15 Dec Police Line
A few days ago a young man was stabbed and died just around the corner. These are stark facts. Behind the facts is a human story. I don’t know the circumstances that led to this tragic ending. He is missed by the many who have laid tributes and battery powered night-lights in silent vigil forming an ark around the swathes of flowers. Behind his story is a culture. Violence is the outcome of a complex set of conditions. The factors may include poverty, class, mental health, addiction, gang loyalty, identity, fear and plain misfortune – just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The justice system incarcerates but does not rehabilitate. Governments know that criminalisation of drugs wins votes but fails addicts. In the absence of initiations by the whole tribe, young people initiate themselves through rituals unsanctioned by society. “These are the bearers of generation upon generation of unresolved grief, of unexpressed sorrow, and the rage that it becomes when it isn’t acknowledged,” describes Martin Prechtel of young people at the receiving end of ancestral grief. Unprocessed trauma and complex grief finds outlets in cycles of aggressive behaviour, self-sabotage and post-traumatic stress disorder, often coupled with shame. Wise cultures create alternative ways to deal with conflict and its aftermath.
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