I’ve forsaken prose for poems these past few months (http://poemsatlarge.blogspot.com), but recent events in London have drawn me back.
Standing outside our building in Camden for four hours on Monday night, while gangs of looters played hide-and-seek with the police, gave me that sinking feeling one could call fear. Fear and anger mixed. The feeling was strengthened by the thought of vulnerable neighbours upstairs – pensioners, for the most part, in bedsits and studios – and the fact that the houses on either sides were unoccupied.
Was I defending our property – with dustbin lid and other aids near-to-hand – or behaving offensively, keeping a close eye on our locality by warning off anyone hostile who loitered or approached? At one point, I had to cross a line of police to retrieve a bin that had been appropriated as a weapon. I felt relieved but justified as I put it back in place.
'Society' wasn’t in place that night. It was missing - the civilised part at least.
As often, the experts are little help. On the BBC news site, criminologist, Roger Graef, is quoted as saying: “"Self-defence has been endorsed very recently, even by the prime minister*, but vigilantism is when you go out after the person who has threatened you - and that is not tolerated."
Later in the same article, Graef also states: "I can't say very simply they [vigilantes] shouldn't do it because if somebody was attacking my home I would want to protect it,"
This expert doesn’t appear to have thought the term “vigilante” through, with contrary interpretations like that.
My own feeling that night was that protecting one’s nest, at all costs, is one of the most basic needs and instincts. Another is the wish to protect others, especially the weak and undefended. Upholding those rights is every citizen’s choice.
Or is that taking ‘freedom’ too far?
* "We will put beyond doubt that homeowners and small shopkeepers who use reasonable force to defend themselves or their properties will not be prosecuted," David Cameron, June 2011
