Weeping with rage

Hayley Matthews, Chaplain at Media City UK, based in Salford, wrote a vivid and disturbing account of her personal experiences caught up in the Salford riots yesterday. Wearing her clerical collar, she found herself held among the rioters in a 'kettling' operation by the police. What she witnessed (and tried to challenge) is deeply shocking. She ends her eyewitness account with this reflection:
"The trouble is, we do have a two tier society without a doubt, and while bankers have been allowed their bonuses having stitched us up every which way, we will continue to pay for this in more ways than one, and tonight is just one of them. With the cuts aimed primarily at the poor and the needy and the disenfranchised, things can only get worse.
And what will we do? Continue to promulgate the values that have created this deadly cocktail of haves and have-nots, faithless, hopeless people who have been taught that consumerism is a recreational right and all moral and religious education completely nonsensical? Surely THIS is nonsensical?! 
Please God that we wake up and smell the coffee, before we condemn yet another generation (no pun intended)."

 Read her whole post Salford Riots for yourself.

Comments

  1. UKViewer10 August 2011 at 14:23

    I've posted at her blog, but thought the title of your post echoed something of what I've felt about all of this. Particularly, as my childhood home, in Hackney was the subject of so much negative publicity and scenes of violence on Monday evening.

    I've felt myself wanting to rage at something, anything, which could change things, but of course, that's futile. I just felt so overwhelmed watching it , minute by minute on TV and listening to some quite ill informed commentary from Politicians.

    We all bear responsibility in some measure for what is happening on our streets, I think of the Confession "We have left undone those things we ought to have done. And have done those things we ought not to have done" it just seems to fit the circumstances.

    Just praying the words at the end of the confession seem to fit my feelings on the situation "And grant, O most merciful Father for his sake, That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous and sober life, to the glory of thy Holy Name. Amen.

    There's not turning back the clock, but it seems to me that we have much to do to restore the people to living a godly, righteous and sober life. Where do we start?

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  2. Anita Mathias10 August 2011 at 15:56

    Thank you for highlighting her superb blog!

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  3. Nancy Wallace10 August 2011 at 17:24

    Thanks for commenting UK Viewer and Anita.
    UK Viewer, you said we all bear responsibility in some measure. I'm with you there, but also conscious of the temptation to distance myself - to see the perpetrators of violent criminal behaviour as somehow less than human, which they are not. They are people demonstrating some of the worst aspects of what humans are capable of, but people and 'neighbour' all the same. I've not had their disadvantages, so perhaps I'm better at controlling or disguising my greed or rage etc.

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  4. Anonymous13 August 2011 at 16:20

    Thanks for the link. I hope the violence in you country stops soon.

    ~Ron

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  5. Nancy Wallace13 August 2011 at 19:08

    Thanks to you 'The Old Geezer' for commenting. The riots have stopped, but addressing the complext underlying causes will take much longer.

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