David Cameron says that the recent riots in the UK are symptomatic of the breakdown of the traditional family unit and a general moral decline in our society. In the parallel universe where Tony Blair resides, the moral fabric of UK society is fully intact and the riots were merely the shenanigans of a few “feral families”. Is that it? Are these two simplistic and opposing prognoses the sum total of what our current Prime Minister and his predecessor can come up with? These two men, who have in aggregation run our lives for the best part of fifteen years, seem to be on a completely different wavelength to the rest of the nation. Personally, being involved in a community building initiative like Sewa Day, I am hugely disappointed by the noticeable deterioration in community mindedness during the New Labour years. I believe this deterioration to be a key driver of recent events. A continued manifestation of the "I'm alright Jack" attitude introduced during the Thatcher years. Indeed, Cameron’s vision of a Big Society, which he expended much of his breath touting last year, seems to be stuck in reverse gear too.
To me, the recent riots are a result of much deeper rooted problems in our society. Many of our youth today, regardless of class or social background, are struggling to find an identity, a raison d’etre. They lack respect for society, hope for the future and any vision of what they themselves wish to achieve. Unless we try to understand the feeling of futility and disenfranchisement that these folks are feeling and find solutions, we can only expect more of the same behaviour - and next time they’ll be better organized and larger in numbers. Kids learn from their mistakes, fast. Now, more than ever, we need to earn our place as elders and leaders.
People will point to the severe economic environment, the associated backlash against the bankers, the rise of social networking and pure criminality as some of the reasons for the unrest. These are not reasons but just vehicles to bring to our attention the real underlying issues – reasons that have been brewing for some time. Firstly, the rioters were not just a bunch of mindless yobs from some council estate (if such a thing exists). Rioters came from a wide cross section of the community – working class, middle class, champagne class, all ethnicities, various faiths. Secondly, the only reason we are in such shock is because these trouble makers have found their way on to the streets of our capital (in places like urbane Ealing no less). Many small provincial towns are already used to dealing with these kinds of incidents – albeit on a much smaller scale – but we’ve never batted an eyelid about it, until now.
The riots are in part a result of the erosion of the community support system that got this country through two brutal world wars and the great depression. Cameron fails to recognise that breakdown of connectivity goes wider than the individual family unit. The breakdown has occurred right across society - across classes, cultures and ethnicities. We've been the victims of our own success in a way. As World War II came to a close, the UK shifted gear into re-build mode. The last generation (the so called “baby boomers”) and to an extent my generation set about building the world we live in today. We worked bloody hard too, taking nothing for granted. Hence, we have no one to blame for the current state of affairs but ourselves. We were hungry for success and aspired to build a better world for our children (naturally). Perhaps we’ve gone too far. In the last 10-15 years or so, our kids have grown up in a world where we behave like life is a cake walk. That money never runs out (the Blair/Brown legacy), everything is disposable (including relationships) and that mediocrity in life need no longer be tolerated. Accordingly, society, the education system and the media backed us up on these utopian ideals. We have built a world where appearing on a reality TV show or earning huge bonuses in the city has become everybody’s natural ambition. No payment of dues required. Fifteen minutes of fame and a quick buck. Moreover, in this new affluent world of ours, the affordability of technology has helped us all turn ourselves into veritable islands, without the need for unnecessary interaction with fellow humans.
This little paradise that we all created worked as long as the going was smooth. Now that we’ve hit a huge bump in the road it’s all imploded. The economic downturn has left our youth feeling rudderless and bereft of any clear ambition. Unfortunately, most people can’t be the next Pop Idol and life is actually much harsher than we’ve lead our kids to expect. They’re not prepared. It’s a rude awakening and the traditional community network is no longer there to support them.
Let’s face it, what are the choices? If you can afford it, you get yourself an education. However, I know from personal interaction with many young people coming out of our university system, there are very few jobs available out there. To work your socks off for three/four years in the expectation of landing a high flying job only to end up working in the local McDonalds was not the promised dream. Moreover, the service industry can’t support the constant outflow of educated kids and we don’t have the manufacturing industry base, that say Germany has, to pull us out of the hole (another Thatcher legacy). And why did New Labour create this idea that everyone needs a degree? There are plenty of important roles in the economy that don’t need academics but instead those with physical/vocational skills. However, kids don’t want to be plumbers, builders or carpenters when the media continually enforces the images of “the better life” that being a footballer or a pop star offers you. We, via the media, have conditioned the next generation to not only want but to regard the high life as their birth right. This gross mis-management of expectations together with the backdrop of severe austerity measures (closure of youth centres, cuts in the number of police personnel etc) created a volatile mix which fuelled the recent uprising.
We are in a recessionary cycle despite all the wobbly semantics around definitions (anyone that told you that boom/bust cycles were a thing of the past was clearly lying). Moreover, I’m not here to write about how we fix the economy. I'll leave that to someone who's better equipped to do that (let me know when you find such an individual. The Chancellor's been looking for him). However, tough times shouldn’t automatically lead to riots on the streets. Unrest takes place when the foundations of society have been severely weakened. So, we need a change in general mindset and we should focus on policies and initiatives that will achieve this. It’ll make us a stronger nation in the long run – in good times and bad. Firstly, the school education system needs to be less grade obsessed and must take a more holistic approach to child development. We need to instill the feelings of pride in work, community mindedness and respect for fellow human beings from an early age. Ethics and morality should be taught at the primary school level through classes and community service e.g Croydon, one of the riot affected areas, has just endorsed a programme devised by Sewa Day to promote the ethos of community service in their schools. Also, while I don't agree strongly with the concept per se, faith schools have been very successful in imbibing their students with core community values. Faith did play a major role in the traditional community model. Successive Labour (under Blair) and Tory (under Cameron) governments have mooted the idea of a form of national community service for teenagers (as a reboot of the national service of the 1950’s and 60s). Great idea but nothing done, nada, zilch – although Boris Johnson has recently launched the Team London Campaign to get more Londoners involved in volunteering. It’s come down to private initiatives like Sewa Day and programmes sponsored by large corporates to promote social responsibility and community cohesion. Volunteering enables people from different social classes, faiths and ethnicities to engage with each other in a very positive context. Working in community projects together engenders greater understanding and respect between citizens. One also learns to respect the environment. Universities, for their part, are key to reshaping the countries skill base. Higher education needs to redirect students away from the usual choice of professions (banking, accountancy, law) and encourage students to pursue career paths that will be useful to the UK and global economy going forward (environmental sciences, marine biology etc). Students need to think laterally about their career choices. Mentoring schemes (like the one just launched by the City Hindus Network) can be hugely instrumental in helping young people manage their career and job choices. Lastly, the media needs to glorify the everyman as much as it shines a light on celebrity and ultra high wealth. None of this is rocket science.
I’m not concerned about those transient people in cities like London who are here just to work and earn money. By and large, they aren’t concerned with the long term future welfare of our fine cities or our children and I’m not going to lose any sleep over them. I don’t care about the thugs and looters who struck fear in our streets two weeks ago. Lock them up for as long as you like. Let’s not lump everyone in with them though. There are people out there, good young people, who were sucked into the scenes of the last few weeks because they thought they were part of a bigger movement for positive change. Sucked in by the hype on Facebook, Twitter and other popular social networks, they came out to express their frustrations. After all, when it seems you have nothing left to lose you fight. That’s what we’ve seen in the so-called Arab spring sweeping the Middle East. Admittedly, young people here have a long way to go before they can compare their miserable lot with their peers in places like Tunisia and Egypt, but some of the events here (like the student protests last year) are extensions of the same wave of change. These people are the future of our country and they need to see a roadmap to their dreams. A major part of that roadmap involves rebuilding core community values and promoting selfnessness across all social classes. And in case you’re thinking I’m some sort of hippy-sociology teacher type, remember, riots are bad for the country’s image and bad for business. Two weeks ago, the world watched as the UK was seemingly spinning out of control (while our leaders tanned themselves on the beach). Apart from a pile of headline grabbing catch phrases, what will your legacy to the people be Mr. Cameron?
Arup Ganguly is Chairman of Sewa Day. Sewa Day is an international, interfaith, cross cultural volunteering initiative aimed at promoting the ethos of community service and selflessness. Sewa Day takes place on 25th September 2011. Go to www.sewaday.org to find out more.
