ROOT CAUSES OF RIOTS IN OUR SOCIETY
We have seen on TV and read in the news of the prison riots and students’ agitation, which reveal frustration in the psyche of our society. This should make us sit up and take note. We could in seeing all that’s happening around, be forewarned that all these are symptoms of something that could be dangerously wrong within us. We could therefore take remedial measures for healing and survival.
The students’ agitation could be a direct result of years of excessive pressure to excel, building up within. Parental coaxing to compete in studies, sports, and other extracurricular activities takes its toll, often without the students knowing about it. Finally thinking they have reached the end of the struggle to survive in a harsh world, with qualifications that are thought to be needed, they wake up to reality. There are few jobs and less security. Frustration explodes with dire consequences, not only for the children, but for all the people.
The future generation that had looked up to our political leaders, as role models, see them as remaining powerful and receiving the fulfilment of all that they had dreamed of, by being violent. Politicians instead of being role models are seen more as rolling muddles with lots of foul mouthing and fisticuffs often seen live on TV. Questions then are naturally asked, ‘Why not we do the same?’
We may be only in the hiatus stage with greater calamities to follow. There has been, due to the 30-year war and halfhearted if not hypocritical efforts to heal wounds of both sides, a gradual collapse of the moral and ethical foundations of our society. Most have come to accept this, without a whimper.
The Magazine Prison riots are also symptoms of society’s inability to correct itself. When the Legislature, that formulates the law, is loaded with self-seeking, self-centred power hungry elements, how could the Judiciary which interprets these laws, remain unsullied? The Judiciary to a large extent has become part of a moribund system, provoking people to take the law into their hands and seek street justice. The laws’ delays and its inability to empathize, are among the other problems.
We are told that the prison riots were due to the control of drug smuggling. Any man of medicine would know that drug addicts can’t survive a day without drugs. The way to have approached this problem would have been to rehabilitate and wean them from wanting to take drugs. The prison authorities are given an opportunity to do that in this closed environment. Thereby these inmates would be able to go back to family and society, which would be the richer from that rehabilitation process. Sadly however, they seemed to have flunked, like most social service organizations of the government. Counseling is their need, to be healed of deep inner wounds, caused by broken family relationships. Many are also suffering the trauma of being physically and sexually abused by family members and alcoholic parents.
The riots in society could be controlled not with outside strictures, but from within families. True education starts and ends in family. The school is just an extension to broaden its scope and purpose. To usurp the parents’ role would create chaos. Values have to be fostered at home. While teaching simple lifestyles, parents should not make undue demands, but challenge children to think differently, act sincerely, selflessly and sacrificially for the common good of all.