31 October, 2005

A walk through city streets

Tonight I took a walk though this city where I live and suddenly realized I disliked immensely what I heard. It wasn't the homeless people that were lying on top of cardboard and covered up in their sleeping blankets and it wasn't the sight of beggars sitting outside the cash point machines. It wasn't the sight of the alcoholics waving their cans in the air and singing that bothered me as much it was the lack of peoples response, when I asked them what they thought of homeless people and what they saw when they went to their night clubs or posh cafes. One person dressed in an Armani suit said what can we do? These people obviously want to live like that or they wouldn't be there. Which took me completely by surprise. Then I told him a bit about me and that I was once one of those people. He said look at you now, you're not begging or sleeping on the street any more. You don't touch drugs. Your now part of society. When I said these people are as well. He started swearing at me and saying these people are not part of the society that I live in they're not normal. So I said some people go out on a night out, get drunk, stagger all over the place and in some cases get arrested for being drunk and disorderly. So what makes you better than that person sleeping in that shop doorway? He probably has to sleep there because he has no alternative then i started to explain that hostels were full and how long it takes to get in to one. I just left it at that. It was just a thought to leave him with. I watched him cross the road and I saw him give a homeless person some change. It still didn't make me smile as I thought if a quarter of the population of this country think like him then we are in a sorry state.

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