London Riots

I think the whole world has watched in horror as these riots have unfolded in London and spread throughout England to Manchester and Birmingham.  I have many friends from the UK who have expressed their distaste at the English people involved in these riots, they have also spoken of their shame at even being British.  My own great grandfather came from Canning Town in the East End of London, jumping ship upon his arrival to New Zealand.  A lot of us have links to the UK and the people within it, so we have all in some way been touched watching what is going on.  I had one friend comment that they had lost their faith in humanity, however I saw that humanity returned tonight on the news, watching the droves of people coming to the areas worst hit in London and spending the day working together to clean up the mess.

In the coming days and weeks people will want answers, they will want to lay the blame with someone and expect whoever they point fingers at to take responsibility for what has happened.  I say that we are all responsible for what has taken place, I have expressed that on various social networks and I wanted to expand here on my blog.  Watching these riots it is abundantly clear that the majority of those taking part are young men who have absolutely no respect for anyone or anything, especially authority figures.  So the question posed is Why?  And the obvious answer I can see is that its because we have allowed this generation to exist.  We have come through a generation of people that have become to relaxed in parenting skills, we see it all the time children getting away with things they shouldn't be because we allow them to.  No longer can we use smacking as a discipline without fear of persecution or prosecution, instead we are encouraged to talk to our children rather than set boundaries and keep to them.  We have raised a generation that we have taught to stand up and fight against the authorities, rather than respect them and listen.  When someone breaks the law the penalties are not harsh enough, we simply slap them on the wrists and send them on their merry way, sending the message that its ok to break the law because you’re going to get away with it anyway.

We have created a generation of lazy people that want the easy way out so turn to living a life filled with making easy money, usually through doing things illegally.  We allow them to sit around and claim benefits all day and never encourage them to be productive in life.  Boredom creates restlessness and restlessness leads to these sorts of acts we see today.  We need to make changes for the next generations coming up through the ranks.  We need to get back to the days and ways of old that teach us respect for people, respect for property, respect for authority and respect for boundaries.  If we don't change the way we are raising our generations we are going to see more and more of these moments of unrest and uprising.  Something needs to change before it is too late. Make the changes for the next generation!