How Our Bling Culture is Breeding Killers
Evening Standard
The caseĀ of Stevens Nyembo-Ya-Muteba, the Hackney man knifed to death in the stairwell of his block of flats this week because he told some youths to keep their noise down, is close to home for me. I live a few doors away from the Holly Street estate where it happened. And I am an inveterate "teller-off" of any young people I see misbehaving in public.
But it seems that the gang's remnants had not disappeared: instead they had retreated indoors to the stairwells of the estate, out of the reach of Asbos, dispersal zones and the rain. It is not true either that there is nothing for these young people to do: a few hundred yards from where the stabbing took place is the Queens bridge Sports Centre; there are at least two parks within walking distance and one of them, London Fields, has a newly refurbished swimming pool.
We can do more to discourage young people from carrying knives. But even there, the Government has begun to act, with increased penalties and a knife amnesty. The real problem is not knives. It is the existence of a mentality among some young people, scarcely out of childhood, that tells them it is appropriate to knife someone to death just for telling them to be quiet. Paradoxically, these same young people crave order. Hence their attraction to the structured anarchy of the street gang or even, in some cases, Muslim fundamentalism. Asbos and dispersal zones can tidy this problem away some of the time. But, as my unfortunate neighbour discovered, they are not enough alone. The roots of the problem are in generations of educational failure, fragile or nonexistent family structures, and a society that elevates access to consumption above any moral code.
Until we take responsibility for those failings -- as must both the families of those committing these crimes and the companies pumping up a street culture of violence and bling -- then Nyembo-Ya-Muteba will not be the last such victim.
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