I remember the first time I heard of Birmingham. I was about 10, at primary school anyway, and reading the school’s copy of futuretrack 5, a vision of a dystopian near future by Robert Westall.

According to Futuretrack 5, Birmingham was one of two places in the country (the other being London) where the Unems (Unemployed) were forced to live. The Unems were condemmed to hard, short lives in poverty and deprivation because of failing exams at school. I figured there and then that Birmingham was a terrible place that I would never wish to go to if it was the sort of place that Robert Westall could imagine as a human dumping-ground.

 Don’t get me wrong, most of the time, I love Birmingham. I love the diversity of people, the tolerance, the friendliness. I love the fact that when I smile at a stranger in the street, the stranger usually smiles back. I love the events we have here. Earlier I was at the “Tolkein Weekend”, basically a village fete organised by Birmingham city council with a vague Lord of the Rings theme. I love the fact that I am part of the growing community arts industry which is doing great things in the city.

But sometimes, I feel that there is running warfare between all the great things that are happening here and the possible Robert Westall future that hovers over the edge of everything like a vulture. I heard tonight that there was a drive-by shooting at the end of my road last week. (I wondered why the police had cordoned off that section of road when I tried to get to Kings Heath the next morning). Ok, so I live on quite a long road, and where it happened was the bit with no houses in, but still!

This community is working so hard to pull itself up by the bootstraps. According to Gary, Balsall Heath was a no-go area as little as ten years ago. It’s totally changed. I’ve always felt quite happy walking round here. Kids play all over the place and old folk are always seen out and about. You can’t move for residents’ associations planting flowers and painting over graffiti and one of the schools round here has received an “outstanding” ofstead report.

 I wish it didn’t feel as though things hang so much in the balance. I want to see this community grow and thrive, not be dragged down into the gutter once again. But this is what happens where you have poverty and deprivation. It’s too simplistic to say that that’s the sole cause, but IMHO, people are more likely to turn to crime and hard drugs when they simply have little else to lose. I can understand why… we live in a world where the average graduate with the average graduate job can’t even afford a place to live. If you’re 16 years old and school isn’t the place for you what do you do? Work God knows how many hours for the minimum wage which won’t even allow you to move out of home or join a gang and sell drugs because then at least you’ll be able to afford a flat and a decent car some day? Sounds like a no brainer to me.

 There have to be decent options for people, for fuck’s sake, give people some bloody hope that there is some possibility to achieve the things so many of us want, even the simple things like a house with a garden, a family, a safe and pleasant place in which to live, a working life that allows us self-respect and personal growth rather than the unproductive, rigid, family-hating, women-hating presenteeist crap that so many have to put up with and which will ultimately destroy all links that we have with family, friends and our communities. Stop bombarding people with images of unattainable lifestyles lived by people that were born rich, beautiful or lucky whilst downplaying the achievements of those that worked hard to succeed. This disempowers people, the notion that you just have to win a genetic or financial lottery in order to have a decent life while everyone else is just consigned to the scrapheap.

This should be simple. All the things that we can do, and yet the wheels that turn society clank round so slowly, like a huge, lumbering beast too slow to turn around and deal with the here and now.

I don’t have the answers. Maybe we all just need to want less. Stop chasing the things we’re told to want and look at what would really make us happy.  Realise that social equality and justice comes at a price, and we aren’t always gonna like it. Don't vote for the party that offers the lowest taxes, then complain when your car is stolen by a person who never had any opportunities in life.

We hide behind our technological devices so much so that it’s easier to email someone half way round the world than to pick up the phone and call, not text, call a friend simply for a chat. Where faces once were, now there are avatars and snapshots. To many people, we’re faceless. And once there is a perception that people are faceless, it’s a short step to dehumanisation. Once people are dehumanised, ie. not a person like yourself, it’s so much easier to commit crime against them. Crimes against the law, crimes against society, acts that are not even illegal, yet are crimes against humanity nevertheless.

I was messing about on t' net, killing time and I had a thought...I wonder if the LRP society I was in at University is still going? I found the old messageboard which hd a load of entries about declining membership due to the "new" breed of students going to Brum university who were more concerned with career development than university as a life experience. Those comments were written aroud 2003. To my utter sadness, that trend must have carried on because, after some digging on Wikipedia, I found that the club had closed in 2005.

How fondly I remember those student days, prancing about in the Lickey hills whopping people with my foam rubber and gaffer tape broadsword. Now just a dim memory....

current mood: sad