Everything Tagged with 'United Kingdom'
‘There Will Be Riots’
The signs were already there. 18-year-old Chavez Campbell from north London, for instance, saw them:
A week before it began, Campbell, in an interview with the Guardian about cuts to youth services, predicted what would happen. Asked what he thought the future held, he said, simply: “There’ll be riots.”
Looking at his words again, he said: “I did see the riots coming and the government should have seen it coming, too. Jobs are hard to get and, when they do become available, youths don’t get the jobs. There is nothing to do, they are closing youth clubs so the streets are just crazy. They are full of people who have no ambitions, or have ambitions but can’t fulfil them.”
Of Riots and Revolutions
With the riots that have broken out across England continuing for a fourth night in a row, Andrew Sullivan has culled together highlights from how the United Kingdom’s major press outlets are responding to them. It’s interesting to see the wide range of ways we as human beings process and characterize events like these, as well as the motivations of those behind them. Consider, for example, the difference in these two characterizations:
They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong. They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others. Their behaviour on the streets resembled that of the polar bear which attacked a Norwegian tourist camp last week. They were doing what came naturally and, unlike the bear, no one even shot them for it.
It is meaningless complaining that many teenagers show no respect without appreciating the reality that they too are often treated without respect.
12-Year-Old Boy Wears Skirt to School to Protest Gender Discrimination
A 12-year-old boy from Impington, England, decided to protest a ban in his school’s dress code against boys wearing shorts – by exploiting a loophole in the code that allowed him to wear a skirt.
Chris believes that forcing boys to wear long trousers during the sizzling summer months affects concentration and their ability to learn.
He said: ”In the summer girl students are allowed to wear skirts but boys are not allowed to wear shorts.
”We think that this discriminates against boys. […] ”I will be wearing the skirt at school all day in protest at the uniform policy and addressing the assembly with the student council, wearing a skirt.”
Good on Chris for gaming the system, I say. Here he is, in all his skirt-y glory:
