Tuesday 9 August 2011

Here's a phrase you won't hear from me very often: "I'm frightened."

And this has nothing to do with the cancer, which has latterly - and foolishly - decided to take on in battle the mighty Jasper Horatio Stafford.  No, I am most unsettled by the vast and violent rampages presently taking place in London and moving also to Manchester and Birmingham.  Streets and buildings are burning, chaotic, and hugely unsafe.  Public transport and sporting fixtures in the affected areas have been cancelled and almost industrial-scale looting is taking place.  Why?

I mean, I am all for free speech - even for humans - but surely the majority of the miscreants are not even attempting to stage a moral uprising, bring down a government or simply make the strength of their arguments heard.  No.  They are heading straight for PC World, the Carphone Warehouse, HMV, off-licences, sports-wear shops, restaurants, banks, et cetera ad infinitum and trying to steal as much high-priced booty as possible.  What kind of public statement is that?!

Entire areas, along with vehicles, local amenities, etc., have been left burnt-out and gutted.  Do not the thuggish masses, whilst high on the euphoria of destruction and anarchy, pause to consider that they - as well as their mothers, fathers, and grandparents - will have to go on living in these now battle-scarred ruins?  How can the already-impoverished taxpayers rebuild the destruction wrought by the cities' own residents?

Should even these questions prove insufficient to trouble the mind, take a look at this news report:

"Blood was flowing in the [streets]. Five or six thousand…, stirred up by a diabolical cabal that aimed to destroy the [authorities]…, gathered at ten o'clock in the morning. Armed…, they furiously attacked the house of a man named ---, who is the manager of a factory… that makes fine wallpaper.

Howling, and screaming…, the rioters scaled the walls and broke down the doors. They looted everything they could find, burned the wallpapers and the designs and even bonds, ransacked the gardens and cut down trees. The house was splendidly furnished — mirrors, books, chests, tables, everything was smashed and thrown out the windows. --- and his wife and children escaped over the garden wall.

The [Police] fired several rounds, but this only stirred up the mob even more. They climbed up onto houses and threw stones at the troops. The [Police] advanced… The rioting lasted until four in the morning…

Another body of five or six hundred… were scattered throughout neighbouring streets. They stopped [vehicles]…, heaped vulgar insults at them before taking their money and their watches… The rabble set off in [another] direction. Luckily most of them were drunk and they soon changed their minds and continued to roam the streets. All this makes one tremble for the unhappy kingdom. It is a tissue of horrors and abominations."

A vivid picture of the ongoing, troubling, events in our major cities - which only seems to be spiralling further and further out of control.  But this news article was not a recent piece.  Oh no.

It is taken from a report written in Paris in 1789 by the Marquis de Ferrières and describes the earliest stages of the foul, bloody, and horrific French Revolution - La Terreur.

And THIS is a world in which I am battling against cancer to survive.  Ye gods.

Let us hope for better things, and offer kindness and sympathy to those who are trapped, terrified, in their own homes by the savagery of their ignorant neighbours.

Good night.