OH MY COUNTRY! MY ENGLAND!!

OH MY COUNTRY,MY ENGLAND!

I feel ashamed and as if my modesty has been outraged when I look around the mindless destruction caused by those vermins called 'rioters'.

 oh, it is the worst nightmare that has come to haunt my beautiful country,'this other eden' is being turned into a living hell. I never had imagined even in my worst dreams that I will see such destruction and be a sufferer myself!

After celebrating 'the friendship day' and the biosterous bash thereafter I  had stayed back at my friend Veronica's place and was returning home  on Monday late evening with my three friends from Ealing.we were in great mood which was soon dampened when we saw a heavy traffic jam ahead.I was astonished to see so many cars standing on the High street in most disorderly manner and a little ahead we could see smoke.As soon as I halted, a middle aged man,who was running past my car,stopped and shouted at me,"girls,leave the car and find some safer place,run!"

 I couldn't understand him but he didn't remain even for a few seconds to explain his words.On lowering down the window glasses we could hear shouts and screams and sensing trouble Veronica started crying and weeping. Anna and Gloria also started squirming in their seats.I too got frightened and  four of us parked and abandoned our car on the curb and ran to a restaurant for shelter.

 within a few minutes a mob of young boys and some girls came menacingly and started pelting stones and bricks and bottles on the restaurant,shattering all its glasses within just a few moments.There was a great commotion inside.We girls and some women present there started crying and weeping and the men were dumbstruck and fidgeting.We were about twenty people.An elderly person soon took the control of the situation,asking all the women to rush to the kitchen and hide there.then he led the other men to take up whatever they could lay hands on like chairs,stools, jars and curtain rods to face the rioters.

Seeing their staunch stand the rioters  went away to destroy other establishments.They were looting and burning shops and also torching the parked cars at will and in mad glee!

 We girls remained huddled in the 'wine cellar' of that restaurant for almost about four hours when by midnight there was an eerie  and uneasy calm established. When we came out,all I could see was the burned skeleton of my Bentley.It was destroyed beyond repairs.Even the interiors like AC and music system was charred down to shapeless plastic lump.I was shocked beyond tears. my laptop,which was in the car,was also destroyed.I was trembling and weeping and was unable to answer the repeated calls from my mom. We were about ten miles away from my house and had no strength at all to take even a few steps.It was past midnight and we were directionless. all around us was a great commotion and everybody was running helter skelter. We begged other people to give us lift but they perhaps thought that we young girls were from the rioters!

  we walked about three to four miles through back alleys and dirt roads when finally we could get a bus to Central London. I reached home with other girls at about four in the morning on Tuesday.

  Last two days I have been in great daze and only last evening I have recollected myself when my mom took me alongwith her to work as a volunteer to clean up our city,saying,"Let them destroy,we'll rebuild".These words jolted me out of my stupor and made me to face the reality boldly.

I don't rue my personal loss much but I am hurt to the heart to see my great country being bled by her own children.

  Shakespeare had said,

"Nought shall make us rue,

If England to itself do rest but true"...

   Now so many theories are being put up about these riots.It is termed as a part of 'global unrest' on account of financial crisis and joblessness of youth.The current austerity measures like shutting down 'non-essential' public services such as  'youth clubs' are said to have backfired,creating anger among youth.

Whatever it may be,I only think that no person who has even an iota of respect for his homeland 'Great Britain' will try to cause her harm. All these hoodlooms do not think England as their country. They want only the benefits but don't want to do their duty towards this nation.Will anybody stab his parents only  because they aren't able to give him the luxuries he wants? these goons only want to enjoy life at the cost of others.Their rioting is nihilistic and criminal and on the top of that,they have discovered that they can do all this rioting,destruction and looting and  still get away with it!

  I agree that many of today's problems are reflective of a lack of genuine socio-economical and cultural integration which has led to deprivation and de-facto ghettoism. But still I feel that we Britishers are greatly lacking in patriotism. The outsiders who have made England their ' home',have not assimilated fully with our culture and feel proud to retain their own 'cultural' and their homeland identity while enjoying all the benefits given by England.And the rioters are mainly from these outsiders.it is a fact and has to be squarely addressed.

   Though I am greatly shaken, I have vowed that I won't allow my great country  to be ransacked by these brainless beasts.I will lend my hand to rebuild what they have destroyed.Yes,I will work more hard and earn enough money to buy a new car and new laptop. I won't crib or go looting. I am proud to be British and will uphold the banner of my great country,come what may!

    -PORTIA