London Riots

Yes, reclaiming the streets, one step at a time. It's easier said than done, when looking at the riots in Great Britain.

Why did those riots start? Was it absence of faith, hope, fathers, direction? Was it because crime pays? Was it because commercials raise greedy consumerists? Was it because English politicians have done a lousy job taking care of certain groups? Was it because the police was unprepared? Was it because of racism?

Quite frankly, I don't know, but I'm sure of one thing: there are multiple reasons people misbehaved, and one of them is that people these days seem to think they're entitled to anything and everything.

Why did they loot? Simple. Because they could.

It's hard for me to think that people can do this to each other; people didn't just lose their house or shop, people got killed. It's mindblowing to think that this could happen almost anywhere in Europe.

I find it hard to focus on the good side of people in times like these; humans tend to be disappointing in so many ways. But that's obviously not what this blog is about. So let's have a good look at some of the nicer things that happened right after the riots.

People picked up brooms for the riot cleanup, some folks realized police had been working 30 hour shifts and might like themselves an oh so British cup of tea, and saving the best for last this initiative to help an 89 year old barber rebuild his barber shop that was ransacked by very brave kids indeed.

The Neighbours

"Goodmorning, ma'am. Are you OK with me offering you a bouquet of flowers?' I overheard my next door neighbour ask my upstairs neigbour. After a short silence he explained: 'Someone gave me this beautiful bouquet, but I'm going to be on a trip for over a week, so I would like you to have it. Would you mind if I gave it to you? ' My upstairs neighbour shrugged. 'Sure. OK.' And that was it.

This is only the fifth blog entry and this afternoon I already found myself thinking: 'O dear, what have I started.' Not the being friendly part, but the blogging part. What if what happened to my neighbour happened to me? Am I even the right person to write about kindness? I am very demanding, and expect people to be enthusiastic when I'm nice. I'd sulk or get impatient if they weren't. Had I been my next door neighbour I'd be moping how I'd better have asked someone else, someone who actually appreciated this very nice gesture of mine. Someone who saw the value of neighbourliness etc. etc. Would I still feel like writing about kindness to strangers if I got reactions like this time after time?

Luckily I know myself pretty well so I saw this 'what have I started' phase coming from a mile away, so yesterday I wrote down a list of topics I could touch. I read a lot about random acts of kindness last weekend and was pretty surprised about how many lights are shed on this topic. I raised an eyebrow when I read it is actually a trend, because what that really means is that being kind is now trendy in the marketing world. I found a lot of touching stories of people online and some blog entries and articles with tips and summaries of the benefits of being kind.

So, here I'll tell myself to get on with it, already.