Tony Blair last week announced his Respect Action Plan, the latest package of tougher measures designed to reverse Britain’s ever increasing anti-social behaviour problem. The plan’s greatest shortcoming, however, is in failing to recognise that the problem is a deeply spiritual problem and therefore requires a spiritual answer.
Tony Blair said he is not searching for a “golden age” of civility. But then what is he searching for? What is the vision of the Government for the UK one year from now, ten years from now, one hundred years from now?The vision of the Government cannot simply be some vague, staid world where we just ‘respect’ one another. ‘Respect’ is not something that can simply be bandied about in such a detached and mechanical way, as if you can just respect on its own i.e. the concept of respect cannot be detached from its spiritual dimension, without which any attempt to re-instil respect will fail to have a very deep impact on the people it is designed to change.
On the bottom line, respect is not a new concept. Even the people who are anti-social know what it means to respect: it is not that people need to be told to respect; rather it is that they need to be shown how to respect, and also why it is good to respect.
Turning around the growing problem of anti-social behaviour in the UK needs to be a long-term plan in which many people and families are mentored and set a good example. Children follow the example of their parents, but in reality we never stop learning by example, as the power of the celebrity culture in Britain demonstrates. Christians have a responsibility to set that good example more than anyone else.
