameless overkill. But for the police to allow the
rampage into its fourth night at a stretch is even more shameful. It is a bonus
to primitive pillage. And that, certainly, was not a very generous incentive by
the authorities.
The overindulgent attitude of the western leadership
which parallels the permissive manner in which parents raise their children set
the tone for the erratic behaviour among the youths and periodically evokes a
re-enactment of the sad events we have just witnessed in England.
A civilisation that caters not to the minds and hearts
of its people is unsound and teeters on 3 legs.
Suffice it to say that in contrast to the prime minister’s
assertion that a fraction of the British society is sick, in reality, it is the
system that is truly sick. And it can only be felled by a fragile push. When a
society is largely empty of the faintest modicum of any core ingredients that
define the human spirit, that society, notwithstanding its accolades in the conquest
of sea, land and sky, is in dire need of taming itself. Otherwise it risks
being poured out.
Parents other than channelling their efforts at the
upbringing of their children into a museum of haves should strive to awaken
that humanity that lie dormant in each of us and for which we all yearn. Its
path may be tortuous but the dividend it yields is far more gratifying and
refreshing- like dews on a scorched land. When one ponders over the fact that
many of those that were involved in the rioting, looting and burglary were
hardly into their 11th birthday, a shaking of parental
responsibility clearly looms larger in the mind. One then comes round to the
issue that it is not
“a fraction of the society that is sick”, but a
fraction, indeed an entire culture of parental do-it-as-you-please that sits in
the dock and which stands to be pilloried.
The second problem, no less jarring is the western
legal system which treats serious felonies with kids-gloves. The entire system
of western legal culture, at best, seemingly rewards crime and seldom confronts
misbehaviour with the discipline it calls for. How does one digest the
eagerness of
many individuals to wilfully commit certain crimes
that will send them to jail because they find their incarceration glamorous and
comfortable as opposed to the daily demands which the conscience of a society
asks of them!
In Sweden,
immigrants from Poland
wilfully break traffic laws to find themselves in jail where numerous
facilities await them, to their advantage. In many Scandinavian countries,
going to prison is an emotional holiday where the prisoner’s every whim, in the
name of human rights, is attended to with such religiosity that offends even
the sensibilities of a monk. The result
is, rather than shy away from the consequences of infringing on the law, many
in Europe look to prison with fervour.
They couldn’t exchange a system that humours their
criminal intents for any other body that will hold up their accountability and
this emboldens the youth to repeatedly kick at the institutions that nurture
them. To this end, an overhaul of the legal system in Europe
is timely- including its penal system. Serious offenders should be allowed to
feel the full heat of the law and such latitude of freedom as is given
offenders must be withdrawn to discourage them from re-living their crime. It
is not enough to send a criminal to jail.
It’s the
conditions in prison that help strengthen or detract the crime. The events in London mirror the moral
crisis in which our age has been enmeshed. It challenges parents everywhere to
once again assume the traditional role as educators and sincere
disciplinarians. And it’s an obligation that cannot be shared nor passed to our
youths.
To rebel against the authority of parents is not an
answer for a clear guide to mud through life.
John Stuart on “Our Children’s Future” echoes the same
sentiment when he maintains that “if youth has learnt to question the wisdom of
its elders, it has so far found nothing to replace it with”.
Michael Ozioma Samuel teaches Communication in English
to professional adults. He wrote in from Budapest,
Hungary
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