Restoring a sense of responsibility is a daunting task

The last two weeks have demonstrated the value of strong communities. Where the sense of community was firmly rooted and strong we saw none of the looting and destruction that took place in the major cities. Belonging is a profound human need. If it is not fulfilled in our families and in our communities, human beings will look for a powerful sense of belonging in some other form of collective, and for a young person in certain parts of our large cities, that is why the gang culture is so alluring. It provides a family, in which they are able to find approval and a place in a parallel society with a hierarchy, clear goals and an easily comprehensible morality, even if those are only to acquire the latest consumer trappings of status and to dominate rival gangs. The complexities of modern life have nothing as glamorous and appealing to offer these young people, nothing, at least, that does not have to be worked for and acquired at the cost of a moral and spiritual effort for which they are ill-equipped and in respect of which they, and all they know around them, have already conceded defeat. The Prime Minister is right to characterise these pockets of our society as unhealthy, even "sick". But the problem of what can be done within the limits of our liberal democracy, in which those who do not take responsibility for themselves cannot be forced to do so, is the most daunting any Prime Minister has ever set himself. So many thousands of our fellow citizens in these "pockets" inhabit deserts of vacuous and self-destructive "freedom"; freedom to roam the streets on benefits, and therefore without the obligation to provide for basic necessities; freedom to take part in organised looting and stealing when the mood takes them, and not be much afraid of the consequences, and freedom from that most basic of obligations, that arises from a strong sense of belonging to a community, to respect the values and traditions on which its survival is based. How to put back that sense of community and responsibility is a vast undertaking and will involve some very deep thinking about the causes and remedies. But it will be a very good thing indeed if it is, at last, to be commenced.