Collecting the comments

Following a series of violence over the Bank Holiday weekend that involved two murders of teenagers in London and a number of youths in hospital after stabbings and shootings throughout England, I found myself captivated by the endless comments that people are making in the electronic press on the issue of what can be done in order to combat these crimes that have come to be regarded as part and parcel of life in the UK and especially in London.

What I have done is collected a number of comments from various points of view, from the more moderate to the very authoritarian.
Here is the collection of random comments – I have tried to be as representative as possible in what kind of comments I have collected – that I have found from various news websites:

“Its time to carryout stop and search on any person and convict the individuals who carry knives or a weapon to 5 years hard labour, or we will have these stories on a weekly basis”

“WANT SOLUTIONS, GREAT BRITAIN: discipline relapse ungodly laws, raise age of marriage re introduce moral instruction re introduce corporal punishment zero tolerance in schools and society for young people and everyone in general re view laws on drinking and pubs”

“The comments I've read on here so far seem to indicate the old truth: 'There's a simple answer to every complex question ...... and it's always wrong.' To suggest that violence in Britain is down to foreigners and present laws is too simplistic. There has always been violence in British society with people becioming instantly incensed at the slighest insult or provocation. To find out the cure for this will take a lot more than a few off the cuff self-congratulatory remarks.”

“I remember London's East End in the 1970/1980s & it is far more safe today. As for teenage gangs - gangs are not something that have just been invented - remember the Krays etc. The idea that a death penalty will serve as a deterrrant is foolish - just look at the United States. As for Jo, who thinks teenagers are killing for kicks - you are clearly out of touch, despite having a teenager. No-one has been killed for kicks, it is a rivalry usually based on turf and/or the trade of drugs - just like in the days of the Kray Twins. The bottom line is - we as humans are capable of killing - look at the way we butcher people in wars. As British people, we should be least suprised at killing others. We are amongst the most murderous nations in history - we celebrate killing in our marches and parade our army!”

“I live in Harrisburg (capital of pennsylvania) ,we have about 1000 knife crimes a week and this is just one small city. there is at least 2 gun deaths every day in Philadelphia. but in the UK i dont see why every single incident has to be sensationalised and thrown on the front pages and the news, the UK is one of the safest countries for violent crime on the planet! if you have problems then change some laws and crackdown but dont try and fearmonger everyone and make the population think they are living in fear. its just dumb”

“We cannot expect children to act as if they belong in society if we continually ostracise them. We cannot expect them to follow human values while we continually allocate respect and status on the basis of power and wealth. We cannot expect children to respect property if we value our cars more than childhood. We cannot expect them to be whole, curious, active human beings if we prevent them from playing by selling off their territory or driving cars all over it.”
“It all comes down to basic education... which our culture lacks, and has done for some years.. look around, its children having children... so theres no basic education there.. go to any shopping mall, and they are there all ages, parents not interested... our society is full of these kind of people.. education.. is important... no education.. results in these terrible actions.. alchol fuelled as well.. which does not help.. as i say ''welcome to britain''.”

What is extremely interesting to see from this is how the viewpoints from so many different people in the same society are so contrasting, totally irreconcilable in some cases. This does beg the question on how can any government organise a strategy in order to challenge major social issues like crime rate, youth delinquency and many other such contentious issues when there is such a major divide in society. If the government is concerned in trying to balance as best it can the views of the population, there is always the risk that no one is satisfied.

What all these comments do highlight however is the extremely vast nature of the beliefs that exist in society and regardless of how illogical and totally wrong that many of other people’s comments do seem for each of us, we cannot deny that they do exist.

-NS-

Picture taken from Sky News website

Grant dismissal highlights lack of strategy from Chelsea hierarchy

MOST football pundits and sports journalists have agreed today that yesterday’s sacking of Chelsea manager Avram Grant was inevitable.

While all the talk in the Sunday papers and the electronic press of sympathy for Grant in what was (to quote Phil McNulty of the BBC) “a sign of the cut-throat nature of the modern game” and how it was so obvious that Grant would be making way for a more prestigious manager able to fill Jose Mourinho’s shoes, what should really be highlighted is the ineptitude of Chelsea’s boardroom not specifically due to the sacking of Grant but from a more general accumulation of erratic behaviour that demonstrate a club seriously lacking any long-term strategy for the future.

Being a massive lifelong Chelsea fan I have to say that the way the people high up in the hierarchy at Chelsea have conducted themselves this year has been a great worry for me this year.

However, don’t get me wrong, I do not think that yesterday’s sacking of Grant was a bad decision when considering the future of Chelsea, I feel that Grant never had the ability to take Mourinho’s team to the next level, and not because of his grim look and dour personality – even though these definitely didn’t count towards. Grant was taking over a team very strongly aligned to Mourinho, many of them regarding the sacking of the self-proclaimed ‘Special One’ as a betrayal to the team and their collective effort of the last 3 years. In addition to this, Grant never showed that he had the winning mentality that was the main thing that allowed Jose to break the unbridled success enjoyed by Arsenal and Manchester United. I understand that this may seem like a paradoxical statement coming just a few days after Chelsea lost the Champions League final to the width of a goalpost, an accomplishment that no other manager of the club has ever achieved.

However, Grant never had the winning touch for the big games, very similar to Mourinho’s predecessor Claudio Ranieri. It is no coincidence that Chelsea’s Wembley defeat to Tottenham in the Carling Cup was their first final defeat since Ranieri, Mourinho’s recent undefeated record to Arsenal vanishing in Grant’s first game against the North London club, while the inability to finish off games costing Grant dearly while Jose’s teams always managed to grind out the 1-0 wins that proved so valuable in the back-to-back Championship winning seasons.
(Chelsea conceded 7 goals this season in the last five minutes of a game)

Probably the most important factor for Chelsea’s success in reaching the Champions League had much more to do with the fact of a second leg played at Stamford Bridge instead of Anfield – which however much it pains me to admit – that has played a huge role in the undoing of the Blues in the two previous attempts for Champions League glory and not the effect of either Jose Mourinho or Avram Grant.

So then how on earth can one justify the way Abramovich, Kenyon have reacted to this season? While I could still harp on about mine and most Chelsea fans’ disapproval of Mourinho’s sacking, I am more interested in examining the way they have acted from a more rational and detached perspective.

While most football pundits have claimed since Saturday afternoon that Grant was simply filling a stopgap role as the club were simply waiting for the right man to become available, then how can offering Grant a four year contract be justified? If a manager who was prepared to stay at the helm without the need for a longer term contract –Grant had indicated throughout his tenure that his contract did not concern him in the slightest – then why did the club offer him a long term contract in December that appeared to give the Israeli a vote of confidence for the future only two months into his ultimately short reign as Chelsea boss?

Then this leads to the other point of view, which seems at present to be the only reasonable alternative to why Grant was given the boot, that Grant was sacked due to a slip by captain John Terry that lost the Champions League final. While the phrase that there is a fine line between success and failure may come to mind, if the decision to sack Grant was because of the Champions League final failure, then this was a ridiculous decision.

As I have already said, I never did take to Grant, to the extent that I could not even possibly force myself to applaud him – as many other Chelsea fans did – in the aftermath of the last game of the season at Bolton nor to feel any sympathy for him after the Moscow final.

However, his departure and the events at Chelsea since last September have exposed a great lack of stability at Chelsea and very much a total lack of a long-term strategy in place of a rather blind lust for instant success. While the events of the last five years since Roman Abramovich have raised expectations from the club’s fans and media to an almost ridiculous level, a missed penalty in a Champions League Final should simply not lose you your job.

-NS-

Student politics and the importance of dreams

NO I will not sit and wait while you tell me to listen. While you tell me the arguments which you give and have given again and again: “We must be reasonable, we have jobs to do, responsibilities, duties, people aren’t interested, they don’t care, forget it, you’ll never win, you can’t change anything.”

None of this was ever true.

You sit in your meetings pretending to represent us, pretending to be equals with men who give you half an ear, if you’re lucky. They were there before you, will be there after you – what interest do they have in listening to you? Those who voted for you, where are they? Drinking, studying, passing another day. When do you talk to us and what do you say? Perhaps students are not capable of knowing, they do not think of what they really do and what they have and what they want. And why would they need to? “That's why we were elected. Behind closed doors we fight for what is right, students don't care about the nitty gritty, we do the hard work for them so they don't have to. Don't try and tell me they could ever want anything more , they elected me didn't they? I'll do my job – I work for them. I'm just doing the best by them.” Which is what exactly? When did you ask us? And what do you tell us of what you see , of what you do, of what you think? A little morsel of truth comes out, every now and again, if you're looking closely and listening hard.

So we sit mostly numb, unconscious to all that matters, unaware of what you will never tell us. Numbed by the system which provides us with this brittle cocoon, but it was never so comfortable anyway. You maintain it, our little temporary shelter, or is it a blindfold? The poverty and cruelty of reality seeps in at the edges, but you take little notice. It does not interest you. “We all have a right to education, these days we study to get a job, you knew that when you came here. Why did you come here anyway? It’s money you want isn’t it, or what? Do you have some faded illusion of something better? Ha – you’ll forget that pretty soon. This is the big city, this is where the money is made: we can help you on to the ladder if you’ll only help yourself...”

Help myself, yes I just might. What lies beneath I wonder? Questions rise, slow steady growth of ideas, expanding, spreading until roots and branches stretch in every direction. I think of what I do, my position, situation, history, future – worlds of possibility and reality. Between them many steps lie, but I see them, that first step – questions, leading to thinking, leading to action, leading to change.

Is it so hard? Or is it that you just underestimate us? Of course we can think, they train us in that; how to learn and regurgitate at a later date. But this thinking, probing the lines of our learning itself – this scares you, but you know of it. You know of it and choose to ignore it. “Don't be such a romantic. Nothing would ever come of it any way. These thoughts are the whisper of a dream of a nothing. Grow up, reality is here, it’s not so bad, come on in the water’s...” tepid, at best. “But seriously, give it up, swallow the bitter pill like everybody else, you’ll be saving yourself a lot of trouble.”

A lot of what? Trouble – dreaming isn’t trouble, the trouble is not dreaming - what could be worse? Those changes you say you’re making, will anyone remember in 10 years time, 20, 30? “We adjusted things a little, an inch to the left, an inch to the right, it was an important step on the path to...” What exactly? What was your vision, your keystone, your point of departure, your end destination? “It was just a step on the ladder.” And the top of the ladder? “I’ll tell you when I get there.” When will you get there? “Ask me in 10 years time.” Are you sure it won’t be 20, 30? And then? Will you be satisfied? Will you tell me again not to ask for much or to expect only a little step forward – or is it backwards? Or what direction are we going in at all?

Do we hope? Do we dream, can we go further? What lies beyond, beneath, above, outside? I do not know, but in my search I know I will find a little of what there is not here. But wait, it is here already isn’t it? I see something at the edge of my vision, I turn around, it’s gone. I know I saw something. I catch something, it slides through my fingers a little touch of another object, a different idea, and it’s gone again. It is not lost though, it is always there. If only we look, not with eyes that search for the best and the worst but with eyes that feel, eyes that feel for a deeper meaning, a deeper good which yearns for people. A people who deep down yearn for good.

So when you tell me to listen and be realistic, just who are you speaking for? Me or You? Students or Future Students? Who exactly and why? When you forgot how to dream how did it feel? Without my dreams I am nothing. If we do not hope, if we do not believe, if we do not dream and act on those dreams, however distant they may seem, then where are we?

Nowhere.

Do not tell me we cannot change anything, this was never true.

Dream and we can change everything.

- Sol Gamsu -

Gloucester, UK: A conservation manager from the Severnside Project introduces one of 70 captivity-bred water voles into a nature reserve. The vole population has declined by 90%, but it is hoped the new influx will grow into a stable population and spread to nearby areas to replace the ones that died in last summer's floods
Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/gallery/2008/may/21/photography?picture=334284937

We don't trust ourselves

Having read a lot about Primo Levi in this last week both his books and about his life this week – even if it was for an exam -, this has got me thinking a lot not only about his own aims in his literature but also how far we have come since 1945.

Primo Levi was a Jewish Italian chemist and Holocaust survivor who wrote a number of books about his experience as a survivor of the Holocaust, his literature on his experience of Auschwitz characteristic by its detached prose in a bid to give his readers a historical and factual account of his experiences and not one overridden by emotion and anger. His most important books were Se questo un uomo (If this is a man), La tregua (The Truce) and I sommersi e i salvati (The drowned and the saved).

Levi’s underlying fear that society would forget what happened at Auschwitz and the danger for a similar crime of this proportion to repeat itself was what motivated him as a writer. There has been a lot of speculation surrounding his death – many consider his death in 1987 an act of suicide – as it has been suggested that his ‘Auschwitz demons’ finally got the better of him. However even if the reason behind his death is another issue all together, and one which I am in no position to talk about, Levi has succeeded in getting me thinking about how we as human individuals regard ourselves as a collective unit through these events.

While I understand that anything surrounding the Holocaust or the Second World War maybe a banal topic to discuss at the moment, it is the way we are still dealing with it after more than 60 years that is still fascinating.

Not only is it evident from Levi, but also from the fact that a Holocaust denial law exists implicitly or explicitly in 13 countries, it is clear that as society at large, we simply do not trust ourselves not to repeat the grave errors that have characterised our past. The simple need for such a law, or even the fact that sensitivities still run extremely high whenever the issue is even mentioned, shows clearly our complete mistrust that we are able to guarantee, though this experience of our history, that the atrocities carried out in concentration camps are never repeated.

Saying this, obviously in absolutely no way am I suggesting that I do not understand the fury of many people whose relatives lost their lives or incurred incredible suffering during the Holocaust when people are denying its existence.

However even the fact that right now I feel the need to explain myself in order to state something that should be blatant and implied through the use of common sense, this alone strengthens my point.
I find myself agreeing with Austrian university professor Lothar Hobelt who was quoted saying when British historian David Irving was sentenced to a prison term in February 2006:
"This is a silly law by silly people for silly people. In fact, having a law that says you mustn't question a particular historical instance, if anything, creates doubt about it, because if an argument has to be protected by the force of law, it means it's a weak argument."

While we will never reach a stage where we can say that the events of recent history are able to guide us in the right direction and allow us to safely say that history will never repeat itself, it is disappointing however to see how little confidence there is in society that we are able to learn from our past and be reasonable in the way we view our future without the use of laws or other protective methods.

- NS-

How to fail your exams

I think these speak for themselves, no need for any explanation!

By Chechak

Where does Labour go from here?

What are the reasons behind what have been declared as Labour’s worst council results in 40 years? Can these results be attributed to the 10p tax debacle of the last two weeks, a reaction to what Gordon Brown has labelled the “difficult economic circumstances” that the UK is experiencing or is it as former Labour Cabinet Minister Tony Benn claimed "verdict on Blairism"?
Or is this simply a protest vote against Labour which does not have a real bearing on the voting patterns for the next general election?
What should Labour do in order to rectify the situation or has the tide in the UK already changed in favour of the Conservatives?

BBC report on the elections – We have collected some extracts from the BBC coverage on the elections, but we are looking for you to comment either directly on this post or write your own piece on what you think about all these questions that Thursday night’s local election results have created.

BBC research suggests Labour won 24% of votes cast in England and Wales, behind the Tories on 44% and Lib Dems on 25%.
In total Labour lost 331 councillors and key councils like Reading. Tory gains include Bury and North Tyneside.

Mr Brown insists his party will learn lessons. David Cameron called it a "big moment" for the Conservative Party.
The margin is similar to the drubbing received by Tory Prime Minister John Major in council elections in 1995, two years before he was ejected from Downing Street by Tony Blair.

Mr Brown told reporters: "It's clear to me that this has been a disappointing night, indeed a bad night for Labour."
He conceded that the government had "lessons to learn", but insisted: "My job is to listen and to lead."
He blamed "difficult economic circumstances" for much of the bad performance, and claimed that measures taken by the government to counter problems would become clear "over the next few months".

Of course local elections are not the same as general elections. People do feel a greater liberty to register a protest vote and some parts of the country have not gone to the polls this time.

Yet more than 100 Labour MPs will now be worrying about their chances of keeping their seats at the next election.
There is no sign of any organised attempt to move against the leader who was given such overwhelming support by his party when Tony Blair stood down. There is no obvious candidate prepared to put up a serious challenge at the moment.
With two years to go before the next election, Gordon Brown does have time to turn around his party's fortunes. But some are now wondering whether he is personally capable of the sort of change that is needed.

Tony Benn comment:
Former Labour cabinet minister Tony Benn says the results are a "verdict on Blairism". "For ten years we've been told 'leave everything to the market. Borrow on the value of your house. You'll be all right. Don't worry, privatisation will solve the problem.' And I think the credit crunch has been a sort of economic 9-11. It's changed everything. And a lot of people are really frightened now ... I think that's really what we ought to understand, because when people are frightened they always move to the right."

-NS-

Dragon fly vision