Tuesday, February 17, 2015
By Lindsay Johns for the Daily Mail
Published: 22:51 GMT, 27 March 2012 | Updated: 22:52 GMT, 27 March 2012
Innocent victim: As a result of the attack, Thusha will be paralysed for life Gangland violence casts an ever darker shadow over our cities. With depressing regularity we hear the wail of emergency sirens as the cycle of thuggery claims yet more victims in another stabbing, shooting or murder.
If there is one poignant symbol of what has gone wrong in our cities – where too many young criminals are out of control – it is five-year-old Thusha Kamaleswaran, the little girl hit in the chest and paralysed by a stray bullet. The addiction to swaggering violence of those responsible, and their indifference towards human life, is monstrous.
Sadly, the Stockwell raid that ruined Thusha’s life is hardly unique. Where I live in South London, the incidence of knife and gun crime is remorselessly on the increase.
In the streets of my neighbourhood, the climate of fear is palpable, as feral gangs of young men frequently attack each other or innocent bystanders in their blood-soaked fights for territory and status.
But this is not a problem confined to South London. Most other parts of the capital have experienced such savagery, as have many of other cities, especially Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Nottingham.
Nor is this essentially a race problem. It is true that most of the assailants – and their victims – in South London are black, but that partly reflects the make-up of the local population.
In Glasgow, where the incidence of knife crime has also rocketed in recent years, most of the juvenile gang members are white. The same is true of Belfast, which, having seen the end of the Troubles, is now suffering a spate of car-jackings.
It is just as mistaken to demonise all young people in our condemnation of urban gangsterism. As I know from my own work as a volunteer mentor in South London, the vast majority of youths are hard-working, decent and responsible. They want absolutely nothing to do with the violence, not least because they are often its biggest target.
All too common: Forensics at Stockwell Food and Wine explore where Thusha was hit last March. Sadly, the Stockwell raid that ruined Thusha's life is hardly unique 
Terror: The indifference towards human life of those responsible demonstrates our deterioration into a gangland culture No, this is about culture rather than skin colour. What is happening in urban Britain is that a minority of young men – black and white – have been drawn into a brutish world where machismo reigns supreme. It is a cruel, self-centred world that values easy money over hard work, that glories in promiscuous sex rather than meaningful relationships, that celebrates aggression over compassion.
Occasionally, we hear politically correct policy-makers and campaigners trying to excuse the violence with hand-wringing rhetoric about urban deprivation, inequality and lack of state support. But this will not wash.
Most of the young gang members are not truly poor in any material sense, certainly not compared to the genuine poverty endured throughout much of the developing world.
What they suffer from is a tragic poverty of aspiration and personal responsibility. And making excuses for them only feeds both their unjustified sense of grievance and their aggressive materialism.
It is telling that those twin themes were at the centre of the recent Channel 4 drama Top Boy, about the lives of young people on a Hackney housing estate.
As so often with programmes produced by members of the liberal elite, it came dangerously close not only to justifying gang culture in the name of spurious victimhood, but even to glorying in it.
Unrest: An issue of culture rather than skin colour appear to have motivated the August riots This culture is exacerbated by other factors such the breakdown of the traditional nuclear family, which means that too many boys are now growing up without positive male role models or awareness of proper masculine boundaries.
In a perverse sense, the gang become a substitute family, the focus of a twisted code of discipline and loyalty. Just as disturbing is the reluctance of the adults to challenge poor behaviour by youngsters, partly from fears about accusations of racism, partly from the misguided belief that troublemakers are really victims who need support rather than punishment.
We see this attitude everywhere, whether from enfeebled teachers unable to control recalcitrant pupils or from liberal judges terrified of imposing tough sentences on young offenders.
But it is a disastrous outlook, which simply worsens the arrogant invincibility of the gangsters.
What we have to do is to break the stranglehold of the macho culture rather than feeding it.
That means far more robust jail terms, a greater presence from the police on the streets and moves to strengthen the traditional family. The State must no longer be so worried about telling parents – and especially wayward, juvenile fathers – that they must accept responsibility for their children.
Underclass: The rise in gang culture is exacerbated by factors such the breakdown of the traditional nuclear family Today, there are too many ‘babies having babies’, to use the words of the Jamaican ragga singer Shabba Ranks.
Above all, we should stop pandering to this culture. Among those who have a duty of promoting social responsibility, there is a desperate eagerness to make everything ‘relevant’ to youth instead of trying to elevate their horizons.
We are constantly told that we should ‘listen to what young people have to say’, but the truth is that, in most cases, they have nothing significant to say because they have far too little understanding and experience of the world.
What young people need is less hip hop and basketball – they have more than enough of that already – and more literacy, history and science.
Among the inner-city youth, we need to encourage them to become middle-class professionals, accountants, engineers, doctors and technicians, rather than always thinking of them as rappers or dancers or athletes.
That is precisely what I try to do with the mentoring scheme in which I am involved in Peckham.
Unashamedly traditionalist, we promote self-reliance, a respect for others, and a thorough grasp of the greatness of our language and literature. And it works. Two of our brightest members, who hail from ordinary Peckham backgrounds, have won scholarships to the prestigious public schools Westminster and Winchester.
Only by facing up to the reality of the challenge can we tackle the root causes of the present wave of savagery. Each time another boy or girl is murdered, our humanity is diminished.
There can be no more excuse-making, no more hiding behind euphemisms. The grip of the gang culture has to be broken now.
Lindsay Johns is a writer, broadcaster and volunteer mentor
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