I've just enjoyed a week's holiday with my wife & daughter in Andalucia and, as usual when I return home after a break, I've been reflecting on the sad decline within the UK.
I know that in October we don't enjoy weather to enable outdoor socialising; however, one of my favourite activities is to sit outside a local bar talking to my family, and watching and listening to several generations of the same family enjoying time together - no-one is texting or talking on their mobile, and the young have respect for their parents and grandparents.
Even when groups of teenagers (it would be wrong to call them gangs) were out together their enjoyment was not based on aggressive, intimidating anti-social behaviour, they didn't need to hide behind either hoodies or the excuse of being bored.
We were pleased to see several individuals, sitting in a square (wi-fi enabled!)using their laptops; I'm sure that at home there would have been the constant fear of being mugged. Whilst walking back to our hotel around midnight we passed several women on their own who were quite safe.
As a society we really do seem to have lost our way.
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Have to say this is very true.
It's got me to thinking about a couple of things, however, both related, in a round-about way.
The first is Bruce Springsteen. The Boss has, throughout his career, made political statements through his music, most notably Born in the USA and the John Kerry Vote for Change tour. He has reserved a little th political commentary. This changed after Hurricane Katrina, he visited New Orleans, he claims he felt a spiritual connection their as a result of its musical heritage, and decided that enough was enough. He then re-wrote three versus to a song by Blind Alfred Reed, entitled "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?".
The song condemns George W., whom he calls "America's Presidential by-stander". Not content with this, he then penned "Livin' In The Future" for his new album "Magic". He describes the song as a song about "all the things we love about America", and lists material things, like cheese burgers, baseball. The he says that, over the past 6 years, "we've had to add to the American picture rendition, illegal wire-tapping, voter suppression, no habeus corpus, the neglect of the grat city of New Orleans and its people, an attack on the Constitution, and the loss of our best young men and women in a tragic war". Now I know this is America, but we can see the same things happening in this Country. And I can see no surprise that whilst all of this is going on, the Ordinary Joes are also descending into lawlessness, on both sides of the Atlantic.
The second is about a journalist named Sarfraz Manzoor. He writes for various newspapers, has produced, presented and written documentaries for various channels. He came over from Faisalbad when he was 3. His father moved over 11 years earlier, lived in squallor, worked every waking hour for 11 long years to bring his wife and four children over to what he hoped would be a better life, only returning to Pakistan on a few occassions.
This man contributed to our economy, doing work which many native Britains wouldn't dare do, and when his son grew up, his only memories were of Britain; a Britain that had given him much racial abuse during his formative years. Now Manzoor grew up in times of a Conservative Government, and remembers Mrs. Thatcher talking about halting the flow of immigration because it was swamped.
The difference between now and then is that then, the immigrants were coming to the UK to work hard and try to fashion for themselves a better life. Now they come to the UK for an easy life, benefits and a free home. Is there any wonder then that crime rates have soared?
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