Another Moyross in the making?

by iosaf Sat Nov 11, 2006 16:45

Coz part of my professional activity is being an "educator". Which means I put butter on my bread by teaching kids music a few hours a week. The other "educators" at the gig were mostly proper ones you know the type - "secondary school teachers" , and about a thousand assembled to shout under the "S.O.S. bullying" banner in Barcelona. (c/f http://www.anpebcn.com/sosbullying.html ).
I think it's very interesting that these teachers have chosen to borrow the word "bullying" from english and link it up to the now established campaign umbrella "S.O.S." which is perhaps best known for "S.O.S. racism" a huge network that covers France, the Spanish state & Portugal tacking racism in all its ugly guises. These latest protests have been prompted by an ugly rash of incidents in the Spanish state recently. Most occured in the more "deprived" southern Andalucia but one did occur in my local Catalonia - & none of these incidents are that strange unfortuanately anymore. I'm leaving this comment here now under the only Moyross thread on indymedia ireland for a reason. . Basically the incident which sparked off the outrage hit our telly screens about a fortnight ago. A secondary school teacher in Andalucia (the deep south of Spain) confiscated a packet of cigarettes from a 14 year old kid. That kid then demonstrated a full range of kick-boxing skills & as you'd put it :- "bate the shite out of the teacher". Happens all the time apparantly - 45% of secondary school teachers in the Spanish state avow that they have experienced threats of physical violence from their students in the last year. But the new twist which makes all this so "21st century" was the fact that the little Thai boxer's pals decided to video the whole thing on their mobile phones. Thereafter the young useful citizens in the making (but still with immunity from prosecution because of their tender age) offered the Spanish telly networks the recordings for 100€ a pop.
This is not the first time the snuff mentality which I for one trace back to the Islamist execution videos & Abu Ghraib abuse of the Iraq war as much as violent video games has raised its head. I remember coming up to Chrismas 2005 a pair of very well heeled teenagers "video taped" with mobile phones their attack on a homeless woman who was sleeping in a bank lobby near their home. They covered her in lighter fluid & burnt her to death.

This emergent violence only seems to reach headlines when there's a "kicking image" accompanying it or some "shock factor" mostly of extremist class or political nature accompanying it. I think of the recent story of Russian neo-nazi gangs attacking migrants & gypsies which I believe has even reached the telly news screens of Ireland. But this violence is not to be ignored. We need to deal with it & soon.