Blair's Brand Spanking New Policies

I feel like ranting a little about the measures currently being introduced by Tony Blair across the water in England, only because it only seems a matter of time before our own home grown authoritarian Michael McDowell introduces them over here. McDowell wants to introduce Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs), and good behaviour contracts for 12 to 18 year olds. What do these measures say to the children of this country?
That they are going to grow up with less freedom than their parents generation had.
That their behaviour will be supervised, scrutinised and judged.
And, that if they misbehave, it is not their parents that will punish them, but the state.

The drive by people like Blair and MCDowell to force youth into conforming is worrying for anyone who believes in the freedom of the individual to grow up and become a responsible adult in a natural way, with plenty of mistakes along the path if necessary, rather than out of fear of punishment should they ignore authority. Even Blair's approach to education stinks of the same authoritarian streak. What's wrong with challenging authority from time to time? Surely that is part of living in a democracy.

All children know that rules are sometimes unfair, and sometimes have to be ignored because they are ineffective or just plain stupid. When I was growing up, my friends and I used to get up to mischief all the time, and when we occasionaly got into trouble, our parents decided how we should be punished. It didn't lead to any of us pursuing criminal lifestyles after we grew up, and if any of us dabble in anything illegal at this stage, it isn't out of nostalgia for our childhoods.

The point I am trying to make is that the natural inquisitiveness, creative energy and mischevious qualities of children should be encouraged as much as is reasonably possible, with strict limitations of course, and certainly not discouraged through fear or violence. How else will children ever grow up to respect society? And what a boring world we would live in if children only ever behaved the way parents wanted them to.

Somebody told me a story about McDowell's attempts to drum up support for the anti-social measures. One of his cronies was down in Galway last year, trying to rally support for ASBOs and spoke in the community hall of the Shantalla area of the city. The guy started the meeting by talking about the fear he could sense in the community as he made his way there. He noted how there had been small groups of youngsters 'lurking' around various street corners, and how intimidating and threatening their presence was. I presume his intention had been to start by playing on the fear of youth and crime that he presumed the community all felt, and then introduce the concept of ASBOs as a solution to this problem. The meeting was mainly attended by middle-aged and elderly women. While the speaker had obviously expected people to start talking about how they were too afraid to leave their homes after dark and so on, the reaction he got was one of anger, not fear. One of the women started by pointing out that she lived on the corner, and a couple of those kids that he had seen 'lurking' on the street corners were probably her own or the children of other people in the room. The cheek of him to come down to Galway and describe her children as if they were criminals. Another asked if he was honestly suggesting that they get ASBOs preventing their children from hanging around their own community.

Before I begin ranting about spanking, here is a poem on the subject I had up in an earlier post by the poet Robert Hayden.

The Whipping

The old woman across the way
is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighbourhood
her goodness and his wrongs

Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
pleads in dusty zinnias
while she in spite of crippling fat
pursues and corners him.

She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
boy till the stick breaks
in her hand. His tears are rainy weather
to woundlike memories:

My head gripped in bony vise
of knees, the writhing struggle
to wrench free, the blows, the fear
worse than blows that hateful

Words could bring, the face that I
no longer knew or loved . . .
Well, it is over now, it is over,
and the boy sobs in his room,

And the woman leans muttering against
a tree, exhausted, purged-
avenged in part for lifelong hidings
she has had to bear.

Last week, Tony Blair went on BBC 2's Newsnight to be interviewed about his new 'Respect' action plan to deal with anti-social behaviour. He talked to several angry Swindon residents, many of whom made comments along the lines of,

"It's all gone wrong since we got rid of corporal punishment!The kids were better behaved in previous generations, when the local bobby or the teacher could give them a clip if they were acting up"

"My kid would never have needed an ASBO if I had been allowed to discipline him properly"

And so on.

The following exchange took place when the PM was asked if he had smacked his own kids.

Blair replied, "No, I think actually, funnily enough, I'm probably different with my youngest than I was with my older ones."
Misunderstanding his reply, Ms Wark asked him: "What, you do smack the younger one?"
The prime minister said: "No, no. It was actually the other way round, but... I think, look, this smacking... I mean, I agree with what you just said, I think everybody actually knows the difference between smacking a kid and abusing a child."

I'm sure Mr. Blair was very gentle in the smacking of his children, but the idea that everybody knows the difference between smacking a child and abusing them is simply untrue. What exactly constitutes a smack? And he should certainly not be encouraging what children's charities and social workers fought long and hard to have abolished from the schools. I heard the same arguments for smacking kids regurgatated on News Talk radio here in Dublin a couple of afternoons ago. It seems we have learnt very little in Ireland from the child abuse scandals which shook this country not so long ago, in institutions run by the church and by the state. Many of the institutions were well known for enforcing discipline through violence. I was lucky enough to have attended school after corporal punishment was banned, but I have no doubt that the experience of violence for a young child is no doubt a traumatic one.

There are always people who say that they were smacked when they were children and it never did them any harm. Yet many of these are the same people who desire the right to hit their own children. This is only a personal opinion but as far as I'm concerned, the very fact that they want to do this as parents to their own children shows the possibility that a child can grow into an adult with the idea that violence is an acceptable way of resoving problems.

Would it be okay to give a belt to your friend, your sister, your brother, or even your pet dog, everytime they got unreasonably upset?

Jack Straw's son sold a journalist Marijuana in 1998. Straw reacted by handing his son in to the police station. He made a song and dance about doing the responsible thing, but it is far more likely that Straw was trying to avoid having the Daily Mail print his son's name or the story.

Blair's son was arrested in 2000 for being Drunk in Leicester Square.

Was the problem that he wasn't hit hard enough? I don' t think so. I think he was doing what adolescents do and always have done, experiment, rebel, and challenge the boundaries of acceptable behaviour laid down by a 'respectable' society which seems intent on criminalising all of the exhuberance and energy of youth. Perhaps an ASBO would have helped to keep these youngsters in line? Of course it wouldn't have, and Blair knows that, but it's fine to paste one on some working class kids, in run down areas with feck all for young people to do but hang around outside shops. The ineffectiveness of the measures taken by the British government is becoming clearer.

A ban on hoodies, parenting acadamies, baby ASBOs for the under 10s, evicitions for troublesome families and most incredibly, they are even trying out cctv cameras linked to residents television sets so that they can keep an eye on their neighbourhood and their neighbours. Have they gone mad? Can you imagine growing up in a situation where any of your neighbours or your parents could be watching you at any time? What about privacy? What about the dangers of paedophilia? I get the impression that commuities are becoming like low security prisons. Every response is a knee jerk reaction and does nothing to combat the root causes of these problems. They have introduced dispersal orders to stop children congregating in groups. Dispersed to where? Build some facilities for them instead! Young people are becoming increasingly alienated. Start encouraging children to be creative, to respect society not out of fear but because they want to be a part of it, and stop criminalising them!

Yet one of the most serious questions raised by Blair's approach is the change he has long campaigned for in the burden of proof. Blair would like to see people who have been given penalties for loutish behaviour to prove their innocence, rather than police or prosecutors having to prove their guilt. This is an attack on one of the fundamental ideas behind the British system of law, and has the potential for serious abuse and injustice. As the Daily telegraph noted today,
"People would, for the first time, get a criminal record (as well as a fine or community service order) without ever having their case put for them by a defence barrister in court."

There was also another interesting story in the Telegraph today about the possiblity of Blair rescinding the ban on the phone tapping of MPs. Perhaps we are only at the very begining of what will be an increasingly authoritarian time in politics.