Blunkett's Fascism

On watching the news today I first heard about Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBO). I tend to be a little out of touch with the world but what I saw I didn't like. Images of a middle aged policeman tossing a 9 year old boy to the ground and cuffing him are a little disturbing when we live in a supposedly 'liberal democratic' country. Admittedly the boy was sniffing glue and had broken his ASBO but he was 9 year olds!! There's not much chance of him being able to hurt an armed policeman.

These ASBOs bother me immensely. I understand that the wider community wants to be protected from the little fucks who steal cars and terrorize people but they do little to go to the root of the problem. From my own experience I would say that the main problem is boredom. There is nothing more boring than a mediocre country with very little to do, especially when you’re living in a working class area and you don’t have the money to do much. When you're a young teenager (pre fake ID) there is little to do except watch TV, go to youth clubs and.... well, I'm struggling to come up with another thing that a teenager might do. As soon as I realised that staying in with the parents every Saturday night watching Casualty and Stars in their Eyes wasn't fun I was out on the street, bottle of Olde English or White Lighting in hand, 'Kegal Ringsize' hanging out of my mouth and generally standing about on street corners being a little bastard. There never seemed to me that there was anything else to do, any other possibility for fun. At that time, West Belfast was extremely rough but when you're 13 you don't have any real conception of violence and consequences... chucking a brick at a bus is simply a way to meander away a few moments of your time. As for school, well, school was so dull that it merely increased the absolute boredom. There seemed to be no place in school for diversity, we simply got told to learn things and spit them out once again... there's no fun in that. The only interesting moments were the bomb drills.

Thankfully for me I realised that a lust for Greek Tragedy and Tolstoy doesn't mix well with roaming the streets so I eventually calmed down. I had books to relieve my boredom and a wise move out of the estates to the country removed me from the lifestyle. But most teenagers don't like books, and most parents don't move to the country. When your main entertainment is television, and television is crap, then you have to make your own. And what is there to do in this dour country of ours? There are no beaches to go to, no mountains to climb, no nice sea to swim in. Parents are usually caught up in their jobs or their own affairs, teachers rarely do much outside of school. So the majority of kids are left sitting on there arses and rather than do that they go out on the streets and cause havoc.

I'm not justifying what they do. I get worried myself when I walk through some areas of Newcastle, others I know just not to go to. And regularly there'll be a group of kids causing havoc on a bus, though if you have a bit of banter with them they're usually all right and occasionally quite funny. But giving a teenager an ASBO doesn't prevent him/her from being bored. As one of the kids in the article says "ASBOs don't work. We are bored." And if they're bored then they make their own fun and it starts all over again. Police and parental threats really do little to stop a wayward kid from doing what s/he wants.

So rather than simply call these kids anti-social or locking them up perhaps Blunkett should look for a way to prevent them from being on the streets in the first place. I have friends who run breakdancing, graffiti and drama workshops for kids in various areas of Newcastle and they get on really well with them. These are kids from the same sort of social background as those in the article and they really appreciate the fact that they are learning something new, that they are being entertained away from the idiot box. Kids aren't stupid, they know that TV is something for middle aged people after a hard days work who like to stare glassy eyed at nothing. Also, TV is shite. With so much energy they could channel it into something that they enjoy doing.... and really, they can't enjoy running about the streets too much. Passing out from solvent abuse or finding yourself in a pool of your own sick after too much Mad Dog 20/20 really isn't fun.

The government though, doesn't seem willing to address the question of boredom. Why the hell should we be bored? We live in one of the most liberal countries in the world! We have so much freedom to do what we want! What? You're bored? Well then... let's run a new season of Big Brother, that'll keep the masses quiet for a while! Oh, I see, you're bored of Big Brother? Well, let's run a different reality TV show that shows how other bored people attempt to relieve the boredom in their boring lives! FUCKING LUSH!!!

Boredom is a serious issue that should be addressed. Otherwise the next 20 years will be spent slapping ASBOs on growing numbers of kids, restricting their movements, keeping them in their houses, keeping them from their friends... David Blunkett's Special Brand Fascism.


Also Jon Snow was wearing a particularly nice tie tonight.

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