They do it because they can

I've been pondering a lot over the events of the last few days and I can't stop thinking that, as usual, people do bad things because they can. They don't really need a justification or a motivation. All they need is to suddenly realize that they have the power to do bad and they will.

For four years during university, before leaving Romania, I trained to be a teacher. When I came to the UK I tried hard to get my qualification acknowledged so I can do what I liked most: teach. But after two years and repeated unpleasant experiences in comprehensive schools across London, including some of its most depraved areas like Peckham and Woolwich, I gave up. The fact that as a teacher I had almost no power to stop violent pupils when they started disturbing the classes left me disillusioned and frustrated. 

Kids knew that teachers have no way of stopping them and would rather allow them to carry on creating disorder rather than forcing them to sit down and do as told. I am by no means condoning physical punishment or using force as a means of educating children, but when you promise students that consistent inappropriate behaviour will be punished, it's good to be able to follow up your threats with something, otherwise they know you have no power. And the moment they know that THEY have the power, nothing can stop them.

That's exactly what happened over the last few days in London. Many of those rioting in the streets have no idea why the riots started but they know why they are there doing what they're doing: because they can. Because police stood by in Tottenham the first night, looking powerless and not being able to intervene. Because the law is, in its attempt to keep everybody happy, failing to be tough enough as to protect the ones that respect it and punish those who don't. Because the attitude of British authorities who brought the stop-searches to an end at the first signs of disapproval showed that they are too soft and have no real power. Because we are all being asked not to intervene when we see someone being attacked in the streets, giving th perpetrators all the wrong signals.

Because they haven't actually ever been asked to face the consequences or pay for their actions. Because they know they can do it and that we can't stop them.

Flash back to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The ape realizes that the bone can be used as a weapon to kill its competitors. Unfortunately we all have it in us. Fortunately some of us learnt to control it. 

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About this and that...

I believe in God....in my own special way...and I have my own special idea about what this God might be....

But what I don't have, is an explanation as to why he created the world, our world, as we know it. With trees and flowers, with rivers and snowflakes, with fragrant Thai food and criminals, with poor people and AIDS and so many other wonderful things (sense the irony!)

Many people have attempted to find an answer and by reading what some of them wrote on this subject, I came up with this sort of attempt to explain the WHY?

They say we should be grateful for the gift of life but let’s just think about it for a second. God made us what we are and the way we are: some of us hard working, some of lazy, others violent and some greedy. Now, if he made us the way we are, why should we have to pay for the sins we commit? He made us prone to sins, he designed our week and confused mind in such a way as to favour sinning. Is just like children do when they're playing with insects: pulling off the legs of beetles or adding some weight to their bodies to see if they can carry it around and increase it constantly until is too much and they can’t move anymore. Or clipping the wings of dragonflies bit by bit until it becomes impossible for them to fly. God made us need and want things, and then dropped us into the world and expected us to make a move. I can still think of him sometimes, looking down on us from somewhere, and marveling and how we’re trying or not trying to do this or that, to fall or not to fall into sin. Just like the poor insects.

1. Is this some sort of evil experiment?
2. Was he really bores and though: Oh well, I’ll just create some humans and play with their lives?
3. Or did he have only the best intentions but for some unknown reason, his whole master plan went wrong?

If you ask me, I rather not be alive, if being alive means witnessing so much pain and wrongdoing in the world. We didn’t ask to be made. We never wanted for any of this to happen and all of a sudden (well, over millions of years actually) here we are, dealing with all sort of crises and dilemmas, desperately trying to make sense of our existence.

It’s similar with having a baby, brining it into the world, help it through the first years and then, let him deal with life and its problems. Problems this baby never asked for! Problems this baby never wanted to face! But because his parents wanted to perpetuate their genes or because they thought it would be good to have someone to look after them in their old days – he has to do it! God did pretty much the same thing! He created us because he was only, bored and had nothing to play with. Maybe projects on other planets in other galaxies failed, and then he thought he’ll give it another try. And he made us! Maybe that’s what he does for a living: making and unmaking universes, one after another (or at the same time, if we agree with the theory of parallel universes).

But at the same time, there’s a small chance that we are just an accident, a mistake of the universe, and there’s no one to blame for what we are then ourselves.

A century ago people were trying to establish whether there is indeed a God or not. These days that doesn't even matter anymore, since we only have ourselves to help us get through this miserable life.

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Free straw for cocaine users

On the 23 Marc 2009, I read in the newspaper that Cocaine users can get free straws from a council-funded team – to help them snort the drug safely. The paper pipes are being given away at six drug addiction centres, sparking a public outcry. They will lessen the risk of Hepatitis C being passed between addicts who share rolled-up bank notes to snort the white powder, according to the Kent Drug and Alcohol Action team.

'The straws are a public health measure.'

The only logical and reasonable effect (for a cocaine user that is) would be to continue snorting cocaine without the fear of contracting hepatitis C. The clear message of this ‘health measure’ being: Snorting cocaine is much safer now! Keep snorting!

Good! If we continue to come up with this sort of ideas hopefully we can steadily eliminate all risks associated with using cocaine and why not, even campaign it as a useful and enjoyable pass time!

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Is the Salvation Army saving anyone?

Not me, it doesn't.

That's because if I ever get a job with them (which I certainly consider, because, at the end of the day, it serves the best cause of all- helping others), my chances of getting a job with another charity after that are considerably reduced. Are you asking why? Because all employers these days are talking about equal opportunities, and want you - their employee, to be ready to treat everybody equally, regardless of their faith, race, colour or ...ideas!

Are they really going to expect someone who has worked for an organisation like the Salvation Army to be aware of "equal opportunities"? I should think not, because to have worked for the Salvation Army in the first place means that you have to agree with this and this and this.

I am a Christian myself and I believe in something (call it God or Supreme Power or whatever you like) but I like to think that I am intelligent enough to recognise that what's between me and my God stays between us, and what I do and the way God punishes or doesn't punish me for my actions is a personal and intimate thing, and no Army (whether it brings salvation or not) can tell me that only God is sovereign over life and death. God is related to each of us individually and what works for me and my God might not have anything to do with the Salvation Army God.

And even if it did, how do they know what God wants? Did they ever speak to him/her? Or they're just relying on what some strangers wrote a few thousands years ago in a book they call the Bible, when they realised how easy would be to control the world if you pretend to speak in the name of God?

But anyway, this God debate is better left for another time. What I'm trying to say now is that if a future recruiter sees from my CV that I worked for the Salvation Army - a very profound and rigid Christian organisation, they'll ask themselves whether I have the flexibility and the appropriate interpersonal skills to work in a new position that will require of me to moderate and contain my Christian beliefs, as they might offend people of a different or no religion at all. And as I said, that would reduce my chances of getting a job in the future.

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