Riots

Aston has a bad reputation; it is said to be unsafe and infested with gangs. It is therefore with some glee that I can report that by and large the recent riots in Birmingham have passed by Aston. There was some minor trouble in TESCO and a window of an optician was smashed at the roundabout near the supermarket, but those are the only scars of a neighbourhood that has remained peaceful on the whole.

This is not to say that we can shrug off the looting in the city centre as no concern to us. Disaffected youth are found everywhere, even though they express their frustrations in different ways and in different places.

What has happened reminded me of something I read a few years ago. It was an editorial in The Tablet, the Catholic weekly, of February 17, 2007. The editorial commented on a United Nations report, prepared by Unicef, about the treatment of children, which put "Britain at the bottom of a league table of 21 prosperous nations". The comment went on: "On a range of criteria, some economic but some directly measuring children's happiness and well-being, Britain's adults are failing to give the next generation what they deserve and need. This is a portrait of a nation that does not love its children enough. It does not bode well."

Alas, the prophecy has come true and the signs that were apparently there have not been sufficiently heeded. The Unicef report mentioned many economic and social reasons having to do with the family, the peergroup, education, employment etc., but for The Tablet these factors are not the only ones to consider. It surmises "a spiritual crisis behind the sociological one" expressed in these strong words: "Today British society is reaping what it sowed with its move towards a selfish consumer culture and focus on hedonism."

Is this too simple? Perhaps, but even so it is good to remember that the cultural and spiritual changes meant here do not occur in leaps and bounds. They are a continual process moving in small, nearly imperceptible increments over a considerable period of time, until a saturation point has been reached. The slow process makes it difficult to put the blame on anyone specifically. Somehow all are involved in the problem and likewise all should be involved in the solution.

Ton