By JOHN ODEY ADUMA, BRITISH CHEVENING SCHOLAR AND PUBLISHER, VIGILANCE-THE SECURITY MAGAZINE
King James Bible
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it
Proverbs 22: 6
We cannot properly diagnose the current amorality in the human community, using Britain as a case study, unless we go back to the era of industrial revolution when industrialism displaced agrarianism consequent upon a redefinition of values and a new form of life style distinct from the erstwhile communal ethos and a generally pristine moderate lifestyle. The new moneyed economy of the time meant that people had to adjust to the new pattern of life it brought along with it. Children were forced to work at a very early/tender age in factories alongside adults. These children were not only abysmally exploited, in most cases, they had their innocence violated. Leaving home very early and coming home late meant children no longer had the privilege to be properly trained in traditional morality, instead they began to imbibe the new morality, the morality of the factory or of their work environment and the justice system of the new work environment. And whatever new value that emerged was passed onto the next generations which in turn passed it on, onto the other generations, ad infinitum. But in all , the Victorian morality still held sway until the 19th Century when that generation began to openly and unashamedly revolt against the moral rigidness and puritanical piety of the previous era.
But things really began to get worst with the publication of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution which did tacitly promote the idea that only the fittest do survive! And if this was the case, then might was no doubt right, his generation seemed to echo him. The theory was heartily and widely received because it came at a period of great disillusionment in human history. People were asking questions which at this time “the neither cold, nor warm Church” could provide/offer satisfactory answers. Darwin seemed to give humanity the answer for which it was earnestly seeking and a new moral licence was handed to the world by that publication. Because the Church was too weak and powerless to confront Darwin and his theory head on with the true gospel, it joined the band of Darwinian disciples to echo/chorus his theory and gave Satan a very special and dignified place on the pew, where till this day, he sits to direct the ‘politically correct gospel!’
The moral decadence of the modern world could also be blamed on the First and Second World Wars when human beings in the name of war, unleashed deadly weapons on themselves, killed and maimed one another. In this orgiastic madness, blood was freely shed to the utter disregard for one of the supreme laws of God to His Creations: “Thou shall not Kill.” In these two wars, human beings preyed on one another like beasts in the wild.
During these wars, many lost faith in God as life to them, became totally meaningless. These convulsive periods in human relationships led to an ungovernable lifestyle that has not only continued to date, but helped to push moral boundaries to bestial levels. Consequently, cherished family, cum universally acceptable values were jettisoned for a life on the fast lane.
In the decade that followed the two wars, communalism was questioned. Collectivism was questioned, thus universal standards and virtues gave way to individualism/individual values and everybody began to define truth, values and morality from their own standpoint. What that meant was that absolutism was murdered and never to resurrect again-there was to be no more absolute truth. Thus, what constitutes truth for you may not necessarily be truth for the other person and what is morality for the other person may not necessarily be so for you, so also, seeds of differing values were sown. The most lamentable aspect of the moral degeneracy is that God was kicked out of national agenda and permanently expelled from many a heart.
This abandonment of morality impacted negatively on the home, the church and the mosque, the education system, the media, other change agents and custodian of morality in every little corner of the globe. Each in trying to join the band wagon, bent the truth to fit into the prevailing warped values that then held sway and still do currently. Sadly, the church and the mosque began to rely on the methods of the world to interpret the scriptures.
In an already chaotic situation, the 1960s generation came with the speed of a moving train to hasten/accelerate the gradual decline in morality as if to say, the gradual decline in morals of the earlier generations was too much of a snail space to them, so was not good enough. It was a generation that could be appropriately regarded as walking on its head. They broke every rule and redefined every item on the moral menu. Their much cherished slogan was: Good is bad, bad is good! On the streets they screamed out loud: “Kick out God, bring in Satan!” “Embrace Satan, Away with God!” “Up, up Darwin, down, down Church!” The “ Come O ye faithful” hymn was replaced with “Come O ye binge drinkers and “Come O ye Playboys...”
Did the 1960 generation just happen? No! Did they just come out of the blue? No! They were the products of, or if you like, offspring of a morally negligent, morally bankrupt generations of bygone years. It was the failure in parenting of those generations. “Nebo kwono habi”, goes a Latin dictum. What you don’t have, you don’t give. Because they hardly were given anything of value by the previous generations, they could only give to the world what they had-moral bankruptcy, emptiness, cold-blooded murder and vanity, all of which are still being promoted and celebrated today.
The so-called Sexual freedom gained ascendancy at this time, especially with the inauguration of feminism. With women liberation, crept in sexual promiscuity and debauchery of every kind. Having lost their senses of shame , men and women competed with dogs on the streets. And before you know it, the pornographic industry began to command billions monetarily. Consequently, marriage, that sacred institution instituted by God for procreation was abandoned for social partnerships and inappropriate relationships of unimaginable magnitude. Soon, a new generation of children began to emerge from such aberrant partnerships without father figures and were mainly brought up by single parents. Your guess is as good as mine when children are brought up under such arrangements.
THE GOOD OLD DAYS: THE TRADITIONAL FAMILY IN RETROSPECT
The children/Most children of this generation do not and will never know what it is to be brought up in a good and cohesive family setting, so it would be pertinent at this juncture to let them have an imaginative glimpse of that very much cherished past. The period under examination was when the family was closely knit with the communal ethos well ingrained in the heart of every member of the family and by extension, the community. Nobody did whatever they liked. People were brought up not to covet their neighbour’s property. Whatever was missing was immediately reported to appropriate authorities if found, or immediately handed back to the owner when found. Sometimes items of values including purses and wallets with money inside them, but which were inadvertently left by some people in public places were not touched by anyone, weeks, months after they had been left by their owners, until their respective owners would return to pick them up. Yet the traditional society was no utopian in any least way.
People cared for and were concerned about one another. Unlike in modern society, especially, modern Britain, they inquired after one another’s welfare and by so doing, were able to account for the whereabouts of one another. How many times have people died today in modern Britain, without their neighbours knowing, even though they are living in the same place, neighbourhood or on the same estate until they started smelling, having become decomposed? In modern Britain, people who are supposed to be neighbours are in most cases, strangers to one another, even though they had been living in the same neighbourhood for decades!
In the traditional society, communal liberality reigned supreme. Those who had, shared freely with those who did not have. Unlike the current rat race of fierce competition, people teamed up to help out one another in their farming enterprises and other agro-related activities. They teamed up to build houses for one another, teamed up to construct public roads and town halls, teamed up to donate agro seeds to any member of the community that did not have instead of ridiculing such person as is the case today. In traditionally competitive activities, there was magnanimity in victory. Pride was frowned at. The weak were protected by the powerful and influential members of the community. No one took the laws into their hands or took advantage of the weak and less privilege members of the society as to do so would bring opprobrium upon their immediate family and the entire compact society.
The society akin to what we have in mind was captured succinctly by Apostle Paul when he recorded in the Acts of the Apostles: “All the believers were of one heart and mind, and they felt that what they owned was not their own; they shared everything they had. And the apostle gave powerful witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great favour was upon them all. There was no poverty among them, because people who owned land or houses sold them and brought the money to the apostles to give to others in need.” Acts 4:32-35 (NLT).
There was also respect for laws and order. There was respect for constituted authorities; respect for the elderly; respect for every form of life and respect too for children. Children had their place in the family and were brought up to reverence God. Equally they were made to grow up with responsibilities by having roles assigned to them very early enough. In their upbringing, the rods were not spared. Whenever children erred, they were reprimanded, as well as, praised and rewarded when they behaved well and achieved a feat.
The FAMILY NOW
“There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of good-having a form of godliness but denying its power.” -2 Timothy 3:1-5.
St. Paul in the above passage drew a sharp contrast between what prophetically would happen now different to what obtained in the compact/earlier society. When you look around you, what do you see today? A family that can be compared only to a knocked down engine thoroughly knocked down; a scattered family; a highly dysfunctional family without any discernible virtue to hold onto. Parents do whatever they like and children, vice versa. Those who pass for parents nowadays are products of zero upbringing. And because they received nothing from their so-called parents, who too did not receive anything from their own parents they have no message of life to pass onto their children. Consequently, you have a situation where monsters now pass for children, wolves now pass for children, howling mobs now pass for children, blood - sucking demons who prey on one another as if they were in a jungle, strangling, mangling and knifing one another now pass for children. To the children of this generation, especially in Britain, to have blood on one’s hand and eventually make it to the prison and be back is heroism. Wearing tags about town are a badge of honour most of them aspire to have. Ever been at the bus stop with these kids, ever been on the bus with these kids when they are going to or coming back from school? You would curse the day you were born. And you dare not ask them, no matter how polite, to behave, as the price to pay for such foolhardiness is blood-letting.
Hold your breath still, have you ever been to an estate or a Council Flat in Britain and you would hardly believe you were in a human community? The constant shootings, poundings, howling, the sight of broken windscreens, broken bottles and smell of cannabis would make you think you were in the wild, or putting it mildly, in a city that is under siege! The regular patrols by the police and security guards, not withstanding, you would yet think you were in an occupied territory. What type of upbringing could have produced these animals? Zero upbringing! Again I say, “Zero upbringing!”
Zero upbringing is the result of not bringing up children in the fear and nurture of the Lord; zero upbringing is the result of children who should be under the tutelage of their parents bringing children into the world, children they drag about to one stop shops to receive handouts, children they drag about to marijuana joints on miserable buggies, while they themselves look dishearteningly pitiful like one of the lean cows in Pharaoh’s dreams which forebode famine in ancient Egypt; zero upbringing is the result of having children without setting moral boundaries for them, having children without giving them the dos and don’ts of life; zero upbringing is the result of indulging and pampering children, zero upbringing is the result of sparing the rods; zero upbringing is the result of broken homes; zero upbringing is the result of putting work first before the family; zero upbringing is the result of parents inadvertently introducing their children to bad habits, while they, parents are enjoying these bad habits before their children’s very eyes; zero upbringing is the result of children growing up without responsibilities; zero upbringing is the result of bringing up children in care homes, instead of in proper homes; zero upbringing is the result of introducing children to conspicuous consumption and easy life; zero upbringing is the result of bringing up children on junk foods when parent cannot spare a few minutes and hours of their time to cook nutritious foods for the family, but prefer always to order them junk foods or take their children to junk food shops morning, afternoon and in the evening; zero upbringing is children eating and not clearing their plates and leaving them for house helps, parents and grandparents to clear them up for them; zero upbringing is the result of trusting parenting to the state, nannies and couples in inappropriate relationships; zero upbringing is when parents become so accommodating to the point of allowing their children to come home at wee hours from night clubs/pubs and knock on the door and they getting up at such time as 3 a.m. to open the door for them without scolding them; zero upbringing is when parents together with grandparents allow their teenage children/grand children to bring their boy/girl friends to their homes to spend nights and days in such homes, the home of practising Christians not exempted, where upon these children violate themselves under the watch of their parents and grandparents; zero upbringing is when children are bought up with the tonic of disrespect for themselves and consequently others; zero upbringing is when children are brought up without fathers, a home without the head is like a headless chicken; zero upbringing is when children are brought up to think that money is the measure of value; zero upbringing is when children are brought up to think that education is the big picture and not the minute aspect of the big picture , which it simply is; zero upbringing is when children are lied to by their parents that the only thing worth doing in the house is their schools homework and nothing else; zero upbringing is the failure of parents to teach, instruct and guide their children the way they should go in life. If God, the Creator of the universe told His people, “Fear not, O Israel, I am the Lord and I will teach thee and instruct thee in the way you should go,” human beings should do even much more to their children. When a gardener refuses to prune/trim his garden, it will simply grow wild and play host to reptiles and other wild creatures, when a fisherman fails to bend his fish while fresh to the shape he likes, any attempt to do so when the fish is already smoked- dry will split the fish into pieces. Finally, you can only tend an acorn when yet it is just a plant and bend it to the shape of your choice, but you don’t have this luxury when it becomes an oak tree!
The situation is such that it will make the older generation yearn for the good old days. Truth is that, it is because the home is sick, that the Church, the mosque and other religious institutions are sick; because the home is sick, the school too is sick; because the home is sick, governmental institutions and their officials are sick, hence they are crassly corrupt; because the home is sick, Parliament is sick; because the home is sick, the marriage institution has decayed; because the home is sick, the entire society is sick, a sick home, a sick family, a sick family, a sick Church/media/nation. It is as simple as that! After all, what is a Church, what is a Mosque, what is a school, what is a workplace, what is a government, what is an institution, what is a group, except an agglomeration of people from the home/the family... “a sound mind is only to be found in a sound body”. But who will heal the home? Just who will heal the home?
ALL CONCERNED
“We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer tomorrow.” – Gabriela Mistral in her poem “His name is Today”
Although, the above quote from Mistral seems to have answered the question “Who will heal the home?” It is pertinent at this juncture to borrow a leaf from how children are brought up in Yala. Yala is a Local Government Area in Cross River State of Nigeria. There is a common saying among the people of Yala Kingdom that “when a child is in the womb, it belongs to God and the mother. But when it is born, it belongs to the whole society; hence parenting in Yala is collective. The child being a member of the society, everyone takes interest in their well-being and upbringing generally, including discipline. For instance, if a youngster committed an offence unknown to the parents, any member of the Yala Kingdom could discipline them before drawing the attention of the natural parents to the offence the child had committed. Usually when an aberrant youngster is to be reprimanded, their genealogy is laid bare before them to shame them for bringing disgrace to their family and ancestors, and far more, for not living up to the reputation and the cherished values of their families and ancestors.
But if the culprit is from a family known to be traditionally troublesome, before or after he had received a good hiding from a clansman would be asked rhetorically: “How else can the offspring of a viper behave?” But they would still be warned to desist from such dastardly acts.
Taking a cue from the people of Yala, it is our view therefore that, the healing of the home, the upbringing of the child including discipline requires a the concerted efforts of all concerned-the parents, who of course, are the first and natural teachers, instructors, guide of the child, the church/the mosque, the school, where the child receives formal education/training, the government, the media and the entire society.
However, we hasten to warn that the State should not turn itself to a nanny by usurping parental role and control over the child. The State’s role should be to introduce moral instructions, comparative religious education, sexuality education, cultural studies/education, history, comparative literature amongst others, into the school’s curriculum. The State’s role in the overall upbringing of the child should also come in form of enacting appropriate legislations and setting up appropriate machinery cum apparatus of government and institutions which actively cater to the overall well-being of the child.
SOCIETY’S CURRENT ALOOFNESS IN THE UPBRINGING OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS IN BRITAIN
Has the society given up on youngsters and young people? Or it just doesn’t care what happens to young people anymore? Better still, is the society afraid of children and young people? Who really is in charge these days, young people or the society? But just where was Britain (the society) when children and young persons exploded? If society is alive to its responsibilities in the overall upbringing of children and young persons, why does it appear so helpless when young people misbehave at home and at public places? Why can’t anyone stick out their heads on busses, on the trains and in the street to condemn the vandalistic/vandalism of/ acts of young persons? Why are young people these days allowed to do whatever they like? Why do children and young people get away with everything these days, even heinous crimes such as murder? Is this what freedom is all about?
A warden at the U.S. penitentiary painted a worrisome picture of the incorrigibility of the “home and street warriors thus: “Ten years ago, when kids would come in off the street, I could talk with them about right and wrong. But these kids coming in now have no idea of what I’m talking about.”
Since no one, not even the police can caution children and young persons, they appear to have taken over all the private and public spaces, be it at home and at public places, hence they have no respect for adults and constituted authorities. These children, without doubt, are conscious of the fact that they, and not the police and adults, are in charge and they celebrate this occupation and invasion of the home and public places and their otherwise coup against the entire society and its institutions with glee. They are over conscious of their individual rights and they have too much information at their disposal that they cannot sift. The children of these days have no teachers, they have no instructors and they have no guides, hence they behave in a manner they like.
If you are on the bus or train with them, you are either going to alight/disembark/get off at the next bus stop or the next train station because of their noises or unruly behaviour generally, or choose to put up with their noises or misdemeanour as no passenger will ever dare to ask them to keep quiet.
CULTURE SHOCK
As a way of illustration, I shall use some personal experiences I had when trying to speak out against outrageous behaviours of young persons on buses and public places. Take these as my culture shock if you like, because the examples I am about to give happened when I first came to the UK on British Chevening Scholarship between 2003 and 2004. The first incident happened within the vicinity of City University, my alma mater. I had just left my Finsbury residences hostel going for lectures in the afternoon when from afar I saw a group of boys on their school uniform playing foot ball right on the middle of Goswell Road with vehicles coming on both sides-the Barbican and Angel Tube Station sides of the road. In that shock, a flurry of questions/answers coursed through my mind: Why have these boys chosen to endanger their lives playing football right on the middle of the road crisscrossing the road to pick up the ball when it went off the road? I was the more shocked that none of the passersby rebuked them in any way about their misdemeanour. Why was no one seen cautioning them, I had asked myself inwardly. So when I drew near, I began to bark out to them, thinking I would receive support from the passersby and onlookers, but I was wrong. Each time I had screamed out to them, “Stop playing ball on the road!” “Why are you playing football on the road, instead of going to play in open spaces?” They would mimick me and laugh heartily. I left in shame wondering why the boys never cared a hoot for my concern for their lives and why no one lent a voice to condemn them?
That day after our Lecture at the Thompson Lecture Theatre, I relayed the incident to Stella-Marris Ekpene, a friend who then was on Commonwealth Scholarship at City University and she warned me concernedly, “Ewoooo! John, never try it again! You see those boys, there’s hardly anyone of them who does not have a knife in their pockets.” “Knives in their pockets? What for?” I had queried her. “Boys, having knives in their pockets?” “Just go your way, I ‘ve warned you, and you must know why you are here in Britain,” she had said.
Knives in their pockets! Is this why no one in Britain ventures to speak out against the unruly behaviours of youngsters and young adults in public places?
My second experience in an attempt to deal with the unruly behaviour of young persons happened on a bus at a place I now know to be Elephant and Castle. I had just got onto a bus that early morning from Elephant and Castle and my actual destination was Dalston. While on the bus, school children were making noises banging and hitting the bus so that no one I thought could concentrate and have their peace of mind with music blaring at topmost decibel! I had kept quiet at first just like the other passengers, but when I could no longer bear the noise, I had no choice but to do what I then considered the right thing. “Stop making noise please!” I had pleaded. The school children took my plea as an invitation to make more noise as they started mimicking me in unison: “Stop making noise please!”
I never like noise in my life. Whenever I am in an environment where there is noise, I lose concentration and become confused. Even though the school children were already making jest of me, in my state of confusion, I pleaded very passionately: “Guys, let’s have some quiet, please.” Again, I played into their hands as they too began to demand, “Let’s have some quiet please!” Wondering again why no passenger had lent a voice, I demanded to ask my fellow passengers why no one was joining me to ask the school children to behave themselves on the bus, but it was all an eerie silence with some of them staring at me very strangely. I looked strange to the other passengers . They seemed to be thinking if I was normal at all. Out of this strangeness, and seeing that I was the odd one out, I had to drop off the bus, not because of the noise, but because I needed not consult a medium to know that I was the odd person on the bus. What could the other passengers together with the school children be thinking of me? Some could be thinking I was mad, others could be thinking perhaps I was new to London. Others yet could be thinking of both about me or what do you think? When I got home, I narrated the incident to a friend who simply told me, “This is London. It is the norm here. And nobody speaks against it.”
WHO OWNS THE CHILDREN ON BUGGIES?
The third experience took place at Dalston, where I used to live. After my Post Graduate Studies at City University, I had moved to Dalston in the London Borough of Hackney to live on 45A Kingsland High Street. My room was directly opposite the Dalston Market. One day, while peeping through the window towards the market, I kept seeing teenagers dragging children on buggies about the market. Little did I know that the children these ‘children’ were dragging about on buggies were their own. I had wondered within myself why on earth any responsible mother would allow these teenagers to bring their siblings to the market. More worrisome was the fact that these teenagers were dragging their ‘siblings’ on buggies about the market. What could the mothers of these teenagers be doing at home to allow their teenage daughters to bring their siblings to the market?
When my roommate, Francis, came back from work I told him what ugly sights I had seen today while peeping through the window to the Dalston market...the sights of teenagers bringing their siblings to the market and dragging them all over the place. Francis laughed and laughed until he fell on our bed. He could not utter a word immediately due to his prolonged laughter which he interchanged with cackles. “They are not their siblings,” he managed an answer in the midst of his cackles which made me look stupid. “They are in fact, their own very children!” His answer left me befuddled. I did not believe Francis was telling me the truth.
“How can these children have children?” I retorted.
Not convinced, I had to ask as many people as I could about the ownership of the children on buggies and their answers were the same as Francis’. As days, weeks and months went by, it became a common sight for me to find these kid mothers at bus stops, on the shop floor and in every nook and cranny of the British Society. Hang on a minute: What kind of training will a baby give to a baby?
So why has Britain lost the power to speak out against this malady? Where was society when babies started having babies at an age when they ought to be in class, at an age when their biological organs were very vulnerable? We do know the mothers of these hapless babies, but who are their fathers? Do you now wonder why there is this rot within the British society? Do you now wonder about the moment by moment war on British streets, knifings and the resultant deaths that often come with it? Truth is, there are worst wars to be fought head on, on British streets than in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let Britain deplore its moral soldiers to combat these wars head on right now! If not now, when?
The above is an introduction to a my book (still in MSS): HOW TO TEACH, INTRUCT AND GUIDE YOUR CHILD TO GROW UP RESPONSIBLY...The sure parenting companion, I began writing on Britain’s moral degeneracy two years ago. It can also serve as a foundation for any meaningful discourses/debates on the recent anarchy on British streets, but let Tony Blair and his ilk fool themselves on by saying the anarchy was not about a general moral decline in Britain, but about some dysfunctional families. The current moral decline is global, so why does Tony think Britain is an exception?
Blair is known to be a man always economical with the truth, hence Iraq was possible. If after Blair has read this introduction of mine to Britain’s moral decline and still holds unto his narrow views and half truth about the recent anarchy on British streets, then I challenge him to a public debate on these things.
For the likes of Tony Blair, it is not moral degeneracy for a nation to have a high rate of binge drinkers, divorce, where women kicked their husbands out of their matrimonial homes at will; where MPs lied, juggled figures in the name of expenses; it is not moral decline for people to stab, kill at the slightest provocation; it is not moral decline for a Government to lie and take a nation to a war of blame; it is not moral decline for parents to be asleep at night and their children are in the streets committing all sorts of atrocities; it is not moral decline for women to walk about the street half naked in the name of fashion, the list is inexhaustive.
While in a nutshell, I would like to sum up the reasons for the recent anarchy on British streets as below, I challenge anyone to a debate on this as cultural ethnocentrists and narrow-minded publicity-seeking people are adducing racists, cheap and puerile reasons as the probable cause(s). During such a debate, that anarchy would amongst other things be dissected using psychoanalysis with the spiritual as the very root cause and then others.
However, for the purpose of this editorial, the reasons for the recent anarchy are as here itemised in a nutshell:
- Anarchy was possible because Britain no longer does God
- Anarchy was possible because there is no more, “Thou shall not” in British national life, all in the name of unfettered freedom. Ironically, “Thou shall not” is in fact, part of freedom!
- Anarchy was possible because Britain like Moses has broken the tablet of the Ten Commandments, but unlike Moses who returned to God for a new one, Britain did not, rather she is arrogantly contented with the fact that, WE DON’T DO GOD HERE!
- Anarchy was possible because the lesson of Proverbs 22:6 was jettisoned after the Second World War by the “Baby Boomers”, that anarchic, godless and amoral generation with their philosophy of “Break Every Rule.”
- Anarchy was possible because Britain no longer trains up her children with “Thou shall not” as contained in the TEN COMMANDMENTS.
- Anarchy was possible because Britain kicked God out of her national agenda.
- Anarchy was possible because like Achan, there are things detestable to God which are being held in the Camp of Britain.
- All those who unashamedly participated in looting and vandalising public/private properties/businesses, stealing, maiming, destroying and killing are made in Britain monsters brought forth upon the House of Britain by the “Baby Boomers.”
Human wisdom thinks solution lies in extra budgeting to tackle challenges faced by the so-called problem families, mentoring by MPs, Government ministers, provision of jobs, tighter rules for parenting, pervasive presence of police on British streets, reviewing of media programmes, having a big society, giving more to charities, giving more to the poor, forming an all-inclusive government/society, giving more powers/authorities to parents and teachers, etc, etc. All these are good in themselves and very well thought out; but the truth is they are not part of the FIRST THING; just cosmetic solutions, and all those who are of these views are merely scratching the surface.
The real solution lies in the House of Britain returning to God, her first love. Until Britain again, starts bringing up her children in the fear and nurture of the Lord, all efforts in trying to solve these multifaceted problems using human wisdom will be in vain. Until Britain starts doing God once again, every effort is like pouring water onto a basket!
The first approach to the problems is for the House of Britain to observe a three-day fasting and prayer, confess and repent (NATIONAL REPENTANCE UNDER THE THEME: BRITAIN PRAYS) at an open space such as WEMBLEY STADIUM). Until this is done, I’M AFRAID, IT WILL GET WORSE!
INVITATION TO PONDER:
There are four problems facing Britain today and these are:
1. Spiritual
2. Spiritual
3. Spiritual
4. Others
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14, (NIV).
Righteousness exalts a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people. Proverbs14:34 (American King James).
A WORD IS ENOUGH FOR THE WISE.
*** Aduma is a British Chevening Scholar and Author of The Diamonds Are Here.