MICHAEL

It was with shock that I arrived back in London after a couple of days away to be greeted by the headline of the London papers, that two teenagers had been killed in separate knife attacks in London in the space of three hours on Thursday night.

One of the boys, who was stabbed in Stratford, East London, was from Leyton.  His name was Michael Wright and he was 17 years old.  On myspace pages associated with Leyton and/ or with Beaumont Estate in Leyton, some young people have added "R.I.P Sezmic" to the "R.I.P  C.J" comments that already crowd their pages.  "Sezmic" seems to have been Michael's tag name, as the photo displayed matches the photo of news reports.  I don't know whether Michael was from Beaumont, but he was clearly associated with it.  It is so shocking to think that within a space of a few months, some of these young people will have known two of their friends to have been stabbed to death.

I can't find a myspace page for Sezmic himself, as it seems to have been removed.  However, in the search engine list of results, the following statement comes up associated with the site that seems to have belonged to him:

"SEZMIC - beaumont right behind me, 

wots gonna go wrong?"

Once again, this could have been any boy, his face could be any of the faces that walk past me in the street every day... How did he feel walking down the street?  Was he fearless or fearful...?  "With Beaumont right behind me, what's gonna go wrong?" And how about the 16 year old who has already been charged with Michael's murder... Was he afraid? Or has he lost all sense of fear and feeling?  Numb to the pain, cold and traumatised, a generation is becoming de-sensitized to murder.  Death and loss are becoming normal occurances in the lives of many young people in East London and throughout the city.  And, as the stories blur with each other in the media, the tally of teenagers killed in gang violence increases, and we are also becoming de-sensitized to the fact that children in our city are killing other children.  How do we feel when we hear these stories?  Now is the time to ask, "What's going wrong?" and "With God behind me, what can I do to help?"