"wat u lookin at?" ..... was the response a little old lady got when she inquired about what the local youths on her street were up to.
In a separate incident on the other side of this city, an elderly man was smashed in the face and landed face first on the concrete, instantly sending him into a coma, then the afterlife, after he too, confronted the youth on his life-long neighbourhood street.
London cut loose.
Its loose ends were burning, wildly and dangerously, flapping about in the air like an electrical cord igniting and exploding. There were sparks, there were flames, there were deaths and there were stunned Londoners left wondering what just unfolded on their doorsteps.
I had the unfortunate experience of living close by to the madness that consumed parts of London last week
I was following the mayhem on twitter and watching out the window. It was the first place I instinctively turned to following the revolutions across the 'Arab Spring'.....but sadly, this was no revolution, this was no uprising, this was just disgusting, this was just mindless violence and a spontaneous crime spree.
Now the dust has settled, the windows being repaired, there remain many deep rooted questions that must be addressed.
Its a given that Politicians will slander each other, propose preposterous proposals and sing a tune of righteous and order. But behind the words, cracks remain. Scars that wont heal with a parliamentary inquiry, embers that wont extinguish with empty rhetoric.
London, madness arrived on your own doorstep last week.
The shutters came down and hoodies came up. Worlds collided.
Which begs the question, what kind of world do we live in when elderly ladies get mocked and elderly men get punched in the face on their own doorsteps?
London has stirred. It was ugly. But it was real, we weren't dreaming. It makes me think, that bigger things are on the way. Bigger riots, more feverish anger, greater force, deeper wounds, deeper divisions.
Life is not sustainable at the moment. If you read my last post below, I mentioned the fact that we will need 27 planet earths like this one to sustain the worlds growing population if we plan to survive without killing each other off.
I dont see us pulling 27 earths out of the magic bag anytime soon. I do unfortunately, see a lot of death and destruction on the horizon.
However morbid it sounds, however painful and disturbing it is to ponder on that thought, i think the slap of reality across the face we just experienced in london is a wake up call....
Change is inevitable...
