The brutal murder of James Bulger in Kirkby has unleashed a wave of reactionary moral panic, in which all the churches and right wing MPs - from John Patten to Tony Blair- have chimed in. All of them agree in calling for stricter discipline over children, and in re-asserting the importance of 'family values'. Long sermons about individual responsibility, and respect for the 'community' are being endlessly repeated.
This carnival of reaction has been topped off with repulsive scenes in Liverpool, as the homes of children questioned by police have been besieged and ugly crowds have gathered outside police stations and courts.
Junior prisons Now Kenneth Clarke has come forward with plans for 'secure training cenres' (i.e. junior prisons) for young offenlers aged below 15. Few will be impressed by his claim that these will offer 'love and care' to the difficult youngsters consigned to them.
The murder of a two-year old, apparently by children, of course provokes strong emotions. But the causes of such events are being dealt with at the same kind of level as "The Omen'; the hunt is on for 'evil' children, 'evil' parents, anyone seen as lacking 'morality' and (conventional Christian) religious values.
This appeal to a renewed reactionary moral order has to be fought. That can only be done by the left explaining some of the basics, looking at some of the underlying causes. What is it which leads to a brutalisation of children? Whyare thousands of kids getting involved in petty crime, drugs and various kinds of violence? Why is truancy an epidemic?
The answer to these questions, of course, is highlighted by the fact that the Bulger murder took place in Kirkby, one of the poorest areas in Europe. Brutalisation of kids comes out of the brutalisation of communities by unemployment and poverty.
It is in those circumstances of deep poverty Afro-Caribbean and white youth in the area. Detalls from AYP on 0533 530152 John Blair or Tony Patten? Bi-partisan bible-bashers and ripping off people in the same boat as yourself, or doing violence to them, is absolutely reactionary. can be created, not by moral lectures, but only through a strong working class movement which is seen to be really fighting for the most oppressed. Leicester teenagers - outraged at city council plans to shut down the only youth club in the heavily Asian Belgrave area-protested outside a meeting of the authority last week. The Asian Youth Project is also used heavily by and collapsing social services, of no prospects and schools that can't cope, that children take on the cynicism and despair of their parents.
You don't have to be a Marxist to understand these basic facts; anyone with a modicum of common sense will understand them.
nate. Which makes it all the more unbelievable that Labour's supposedly intelligent home affairs spokesperson Tony Blair should simply rehash the bilge of the Tory right on these issues.
Ripping off ready to deplore.
Of course no socialist in any way defends violence against or theft from working people y other working class people. Responding to they can. he violence of exploitation of the system by But such values of working class solidarity Martha Mdingi. candidate Bala Kumar Upoll Cooray In today's world, in which the Labour movement is dominated by the defeatist politics of 'new realism', that is obvioisly not the case. The unemployed of Kirkby don't see anyone - least of all the likes of Tony Blair, who appears to inhabit another planet from working class people- fighting for them. Neither Labour nor the trade union bureaucrcay showsany interest in even trying to organise them for a fightback. So the rich, the Tories and the state rip off the poor; and the poor are more and more victims of petty hoods - loan sharks, burglars, drug dealers - who operate in their own communities. Lacking collective solutions, organisations of struggle and solidarity, personal solutions on the borders of legality predomiTargets Without a challenge from the left and the labour movement, the field is now wide open to every kind of reactionary priest and witch doctor to deepen this moral panic. Order and discipline will be the themes; the poor, women, lesbians and gay men, single-parent families, black people and the unemployed will be the targets. Yes, there is a moral crisis in Britain; the whole of the capitalist class and the political establishment are deeply affected by it. Their moral code - centred on greed, self-interest and exploitation, backed up by brute force of the state - has led to the kind of social breakdown they are now so Presiding over a collapsing economy, they have no ideas and no way out. Their only morality is to save their own skins, the best For the working class the crisis is more one of morale than morals. A few days of mass action would do more to rebuild self-confidence and social solidarity than a lifetime of sermons from cynical church-going careerists like Blair, Smith and co.
If the labour movement doesn't step into the present vacuum, and offer workers a way forward, the law and order brigade will.
Socialist The politics of Malcolm X The man and the myth Thursday 18""March 7.30pm Unity Club, 96 Dalston Lane, Hackney E8 No. 39 March 13, 1993
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