Mark Chatterton
Thu,17 Sep 2009
Mark Chatterton
1109
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After a month’s break, including going on one of the best holidays ever, I’m back. Sadly, I’ve had to come back down to Earth with a bump! The thing that I’ve noticed in the past month on the news is the amount of violence taking place around the UK. At the end of August there was a lot of coverage in the media about the fighting that occurred before, during and after the West Ham versus Millwall football match. Obviously this was a fixture that would attract the hooligan element and one which is notorious amongst football fans for trouble. A man was stabbed before the game and the reaction to this was fuelled by text messages between the opposing fans. There were pitch invasions during the match and the players had to be taken off the pitch at one time for their safety. From the footage you could see that it wasn’t just teenagers fighting, but “grown men” in their thirties and forties.
About a week later the newspapers were full of the trial of two boys from Yorkshire who had tortured and beaten two other boys with such ferocity that one of them almost died. In similarities to the Jamie Bulger case, there were lots of recriminations about why they did it and why they weren’t stopped earlier. Since then, we’ve had far right groups protesting outside mosques, leading to yet more violence, not to mention more young people being stabbed and shot in London and other cities in Britain.
If you dare go into any town centre in Britain on a Friday or a Saturday night you will see violence, fuelled by binge drinking. Then there’s the violence taking place behind closed doors in many homes – usually against children and women by men whose only way of communicating is with a fist.
Just how do you break the circle of violence? Can it ever be stopped? Obviously the government have laws in place designed to stop people from committing crimes of violence, but do these really work? Our prisons are full of violent men, who inevitably will be released back out into society, probably to do more violence to other people. The sad fact is that many people in Britain today are addicted to violence. Not surprising when there is violence all around you – on TV, in magazines and newspapers, in computer games. All slowly eating away at people’s sense of self control. Most people who hit out do so as a defence mechanism, Just as any corned animal would do – “Kill or be killed is the only law of the jungle”.
The real solution is with the violent man himself. Lack of self esteem, lack of self respect, lack of expectations, living in poor housing accommodation, all mixed in with alcohol, drugs, etc all help to contribute to making an individual violent. Somewhere, time and time again, in his life he has been taught that he is useless and does not have a voice of his own. He has probably been beaten by a father or stepfather as a child and has grown up learning that if he hits back he has some power. Then when he becomes a teenager he joins up with other young males and becomes part of a gang who give him a sense of belonging that isn’t there in his own family. Someone somewhere who is involved in that man’s life – maybe a teacher, maybe a youth worker, maybe a family friend, maybe a relative, but especially his immediate family – has to build bridges in his life showing him that he doesn’t need to hit out and behave the way he does, because he is needed and most of all he is loved.
PS. I know that a lot of you out there read this column, but no one ever lets me know what you think. It would be nice to hear your thoughts - whether you agree or disagree with what I write.
violence : fighting : aggression : fear : anger :
violence : fighting : aggression : fear : anger :
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