UK Riots: 'Being Liberal Is Fine, But We Need To Be Given The Right To Parent'

[Turborama]

Amelia Gentleman asks Tottenham residents and community leaders if bad parenting is at the root of the lawlessness

Amelia Gentleman
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 10 2011 20.11 BST


Youth worker Clasford Stirling, who runs a football club in Tottenham,
north London, says criminality has been ‘glamorised’.
Photograph: Felix Clay for the Guardian

"Parents are fearful about how they chastise their children," Clasford Stirling, a veteran youth worker, who runs the football club at Broadwater Farm community centre in Tottenham, said. "There's been an erosion of authority for a long time. Parents move very gingerly not to upset their own kids – that's the reality."

Broadwater Farm estate is again at the centre of the unrest in London. Mark Duggan, whose death last week sparked London's riots, was brought up here, and sent one of his sons to Stirling's football classes. On Wednesday, Stirling was making arrangements for his wake.

Struggling to make sense of the violence that has turned buildings on Tottenham High Road into smouldering piles of rubble, Stirling wondered whether weakened parental authority might have something to do with it.

=snip=

"Bad behaviour and criminality has been glamorised on the streets. Teachers are scared to punish children. The modern child isn't frightened of their parents. They don't care if the police lock them up," he said.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/10/uk-riots-liberal-right-parent

[TheWraith]

1. Oh, bullshit. Just more British cultural superstitions showing through.

Funny how the solution to everything is to beat your children, even though that's produced more or less the same fucked up problems for generations. But hey, maybe if we put on the nostalgia specs and glamorize child abuse a little more, THAT will do the trick. I'm sure it can't have anything to do with the fact that we have a borderline police state, but with no security, a government that is corrupt, and a culture that would rather spend billions banning guns, knives, pub glasses, and privacy, rather than do something serious about poverty and racial animus.

[sudopod]

2. I wondered who the guy on the radio carrying on about discipline was. nt

[Turborama]

3. You should read the article. It doesn't say anything about beating, it says MUCH more than just that

[ljm2002]

4. Or maybe if the ruling elites punished the criminals...

...in their own ranks, maybe the yutes would have a little more respect.

As it is, we all look around and see very clearly that there is one set of laws for the ruling elites, and another for the rest of us.

It is not conducive to respect for the rule of law.

Then you get some incident that sets people off, and like a match dropped in a fireworks factory, it just explodes of its own accord and then everyone gets to talk about "the youth of today" and what criminals they all are.

Try doing something about the criminals at the top first!

Of course that won't happen, because by and large the ruling elites ARE ALL part of a criminal class. They need look no further than in the nearest mirror to see the reason for what is happening right now.

Again: one does not have to condone it, to see the root causes. The rot is at the top and there has been no move to address that. The only reason the Murdoch thing blew wide open was because of the outrage caused by hacking the phone of a murdered girl. The other types of hacking had been exposed for YEARS without any followup, Scotland Yard was sitting on thousands of pages of reports for crying out loud. Scotland Fucking Yard! Talk about rotting from the head down! And the collusion between the politicians and Murdoch and his minions, again, it has been known for YEARS but only after something that caused moral revulsion by the masses was any action taken. And they wonder why there is little respect for "the law".

[Turborama]

5. It's not really an either/or thing. How about both?

How about doing something about all the criminals?

[ljm2002]

6. Of course...

..my point, however, is that there is cause and effect. The fish rots from the head down, as the saying goes. You can hardly expect to see respect for the so-called "rule of law" when it only applies to one portion of the population, those who are being stolen from by the other portion of the population, while those thiefs continue on unpunished and in fact, highly rewarded.

Again: I don't condone rioting. I am all for peaceful demonstrations and have participated in my share. But as the one young man pointed out, those are ignored these days. It is not surprising when things blow up, that's my point. The factors are all there, plain to see, but the ruling elites don't give a damn. On the contrary: they LOVE looting, when they are the ones doing the looting. But they do it in such a genteel manner, don't they? Why could we possibly complain?