Ian Dougal-Smythe
The figures are unclear. It's somewhere between two people, three people or eight billion who marched last Saturday. Some were even middle class. Most were hippies, though. I've previously laid out the case for why we should go to war on Iraq on these pages, but this week I've been mostly concerned with the over-arching war against terror.
Terrorism starts with the young. A first generation pick-pocketer is the most likely candidate to breed some hideous suicidal Arab a couple of generations down the line. To combat terror, we have to get tough on crime.
It's no good looking at the latest modern initiative, we need to really look at the historic trends of crime. Petty theft has been rising relentlessly since the eighteenth century. We should ask what social changes occurred to institute a perpetually elevating crime rate? Philanthropy and voluntary activity were very strong during this time so what could it possibly be? My proposal, Community Claws (CC), is simple. In the wards with a way above average crime rate, we allow for the managed reintroduction of wild bears, boars and wolves. In some Zones this might necessitate the building of a new local park. Funding these biodiversity programmes will require extra cash to start them off. Yet, the savings in reducing police forces, courts and the price of vandalism would make the scheme self-sufficient in the medium- to long-term. I'm sure today's criminal crimelords would be less likely to smash up streets or suck drugs up their anuses with aggressive bears prowling our evening neighbourhoods. The programme has much scope for development: Wild cats used to roam all over Britain. A new element could be introduced so that succeeding, 'green light' CC Action Zones could be permitted to upgrade to Clean Up which would phase in the introduction of local big cat parks accessible by neighbourhoods to tackle persistent social disorder behaviour. The natural diversity of our wildlife and local parks would increase, whilst our streets would be quieter and more socially cohesion.
Let me put it this way, do you prefer tigers or terror? Exactly.
P.S. I have bowel cancer.
13th Feb 2003