That Good Things emerge from Bad Things: these last few weeks I have been searching to find where the good things are in The Riots that took place last month.
As an older man, riots and rioting are not new to me. I was living in south London when the Brixton Riots took place in 1981 (Do you remember? Maggy Thatcher was just finding her most chilling prime ministerial voice at the time; “Nothing, but nothing, justifies what happened”). I kept well away from the area, but I watched the glow from the street fires lighting up the London night sky.
Then there was the raw and sometimes dangerous music scene later in the 1980’s in which warehouse parties and raves took place often on or well over the edge of mass violence and criminal behaviour. One way or another, (perhaps it was an age thing, since I was now well into my 30’s) I began to have the feeling I did not belong there either.
So there is nothing new to me about groups or gangs, to which I may or may not belong, rioting and doing bad things on a large scale. Sometimes the violence is close enough to where I am to make me feel afraid, but most of the time I keep myself well out of harm’s way.
I feel sad of course, like I do now about the recent August riots. By and large I quite like scenes that are raw and dangerous, but not the violence. The violence always makes me feel sad. One way or another, (and this is not a just about being an older man) I would imagine that everybody feels some similar sadness about the riots too.
I want to recognise this sadness we all have in common, and to make something of it, to claim some solidarity through it. No, I am not interested in creating another (older) Men’s Movement to do something about all the bad things in the world. However, I am interested in the power that emerges when sadness is not instantly reacted against or tried to be made better, but allowed to slowly ripen.
What kind of power is that? It is the power that makes me feel safe and welcome when I walk into a bicycle shop in south London last week and I have a great chat with the locals about the best ways of getting about on two wheels. It is the power that makes me think that even at my age it would be fine (if I was given the present on my next birthday in two weeks time!) if I went out dance music clubbing in Ibiza.