Friday 12 February 2010

Four very scary developments...

I've just watched the latest BBC Panorama entitled "Are you a danger to kids?". In it, four things sent chills down my spine:

The first one, obviously, is the threat to civil liberties that paying attention to rumours entails. You're guilty until proven innocent.

The second one is the constant suspicion of anybody functioning less than optimally. I remember playing with that boundary a couple of years back. Basically I'd always been squeaky clean in everything and been rewarded for it. On the whole it is a comfortable place to be in and I wondered what it was like to be on the wrong side for a change. I threw a glass on the outdoor concrete floor of a pub. It was safe and at no danger of harming anyone by a mile. Besides the floor was already covered by accidental broken glass others had broken that night. Fifteen people rushed in outrage to report me, I got the worst explicitely racist verbal abuse I've ever been exposed to and nearly got arrested. The reason I didn't was because I'm a cute young woman who's obviously from the right middle class background. But it got me to think about the attitudes and messages that petty criminals are the recipients of day in and day out. And I hated this society which is so ready to clothe itself in moral outrage and doesn't give ten seconds of thought to the individual in front of them. You cross into the wrong side, ever so slightly, and the sweetest, most innocent-looking beperfumed group of young girls want you punished, immediately. I dare not imagine the proportion of people in this country who would have the death penalty back in a heartbeat.

The third one is the awful suspicion (again, from the documentary) that anyone wanting to work with vulnerable adults is a pervert of sorts. Because "normal" people are not wanting to do that sort of work, they want to shop at IKEA and lead their lives in indifference. What kind of pervert actually *wants* to reach out to the vulnerable? What kind of sick needs of theirs are they trying to fulfil? I wonder.

The fourth one is the scary culture of victimhood that has a grown man crying on BBC panorama (i.e. one the BBC's most watched programmes) because he was abused 35 years ago. I mean I don't know what it's like to be abused or to function afterwards. But to an extent I disapprove of this culture which so reinforces the vulnerability of the victims that they are left with nothing but victimhood. But if you're in the army and you've lost two legs in Afghanistan, they'll get you walking and parading, basking in your heroism, three months later. No such subject position is made available for mainstream victims. They serve the purpose of justifying our disciplinatory society. They're useful when they're fucked up, the more fucked up, the better.

I'm scared. Where's the Gospel in this? It's in my books, it's in my head. Can someone please show me the Gospel somewhere in this? I hold to it all the more strongly because so little around me looks like it. Some days, I feel like I live in freaking Satan-land.

Saturday 6 February 2010

God, being engaged is hard work!

I cannot believe the amount of energy that preparing for marriage calls for. I spend hours and hours researching for a mission statement of sorts that will make H. and I's life meaningful in a Christian sort of way. And let me tell you, St. Francis's rule looks like a beginner's attempt next to my concoction! H. is supposedly doing the same on his part. Hopefully, this should make for interesting reading in the not-so-distant future...

Another great post form Alan Knox.

Alan Knox writes one of my favourite blogs. Alan is enormously resourceful and reads widely across the blogosphere, making his blog quite a fantastic little cyberspot. I found this post quite touching, and well observed, as always.