“I am so depressed about the future”. That’s my secret thought that seems to whirl endlessly around like an out-of-control spinning wheel. It clunks and rattles my brain on an almost hourly basis while I’m sitting here at my desk in London.
What has happened to the youth of our country? They can’t speak, they won’t speak the English language. They cannot (will not) see the point of creative or worthy ambition. You cannot interact with them on hardly any level at all. Apart from spending all their energies on “not caring”, they are threatening, rude, obscene and dangerous.
They want everything now. If they don’t get it some will steal it or the cash to get it.
Bad anti-social behaviour is never out of the news. Violent crime is raging. We are living on tender hooks. We’d rather walk on the other side of the street than risk the fear of coming in close contact. Yes! We are frightened of our own youth. They have taken on a self-imposed alienation with their hoods, their walk, their language, their interaction and their whole attitude – this is not culture, this is hell.
No, not beloved Malta – this is today’s UK.
You think this is an unfair comment? Think again. The United Kingdom has the worst behaved under-18-year-olds in the entire EU – and that’s official!
According to a recent report:
“Britain’s teenagers are among the most badly behaved in Europe”.
“On every indicator of bad behaviour – drugs, drink, violence, promiscuity – the UK was at or near the top, said the Institute for Public Policy Research.
The institute looked at the results of a number of studies of adolescents conducted in recent years.
The researchers believe the country’s record can be explained by a collapse in family and community life in the UK”.
Whose fault is it? Previous governments, this adult society and two generations of social order that have slowly but surely brushed this destiny of doom under the carpet?
Great Britain has become that dark side of town – a ghetto of fear on one side and gross anti-social behaviour on the other.
Bullying has reached a record, violent crime is at an unacceptable level, drug and alcohol abuse out of control, debt levels are ragingly high.
There are whole areas of inner cities that are practically “no-go zones” after dark.
But this gloomy scenario isn’t just being played out in good old Blighty.
Now on the tiny islands of Malta the newspapers and online reports are full of this festering, creeping disease.
From drugs, to violence, to bullying.
The difference between the UK hell and the current situation in Malta is simple.
Immediate tough action is required to nip this in the bud before the germ becomes a full ugly, nasty, poisonous flower.
In Britain we live in a pathetic nanny state.
We don’t punish, we just wave a finger and say, “Naughty person! Don’t do this again.” – We can’t give our children a parental slap on the backside for fear of prosecution.
The youth are given Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) by the courts which, according to a recent report cost nearly Lm2,000 a time to dish out – but they have become a “badge of honour”. As of the end of 2005, more than 6,500 ASBOs had been made by the courts, some 43 per cent of them against juveniles.
I read Francesca Vella’s article, Suspended sentence for teenage bullies (TMID, 9 December):
“Five students were yesterday jailed for one month, suspended for a year, after they pleaded guilty to bullying a fellow student at the MCAST college in Corradino.
Appearing before Magistrate Joseph Apap Bologna, the boys, who cannot be named as they are still minors, were charged with bullying another boy by assaulting, threatening and pushing him to the ground with the intent of hurting him at the MCAST college in Corradino on 7 December and the preceding four months”.
A suspended sentence? With due respect to the learned magistrate, surely with sentences like this Malta is destined to go down “nanny state road” (we’ll meet you at the junction!).
Nations live and survive by reputation. We are living the hell in the UK. Malta is small and compact enough to take short, sharp, seemingly painful action now.
By taking this course, the jewel that we love and cherish in the Mediterranean will not dissolve into the crisis-ridden disaster that is emerging as Britain’s youth and the future of a once fearless nation.
Ian Waugh
London