Belgians under siege

[Ambiorix]

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
http://covenantzone.blogspot.com/2007/11/belgians-under-siege.html
Belgians under siege
Tenants are under siege in their apartments near Brussels, unable to leave after nightfall, without risking violence and robbery. This news according to an investigation by French news site dhnet, reveals the extent to which post-Christian Western Europe starts to decay, and rot. How to turn things around, when...

The inhabitants of 216 apartments of a Saint-Gilles complex are taken hostage by a gang of 41 youths who vandalize everything! (with thanks to BafWeb for their highlighting this story; my humble translation of the original french article)

For several weeks, a neighborhood in Saint-Gilles has been considered a no-go zone. A hell on earth. A place where people no longer dare to leave their homes after a certain hour. An area where assaults, insults, incivilities or other degradations occur daily. This is Jacques Franck square, in Saint-Gilles.
...

"15 years ago, we didn't have any problems. Everything has happened very gradually. And then, since last June, horror. In fact, it's tied into the shifting of the [crime scene?]. Since the police have secured Bethlehem place, the juvenile delinquents have come all this way to the two Towers" [says the assistant director of the apartment complex.] "All this because of a gang of youths who squat in the entryways of the two buildings." They squat, vandalize and act in such a way that the residents no longer dare leave without being accompanied by security agents. The youngest [in the gang] is 10 years old, the oldest barely 15.
...

An accompanying article offers an eye-witness account from "Anne", long-time resident in the apartment building:
..."But I want to assure you that I am scared. I can no longer go out. They [the youths] consider me a racist. If I leave the building alone, they follow me into the street. They have thrown stones at me!" Stephane, the assistant director, confirms [the story]. He adds also that since then, he has taken away all the stones that used to be found at the base of the two towers!
In watching the French crime news videos that are all over dailymotion and youtube, one quickly gets the impression that an entire generation of teenagers living in certain regions belong behind bars. Arrests of dozens of kids at one time are not that rare. This post concerns a story out of Belgium, not France, to be sure; yet are the conditions really all that different..? These articles that I've translated above go on to mention that all forty of this particular gang of kids have been painstakingly identified, one by one, and that the whole rotten bunch of them will soon be arrested, and charged. These kids, however, are only one gang. Are there other gangs of forty other kids occupying the vestibules of other nearby buildings in the neighborhood? Is there anyone below the age of 20 in that community who goes against the tide, and does not belong in prison?
You could arrest them, all of them, every single teenage thug; but then what? At some point you have to let them go; what happens then... a change of heart as they become an adult thug?
What could possibly reduce the militant nihilism of these young kids, I ask myself as I read these stories... A hard slap to the head? That's probably what they get at home already. Or what they serve to each other as tokens of friendship. How to change their behavior, without first changing their heart? How to steer these kids away from their savage state, converting them into productive (or at least less destructive) contributors to their community?

Unfortunately, post-Christian Europe won't be receptive to my hope of reducing recidivism through religious conversion, convinced as the continent's ruling class are that their society's worship of the secular will somehow, in some way, inspire the current generation of belgian "youths" to live as people, and not animals.
Maybe it's time that the atheistic left currently directing the european enterprise swallow some pride, and accept what for them, surely, must be the lesser of evils. There was a time when being poor was not an automatic trigger for being violent, rapacious, and sadistic. There was a time, not so long ago, when poor people struggled to live self-disciplined lives worth living, guided as they were by the teachings of their church. People can live with the inevitable disappointments that are part of the human experience, and remain humane, if they have an effective model to follow.
Europe, let some committed Christian missionaries work with the youth, turn prisons into penitentiaries, so that youthful prisoners can become penitent, that is, repentant of their past sins.
Would it make things any worse...? What have you got to lose...?
Who's being naive here: me, or you?