Susanne Remic is a primary school teacher, freelance writer and parenting blogger. She writes at Ghostwritermummy and Maternity Matters and in between all of that she regularly wins mummy of the year awards for running around after her two children, aged six and 19 months. This is her pregnancy blog: an online diary of her third pregnancy as she strives to overcome two difficult births, one angel child and one awkward toddler. Join Susanne as she shares every step of her journey from bump to baby!
The riots are getting personal
By Susanne Remic on 10 Aug 2011
This week I blogged about the London riots over on Ghostwritermummy. I cannot comprehend the terror that the children living there must be going through each night as the rioters smash windows and burn buildings in some kind of misguided protest. It’s not even a protest anymore. It’s carnage and it’s frightening.
Watching the news, it seems that the riots are spreading. My own city is now being ripped apart with disregard and contempt. For what? A TV that they can’t carry through the streets and have to dump for someone else to clear up. A pair of trainers they probably don’t even need. A quick thrill as the glass of a shop window cracks and shatters. A momentary sense of power.
This is a city that was rocked by terrorism before I moved here. My first impressions of Manchester were of a city that was fighting back with spirit. Many shops were boarded up and in tatters when I first walked around the shopping area. Last week, those same shops were unrecognisable from that first expedition. Manchester fought back and won. Manchester was transformed into a vibrant and beautiful city once more and the locals were rightly proud of all the hard work that was put into bringing the affected areas back to life.
Today, my husband has gone in to work with a view to helping tidy up what is left of his home town. Overnight, looters and rioters have undone all of that hard work and have left Manchester in ruins once more. It goes without saying that the people here will make sure that the city stands firm again but it doesn’t hide the fact that there is something really sad about it all.
This is the city that I chose to live close to. This is the place where I felt I wanted to raise my children. This is the place where I have always been proud to say I lived. This is the city that has been attacked by the people that live here. It doesn’t make sense.
Today the bump and I are feeling a little confused about the world we’re living in. Today I am wondering where all of this is going to end. On Twitter I read a really poignant message which went something like this:
My wife is in labour. We live in Hackney. I don’t want rioting to be the first thing my baby hears.
I challenge you not to be moved by this. I don’t want my baby to be born into a world like this.
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