Bring back the Blitz

For the past few months there has been a series of adverts on tv here, launched by the Home Office, called Let’s Keep Crime Down. It’s supposed to highlight the precautions people can take to make themselves less likely to be a victim of crime, mainly theft and robbery. There’s one for home robbery, car theft, and mobile phone theft. The tagline is “Don’t advertise your home/car/phone to thieves. Keep it safe, keep it hidden.”

While I appreciate the message behind the series (it does make sense to not just leave your things laying around for all and sundry to take), I also bristle at it. The focus is on the victims of crime, not the perpetrators. Not a word about the mindless thugs robbing people blind and feeling entitled to it, noooo. What I hear is “Got robbed while you were at the store and left a bathroom window cracked? Your own stupid fault. The poor thief couldn’t help himself, it was just too ‘easy’ and ‘tempting’. You really left him no choice, did you? Well, you’ll know better next time. It’s your fault for having such nice stuff that other people want. Quit showing off and be more humble, why don’t you, you posh so-and-so?”

I hate to say it, but this is a typical British reaction to crime. They’re increasingly becoming a nation of victims. And not ones who fight back and try to do something about the problem. No. They’re the kind who, like someone who’s just been raped in a movie, crumples up in a ball in a hot shower to disguise their tears and then tells no one about it for fear of being a burden, or not being believed, or told that they’re wasting police time. And they become more and more frightened of the people around them, feeling so lost and powerless to fight back, that they just give up and let people walk all over them, including criminals and the anti-social delinquents that are overrunning society in the UK.

The underlying message seems to be “you asked for it.” And this applies not only to robbery and theft and more petty crimes, but serious ones like assault and rape, as Jen discusses today as well. If a person was walking alone at night or confronted a rowdy, abusive teenager on a bus and then got stabbed or raped, the insinuation is that he or she really shouldn’t have done what they did, or said what they said, or wore what they wore. The media then uses that story as a cautionary tale for other people who dare to go about their lives expecting a sense of decency from their peers and their peers’ children.

Shithead kids and criminals have turned this nation into a land of trembling, fearful adults too incompetent to stand up to those who are tearing their homes, lives and communities apart. I’ve witnessed eight and nine year-old boys terrorise grown men and woman on trains, throwing objects at their heads, swearing loudly and threatening them with bodily harm if they dare make eye contact. I sat in open-mouthed astonishment when a middle-aged man just put his newspaper further above his eyeline after a child exiting the carriage threw a full drink at him and called him a cunt, completely unprovoked. My immediate reaction of anger and indignation on behalf of this man meant that I banged on the window as the boys stepped off the train and onto the platform and shouted at them to learn some manners and show some respect. I got flipped off in return (which I was expecting) but instead of being appreciative that I’d stood up to those pint-sized bullies, the man who’d been hit actually berated me for ’saying something.’ He insisted that ignoring them is the best way to handle it, the only way to avoid it getting worse. That I did *not* expect. Is it really that outlandish of me to expect some level of human decency when out in public and feel I have the right to address someone assaulting other people in broad daylight? It being British means bending over a barrel and not saying anything for fear of drawing unwanted attention to oneself, well, then I’m never gonna pass that citizenship test.

There will always be criminals and shithead teeangers hell-bent on making people’s lives miserable. But we don’t have to just take the punches laying down, covering our heads. For god’s sake, Britain, muster up some of that legendary bravery of your grandfathers and grandmothers, the ones who survived the Blitz and became the backbone and heart of Britain when her body was being destroyed. They certainly didn’t curl up into a ball and say “don’t make eye contact.” If they hadn’t fought back, where would we be today?

The conviction rate for rape is only 5% and the average sentence for murder in the UK is 12 years, with many convicts being released halfway through that sentence for ‘good behaviour.’ That means a murderer could (and often does) only serve six years. What exactly is the incentive for people to behave?

So go on Home Office, keep churning out adverts that blame the outcome and do nothing to address the problem and make everyone feel too scard and helpless to do anything about it. Keep patting criminals on the head and slapping them on the wrist, letting them literally get away with murder. I know the fight against terrorism and the destruction of civil liberties has got you really tied up right now, but don’t come crying to us, pleading for ordinary citizens to do something, when the crime situation gets so bad that the police become completely ineffective and day to day life has become unlivable as we have known it for the past 50 years.

The way Londoners, and the entire nation for that matter, came together after the bombings in July 2005 was astounding. I saw people helping and comforting complete strangers that day, everyone in this fight together, and it made me so proud to live here. Even last week, reading about how a man on the Tube confronted one of the bombers in the failed attack three weeks after 7/7 and protected a woman with a baby nearby, brought tears to my eyes. Where is that spirit, that fight, that comraderie? We’re in the midst of our generation’s Blitz — how will we be remembered in the history books?