Posts
It might be the mass communications of Modernity that allow us a look at details from a greater number of places and peoples, but the seeming reality is that Modernity is birth control, abortion, egoism and hedonism, that have shrunk our Modernist populations to something close to catastrophic levels. Too many of the children we do have are violent, feral creatures we must fear or hate. Those we might rather keep we have to buy bulletproof knapsacks for. I could be in the minority but I do think something ain't quite right with our Modernity. Perhaps it's a matter of emphasis:
Mon Apr 7, 6:23 AM ET
SYDNEY (AFP) - Five teenage boys armed with machetes and baseball bats invaded a Sydney high school Monday, smashing classrooms and injuring 18 students and a teacher, police said.
Merrylands High School in Sydney's west went into "lockdown" with pupils barricaded in their classrooms as the intruders assaulted students and shattered windows before police arrived and arrested them.
One girl was admitted to hospital with cuts to her face from flying glass and a teacher was taken to hospital with bruising to the back of his head after trying to restrain one of the attackers, an ambulance service spokesman said.
"We've assessed 18 school-aged children ... all having minor injuries, some lacerations, some bruising and they're obviously quite anxious about what has happened," the spokesman said.
Some students hid under tables and in cupboards while their teachers barricaded the doors as the youths rampaged through the school.
"They were carrying baseball bats and two had machetes. I thought I was going to die," said Grade 12 student Emma McQuillan.
"Teachers just told us to get down. Students were just crying and screaming," she told the Daily Telegraph.
[....]http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp
Or:
Members of a group calling itself Gee40 ... carried out the brazen, violent rampage, pupils told The Daily Telegraph.
[....]The five, aged from 14 to 16 and dressed in jeans and hooded jumpers, launched a spectacular attack on 750 students gathered for morning school assembly in the school quadrangle about 8.50pm.
[....]
On one website dedicated to the suburban gangs of Sydney, Guildford Gee-40 is listed....The website, entitled "Juvenile Justice and the Gangs of NSW", claims to feature "juvinile (sic) gangs ripping through Sydney".
One blogger, Brett, says: "We can f... with da law about 1 in 100 things i do i get charged for so f... u". Another writer, calling himself I luv Carly, says: "F... da cops" and lists his crimes as assault, grievous bodily harm, attempted murder, break and enter, possession of an illegal weapon, and armed robbery. "Might be doing 6 to 18 months," he said.
[....]
They form largely along ethnic backgrounds and congregate on neighbourhood streets as they flirt with the law - carrying out offences such as street robberies.
[....]
Detective Inspector Jim Stewart said police were stunned by the brazenness of yesterday's incident.
"It beggars belief they would attempt this kind of activity against innocent students," Insp Stewart said.
[....]
Ambulance officers said 18 children and one teacher suffered minor injuries, including from the broken glass. A male teacher, 43, was injured when bashed on the head from behind, as he tried to confront the attackers. A 13-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl sustained minor facial injuries.
[....]
The youths were expected to be charged last night with offences including affray and malicious damage.
[....]
One of the five is believed to have been bailed for armed robbery just last week. They were expected to be remanded in custody to face Parramatta Children's Court today. The Education Department said security would be reviewed.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0
****
No kids, bad kids, suicidal kids, a billion Muslim kids. Some suggest Modernity ain't really so beautiful at all. I beg to differ but I must do a lot of explaining to make up the ground lost above. Some serious wrongs are passing around as if they're just fine. Uh uh. No matter how we look at it, our Modernity is rusting badly.
2 comments:
The problem, maybe, is to contrast modernism with modernity. One might say that modernity was built despite modernism; the latter might be summed up as the intellectual and artistic attempt to deny that anything is sacred other than the will to power of the individual genius/artist.
But when nothing is sacred, beyond ego, there is nothing to rally around. In a sane modern world, any gang of five trying to pull this stunt would be quickly surrounded and taken down by all the boys in the school who would have the sense of group loyalty and honour to do the job despite risk. And there would be more than one teacher leading the charge. In other words, in a sane modern world, no gang would exist that would imagine such a crime. Instead, today we have nothing sacred but the idea that bureaucratic experts are the answer to everything so just hit the deck and wait for help to arrive.
The day JFK was murdered I sat watching my schoolteacher silently cry after she received a note; she then kept on with her job till recess period. We were let out a touch early, s I recall.
We mingled on the playground briefly till the school bully ran up in a fluster, yelling, "Somebody shot the president!" There was a commotion, some disbelief, some anger, and then suddenly as if by puppet-mastery the younger boys who'd be tormented by that kid for too long whipped off their web-belts and beat him to the ground and kept at him till he as rescued by someone concerned.
We were, most of us, independent kids, used to the hurly-burly of living in a hard world. But the younger ones took their bullying till they didn't, which was precipitated by an outside event that meant nothing real to us at all, that was merely an emotional blow-out. Kids had put up with the beating and the bullying for too long from that kid; but it ended when he went too far and said someone had killed our president.
Now? What a dying world we inhabit.
But somewhere there are still those who will, I pray, find there comes a time when that's enough and there will never be that again. Then, no matter the trigger, the Furies will descend.
Post a Comment