Panic on the streets of London

I'm not a Take That fan, but it is difficult not to like them isn't it. And who isn't a little warmed to see and hear Robbie back for good? Anyway, a song for our time, or week, at least?



It's got to make you wonder if the riots in London last night, and all the back and forth about the vote on changes to the funding of universities, is all a clever marketing ploy for Take That's next single. Hats off if it is.

Student protests, or a collection of frustrated people, with multiple agendas, along with those simply looking for a ruck, capitalising on the opportunity afforded by the student protests? Let's also mention here the Nobel prize winning, pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, who is criminalised in his native China. Let's mention too the consideration of calls for those in charge of wikileaks to be treated as terrorists, and the moves to crush it under massive government and corporate pressure. (Incidentally, a petition against the extra-judicial campaign of intimidation wikileaks is facing can be found and signed here)

When governments don't listen to what the people clearly want, and when they act in ways which at least appear to quash central tenants of democratic society; things like freedom of speech and freedom of the press for example, one has to wonder how much their lofty and noble sounding rhetoric concerning democracy actually affects the on-the-ground practises they employ in running a country. Maybe the bands people travel in and the banners they work under never capture accurately the diverse ideologies contained within any given 'movement'.

"Since some nations are more powerful than others, they will at times prevent anarchy by effective imperialism, which in our industrial period has become more covert than overt. But the peace is gained by force and is always an uneasy and unjust one. As powerful classes organise a nation, so powerful nations organise a crude society of nations. In each case the peace is a tentative one because the peace is unjust. It has been achieved only partially by a mutual accommodation of conflicting interests and certainly not by a rational and moral adjustment of rights. It will last only until those, who feel themselves too weak to challenge strength, will become, or will feel themselves, powerful enough to do so." Reinhold Niebuhr.

In short, there'll be trouble when the kidz come out.

Pax Romana (the Peace of Rome) never does what it says on the tin, and i, again, find myself led back to Christ and his call away from a clamour for power, and towards an embracing of humility in the loving of our neighbour as ourselves. Here, in our acknowledgement of ourselves as one with 'the other', is the only way to a true peace.

Also, what were Charles and Camilla thinking!? "Oh, let's go for a drive and check out the riots ourselves!".  The commoners are revolting.


...nope, none of the above, it was panic on the streets of London.