Heard a really depressing story yesterday which really put me at unease for a while. I’m still in shock. It seems 4-5 girls beat the crap out of a younger girl in a secondary school in Mahon last week and to humiliate the girl further, they took turns to urinate on her. Mahon is a neighbourhood just down the road from where I live yet this story seems to be from a different world compared to mine and with two Fine Gael candidates from millionaire families, far from the political representatives of the area.
Former Education Minister Micheál Martin is just a stonesthrow from Mahon too. What kind of world creates monsters like that? What kind of school has an environment where this could happen and what kind of world will we be living in, if these are the products of our country? Apparently this is not an oddity with beatings and fights happening a hell of a lot there and at other schools in working class neighbourhoods. Also hearing that the suicide and parasuicide rates in these schools are higher than average with bullying being a major factor.
While it is still a shocking story I can’t say it surprises me, I’m only out of secondary school two years and by the time I left the place was becoming fairly rough. And that was in the school that wasn’t the ‘rough one’. In general I’m noticing that a lot of the ‘working-class’ and ‘lower middle class’ people I know and/or grew up with seem to be existing in a fairly unpleasant world. The clubs at home are getting even more violent than when I used to go there – my younger brother tells me that there’s hardly a week goes by in one of them where there isn’t a fight or two… And the suicide rate amongst those people that I know seems to be fairly high – so far it’s been ‘friends of friends’ that have died but the amount of them is fairly high.
As to the why of it? To be honest I haven’t a clue – some of it I suppose is down to a rich population that expects everything, while the lack of belief/faith/religious strength in the ‘younger generation is probably also a factor (not that I think ‘old Catholic Ireland was great but it seemed to provide people with some help). I suppose the general theme is that we replaced ‘blind faith’ with nothing more than materialism and nihilism for many people and that may be a factor in the attitude out there at the moment…
Sorry for the long and rambly nature of this comment!
I think trouble like this starts before school to be honest or at least the damage is done long before the school can do anything to prevent this sort of attitude and it’s an attitude issue.
Some would suggest that deprivation has a lot to do with it, and social envy but I’m not sure that it’s quite that simple. Effectively, you have elements of a generation who get their self worth out of humiliating other people, who see no other value in their life than exerting power over other people. In many ways it’s a recipe for disaster.
That being said – and although I spend no time whatsoever in Mahon, I’d have to say that further to stuff overheard on streets and buses and Dublin, I’d venture to say this attitude doesn’t grow out of nowhere. Look also to parental/local society attitudes for a clue. The schools are only microcosms.
We don’t want to live in a world like that but you need a carrot and stick approach to deal with it. Unfortunately, the carrot on its own is counterproductive and the sticks are not noticeably effective in this country. What do you do? Throw them in jail to repent?
Disturbing to say the least. Reminds me of a YouTube video I came across last week – “Children See, Children Do” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVmZXaZZfsI
I agree with what you are saying, but what on earth is the jibe at the FG candidates for?
I really disagree that you have to be poor to represent to the poor, just like you don’t have to be disabled or sick or old to represent them.
And there are 3 FG candidates in Cork – Buttimer, Clune and Coveney.
It’s true that our changing culture is a big factor in this. We now no longer have religion or corporal punishment. So now what are we to do? We can’t hurt these kids in order to teach them that inflicting pain on others is wrong.
Then, to top it all off, the kids have lost the martyre complex the Church had to offer. All of which means forcing kids to sit in a room retaining shite unquestioningly is no longer the masochistic pleasure it once was for kids.
When I was growing up, being made to feel judged, assessed and bullied by teachers, parents and students alike, I could always rely on seeing jesus floating above my desk, winking down on me and telling me all the suffering will be matched with white cotton overalls and sun kissed bliss in the afterlife.
But anyway, the question I have is who to blame for this incident?
Do we blame the teachers? The parents? The kids? Society? Who is wrong here? We blame all of them, usually. Please let’s not make an exception of this case. After all haven’t we been learning to judge, assess and bully our whole lives, we do it so well.
Nothing wrong with the jibes at the Blueshirts and the FF’ers. Only problem is he forgot to jibe at Fuhrer Mc Dowell.
Missy Clune came round our estate last week complete with hubby dressed in the finest of finery. Certainly a look designed to empathise with the folk in Mahon that’s assuming that they go down there and don’t just avoid it.
There’s a gaping gap in society betwene those who have it in abundance and those who don’t. The parties seem to forget that for a large chunk of the population all the talk about stamp duty is irrelevant.
Clune et al don’t go to Mahon. Heaven forbid. Most of FF don’t either now. They seem to see it as SF territory whereas before they didn’t bother at all. SF now have 1000s of votes nobody else were going for. Clune et al don’t come here to my area (which is down the hill from Des) more than once per election cycle. The woman doesn’t know what is happening locally at all though there are plenty of photo ops.
The jibes at FG and FF are that they seem to not know or represent a large percentage of those they are supposed to represent. They do not know what issues concern these people. Clune and Coveney seem to have more in common with the super rich people along a small stretch of the blackrock road than anyone else in this massive constituency.
As Des said, Clune walking around in designer gear doesn’t gain my respect or is she telling dirt poor people in my contituency that is what they can aspire to? Were she able to name the people that look after the Youth Centre in Mahon, maybe I would give her respect.