On the "Naming and Shaming" of
Paedophiles
It seems to me that the powers-that-be have taken a
deliberate decision on the question of what they call paedophiles to create the
maximum diversion, so as to prevent people becoming conscious of what is
attacking the social fabric of society. That is, I think they wish to get
society off the hook, to stop people pointing the finger at this social system
as being culpable of all that is most backward, at the anti-social offensive
that is tearing apart the social fabric and the driving down the level of
political culture to its most base so that people's helplessness is made even
worse, by suggesting that a number of depraved individuals are the problem.
It seems to me to be a feature of this society that people
are encouraged to look upon all the problems they face as individual problems
and not social problems, even though they may have the instinct something must
be done to change society in order to deal with these problems. A feeling of
mutual suspicion and recrimination is also fostered to prevent them developing
a social consciousness. Horrible crimes against children have been committed,
but is this not the symptom of a sick society, a society where
self-gratification is made the number one aim in life, a self-gratification
which mirrors the obscene aim of making maximum capitalist profit from all
areas of life by the monstrously rich?
Can it be a total coincidence that a hysteria is being
created about so-called paedophiles and encouraging people to act at a
"community" level, when Tony Blair has been hammering home at every
opportunity that "civil society" should develop "values"
which when adopted allow them to enter into a "partnership" with the
state to tackle crime, anti-social behaviour, and so forth? It seems to me that
those things must be connected.
A second level of diversion has been added. That is the
"mobs" which are so-called driving paedophiles underground, causing
them to commit suicide, and so on. These are made out as a further source of
problems, taking the law into their own hands, albeit egged on by a certain
newspaper.
What can the aim of all this be, apart from all this
diversion from identifying the need to transform society? This is what is so
sinister. One wonders, for example, if the powers-that-be will be satisfied
unless some victim is murdered and then even more hysteria will be created,
causing the state to step in and institute further oppression, to turn everyone
into common criminals.
The way animosities are fanned puts me in mind of the way
that the big powers fanned the flames of "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia
or in Kosova, and then intervened for their own ends, so that the problems are
never ending. Or, closer to home, the way different minority communities are
insidiously encouraged to engage in gang warfare, and it is all added to the
crime statistics. Or even the way the youth, faced with no way to turn, are
driven to form gangs to engage in violence against each other. Common to all
these is that because the various sections of the people have been kept with no
way to influence the direction society is going in, they are then incited to
look to violence as the way to sort out their differences.
It is terrible the way such mutual distrust has been
fostered among society. It is as if displays of social affection have almost
been outlawed, while the state is invited to clamp down hard, and intervene in
social matters because it is in "partnership" with the
"community".
However, I can't help feeling also that there must be a way
out from this apparent conundrum, that there is something which is inherent in
the situation which does provide a way forward. I think it must be that people
are prepared to discuss the problems in society, that they do have a sense of
dignity and a sense of social affection. What is needed is that these energies
and social consciousness be channelled into the direction of renewing society
as a whole, together with removing everything that keeps them on the margins of
political and economic affairs and the affairs of the society.
South London Reader
