Hace poco con todo lo ocasionado en Londres, me pareció que algún artículo corto, de alguien que pertenezca al medio académico y este vinculado con el lugar de los sucesos le podría dar otra visión y encontré un escrito de la opinión personal acerca de los hechos  de la Dra. Patricia Daley, el cual espero sea del provecho de todos.

Pambazuka.org

My Time in Hackney: Implications for Today’s Youth

Dr Patricia Daley

I spent my teenage years on the Pembury Estate in Hackney – one of the locations of last week’s riots in London. For the last 20 years, I have been an Oxford University Don.  I left home and Hackney in 1976. I have continued to visit friends and family in the borough. More recently, my visits have increased as I assist in the care of my elderly mother who still lives in the area.

I have listened and read members of the elite pontificating about the causes of the riots in London; most of which I find quite disturbing. The Prime Minister’s use of the term ‘fight back’ gives recognition to the divide in the society between Them and Us. He seems to be advocating civil war, between the morally good and the ‘bad’ – ‘the scum’ – while failing to recognize the deep schism in the society.  The litany of contributory factors, whether they be unemployment,  poor schooling, public spending cuts, racial profiling in stop and search,  institutional racism, rampant consumerism, single mothers and poor parenting (I will say more about this later), require radical thinking about the nature of our society and current economic policy, which our politicians do not appear equipped to handle.

I came to England just before my 12th birthday to join my divorced mother who wanted to reunite with the two children whom she had left in Jamaica.  To say she and I did not get on is an understatement.   This is partly because, at 12, I was already a fully-formed independent thinking person whom she could not bend to her will. She wielded the rod uncompromisingly. Those who talk of the return of corporal punishment have no idea how brutalising it can be.  My brothers and I did not report her to the authorities, even though we knew we could, because we were aware of the terrible situation of children in care. My aim was to get out as soon as I could and stay out. I am telling you this because the narrative of my rise to donship can be partly explained by my relentless desire to escape from the belt, broom, whatever came to hand, and from the poverty that I believe underpinned my mother’s abuse. However, it would not have occurred without the support of school teachers, the existence of a public library, friends and their family, and the state in the form of the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) (disbanded in the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher)…………………….   Pambazuka.org 

Dr Patricia Daley