Is London Burning? (Satis Shroff)

IS LONDON BURNING?  (Satis Shroff)

(Subtitle: The Class Conflict)

In trendy London,

A fad is making the rounds.

The tremendous tension in the British society

Has been unleashed,

In a cataclysm

That has left Tottenham,

Birmingham, Eltham and Manchester

Gasping for breath.

Scoundrels, robbers and thieves,

Who burn and plunder shops,

Set up street barricades?

Nay, the protagonists are England’s have-nots,

Of Britain’s post-industrial economy.

An economy based on growth,

Profit and wealth for the rich,

Joblessness, poverty and frustration for the poor

In these Hard Times.

People who work with their brawny hands.

Factories fire the workers

In a consumer society,

Where children are ashamed

To wear no-name clothes.

Where’s the integration of all citizens?

It’s a drifting away of classes and subcultures.

‘We can all live in peace together,’ say the rich.

‘We’ll make and live by our own street laws,’

Say the others.

It’s off to the elegant, inviting shop-windows,

Electronic gadgets, cosmetics,

Everything goes.

Take what you can carry,

When the police aren’t around,

Whether Blackberry or Burbury.

When they come and get you,

There’s another chance yet.

The class krieg has just begun.

Some say, ‘Beware it’s the history of slavery,

The colonisation that unfurls again.

Nay this time the whitey and the multi-cultis

Go to the burning streets together,

To fight in proxy with the British Establishment.

A gegeration that has been left alone,

To watch TV and DVDs,

Instead of good pedagogic.

But the parents had to earn money

Had no time for baby-sitting teenagers,

Is the argument.

Pedagogic?

They do what they want these days.

Is it the dilemma of modern times,

Where aggression is expressed,

Only brutality shall combat it?

Gewalt erzeugt Gewalt

Runs a time-tested adage,

But David Cameron is adamant.

He has no intention of hugging a hoody.

No Twitter and Facebook,

But dammit, there’s Blackberry.

The Europeans drink coffee,

Wait, see and wonder:

Will this class conflict spill over

To the continent?

Oh, the destructiveness of it all

With stones and Molotov cocktails.

Whither United Kingdom?