 | | | | by Mick Hume |
Whether or not he was bullied in life, since his tragic murder on 27 November 2000 Damilola Taylor has suddenly become the most popular boy in class - the political and media class, that is.
| As soon as they heard about the murder, every politician and pundit wanted to sign up the dead 10-year old to their pet cause, to use his coffin as a platform for a breast-beating sermon. Nobody knew who had killed Damilola, or how, or why, but they all seemed certain that it signified something deep about the state of the nation.
| Home secretary Jack Straw said the murder was a 'wake-up' call to resist the culture of thuggery, bullying and violence, and create a 'responsible society'. Education secretary David Blunkett described the killing as a symptom of the 'me first generation', and singled out Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? as the root of all evil. (A couple of years ago it would probably have been the National Lottery, but New Labour needs that now to support its Dome Disaster Fund.) Expect more citizenship classes and antisocial behaviour court orders to be the government's memorial to Damilola.
| While some commentators suggested the killing was a consequence of the racist treatment of immigrants from Nigeria, others said that it could have been prevented if the police spent less time in race awareness classes and more time on the beat. Some declared Damilola's death to be an indictment of the education system, others blamed playground bullies - assertions that seemed strangely removed from his murder, nowhere near his school, at the hands of unknown assailants.
| | Whatever drum they were banging, however, everybody agreed with the home secretary that this was a tragedy 'which must affect us all and one from which we have to draw very important lessons'. You hear the same mantra about 'lessons to be learnt' after every tragedy these days. But who says murder has to have a meaning for society? Since when did the death of one schoolboy, so shocking precisely because it is so rare, prove that we live in what one paper called 'Sick Britain'?
| The reactions to Damilola's murder reveal more about the mindset of those who run the country than about life on a rundown estate in south London. It is almost as if they are dependent on personal tragedies like this, as an opportunity to make the high-minded moral statements that they save for special occasions. No doubt Damilola Taylor will soon drop out of the headlines, but another moralistic bandwagon will be along before too long. If that seems a little cynical, ask yourself: what ever happened to Frances Lawrence's manifesto for national renewal, that all the parties signed up to after the murder of her headmaster husband?
| Tony Blair told the House of Commons that Damilola's murder had caused 'shock and outrage...right across the country'. Watching the political ghouls feed off the tragedy, some of us were certainly outraged, but hardly shocked.
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