Public Disorder

Lord Williams of Oystermouth Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Archbishop of Canterbury]

My Lords, together with all Members of your Lordships' House, I wish to associate myself with the tributes that have been paid to the work of the police force in recent days, and to the work of the emergency services. These are people who have put themselves at risk in a very costly way in order to minimise the risk to others. And we are reminded by what we have seen in recent days of the crucial role that these services play in our society. I believe that there are indeed questions about the right level of policing that is appropriate to a complex and troubled society like ours, and I hope that those questions will be seriously addressed in the days ahead.

I wish also to express the deepest sympathy to those who have lost members of their family, those who have lost their livelihoods, and those who have in some measure lost hope and confidence in recent days. It is perhaps that loss of hope and confidence that is the most serious and most long-term issue that we have to address as a society.

In the events that we have seen in recent days, there is nothing to romanticise and there is nothing to condone in the behaviour that has spread across our streets. This is indeed criminality. Criminality pure and simple? Perhaps. But, as the Prime Minister reminded us, criminality always has a context, and we have before us the task of understanding that context more fully. It is worth remembering that seeking explanations is not the same as seeking excuses. In an intelligent and critical society we seek explanations so that we may be able to respond with greater intelligence and greater generosity.

One of the most troubling features of recent days, as I think all would agree, has been the spectacle of not only young people but even children of school age—as young as seven—taking part in the events we have seen. Surely, as we respond to these circumstances, high on our priorities must be the question of what we are to do in terms of rebuilding in some of our communities not only the skills of parenting but of education itself.

Over the past few decades, many would agree that our educational philosophy at every level has been more and more dominated by an instrumentalist model that is less and less concerned with the building of virtue, character and citizenship—civic excellence, as we might say. A good educational system in a healthy society is one that builds character and virtue.

In the wake of the financial crisis of a few years ago, we began to hear more discussion than we had heard for a very long time about the need for a recovery of the virtues—the need for a recovery of the sense of how character was to be built in our society —because character involves not only an awareness of the connection between cause and effect in my own acts but a deepened sense of empathy with others and a deepened sense of our involvement together in a social project in which we all have to participate. As we have been reminded, there are indeed no quick answers here, but I believe that one of the most significant questions that we ought to be addressing in the wake of these deplorable events is what kind of education we are interested in for what kind of society. Are we prepared to think about not only discipline in classrooms but the content and ethos of our educational institutions, and to ask: can we once again build a society which takes seriously the task of educating citizens—not consumers or cogs in an economic system, but citizens?

Yesterday, I was speaking to a friend who teaches in higher education and who said that she had been overwhelmed by the number of messages she had received from the young people with whom she was involved, expressing their anger and frustration at what they had seen on television. They believed that their own generation was being betrayed by the activity of many young people. That is simply a reminder that the young people of this country deserve the best. The reaction of so many of them to the events of recent days has been, as we have already been reminded, an inspiration—just as has been the reaction of so many in our communities: generous, sacrificial and imaginative.

My right reverend brother of London has already spoken in other contexts about the way in which communities have rallied and the place of churches and other faith communities in that rallying to provide support, emergency help and simply a quiet space for reflection. Communities deserve the best and above all, I repeat, young people deserve the best. I hope that in our response to these events, we shall hold in mind what we owe to the next generation of our citizens. I underline the phrase, the next generation of our citizens. What we have seen is a breakdown not of society as such, but the breakdown of a sense of civic identity—shared identity and shared responsibility.

The Government have rightly made a priority of building community cohesion in what they have spoken of in recent months. Talk of the big society, of which we have heard a great deal, has focused precisely on the rebirth—the renaissance—of that civic identity. Now we need to see what that will look like; now all of us, without any point scoring in a partisan approach, need to reflect on what that building will require in terms of investment in the next generation—in formal education but also in the provision of youth services imaginatively and consistently across the country.

I have spoken a little about how communities have responded—not only volunteer bodies and local businesses but individuals, building new friendships and new networks. People have discovered why community matters. They have discovered why solidarity is important. They have begun to discover those civic virtues that we have talked about in the abstract. In other words, this is a moment that we must seize; a moment when there is sufficient anger at the breakdown of civic solidarity; sufficient awareness of the resources that people have in helping and supporting one another; sufficient hope—in spite of everything—of what can be achieved; and for the governing institutions of this country, including your Lordships’ House, to engage creatively with the possibilities that this moment gives us. I trust that we shall respond with energy to that moment, which could be crucial to the long-term future of our country and our society.