Total Senselessness in London

London burning
Photo credit: AP

Of course this was not the post I had in mind for today but as I sat streaming BBC news online, and took in the images from across London - the looting, the fires, the mayhem, the riot police in their hundreds - it made me quite sad.

I am not British, but I currently live here and despite the unique charms which sometimes astound me, London is still a great city. But one does not have to be British to feel horrified and disgusted by what has been going on. To see London under siege, not because there is a passion around a cause, but for no good reason is truly mind numbing.

The hardest part though is watching the sacrifices, the blood, sweat and tears of hard working people go up in flames, or being carted away by mindless, thoughtless hoodlums, who have no concept of having a dream. It is the same way I feel when I read the newspapers at home - some random report about someone's car being stolen, or home or business burglarised, or son or daughter kidnapped. One wakes up in the morning, sometimes before the cock crows, to get out and work hard for a life. You sacrifice so much so that your family can have something to eat, your kids can go to school, you can live in a clean, comfortable home. You do without so many things that others may take for granted, to make your life a success.

A hooded looter walks
past a burning vehicle in London
Photo credit: ABC News

And in the blink of an eye...it's gone, because someone thought it would be fun to smash the doors and windows and steal your life. But to them it is not your life - those waking moments where you invest not only money, but time and love into what you do. To them it's just a pair of sneakers, or a flat screen or cigarettes. So what? Set it on fire. It's just a building. It does not matter that that was to be your legacy - your gift to pass down to your children, and them to their children.

It really irks me when people don't get it. They don't get it because the time and effort they put into bringing down your dream, they never put into building theirs. It's just easier for them to pillage and benefit from someone else's sacrifice.

Woman leaps from burning building in London
Photo credit: The Times

What's worse, we bandy around this word, "community" but do we really understand what the word means? You would not throw piss and poo on the bed you have to sleep in, so why would you destroy and denigrate the place in which you live, and the people with whom you live?

I looked on as men and women cried as their businesses and homes burned, as idle teenagers filmed their friends looting shops, as some wondered whether they would have a job when the smoke clears, and thought, how senseless this all is.

But out of every negative there is usually a positive - let's hope those who choose to rebuild and regroup will be stronger and more determined than the few who seek to break down.

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Dudus and Gas in 1999

During the drinks interval (yes, I am a sucker for punishment, cause I am still listening to WI cricket on my way home), the news update reported that the students at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies were safe but scared. Boy, did that bring back memories.

I was in my first year in this place when they decided to shoot up the place after then PM, PJ Patterson raised gas prices. The sounds of helicopters over campus and the distant sound of gunshots were our bedtime music. I was not scared as I was a tad bit worried - there was grave uncertainty about what would happen to us on campus - smack dab in the middle of the uprising it seemed. The privileged middle class students, some from islands that had never experienced protests and upheaval quite like this. I had lived through a coup in 1990, with the real fear of losing close family members in the security forces. But still, enduring something like that, with all your aunties and cousins at your side, and facing a foreign battle in a foreign country with noone but other foreign students at your side was different. I remember someone calling TV6 and telling them we wanted to come home, and my poor frantic mother trying her best to get through to the dorms to make sure her girl chile was alive - and then of course the inevitable I dunno why you could not stay St Augustine to study (local campus). But we survived.

What stands out was when the Guild decided to show their solidarity with the people and march with them, and called on us students to rally behind them. To me, this was not my battle to wage. I had been in the country less than a year and I did not think I should have taken my good self into the streets of Kingston to be tear gassed - something I would not have necessarily done had I stayed at St Augustine. The other non-Jamaican students felt the same way and this created loads of tension on the block and for a while, battle lines were drawn - us vs them. I could hear my mother in my mind "I did not send you there to march" and I honestly did not feel that was the place for me. Looking back, would I make the same choice? Yes. I did not feel a sense of ownership  - I empathised but I did not want to lend my support in that way. But I respected their valiant, albeit violent, stand against what they saw as oppression and total lack of consultation, and PJ had no choice but to bow to the pressure.

That was then, this is now. I highly doubt that the students of the UWI are showing solidarity this time, for Dudus - an international drug superstar. But the uncertainty surely must be the same, or worse.

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