The Tipping Point
I have been watching the recent news out of the UK with some attention. Two issues strikes me as having Tipped:
1. Knife Crime
2. Obsession with Robert Mugabe
It’s obvious both reached their Tipping Point and somehow very recently. In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell documents three essential reasons for these phenomenon: The Law of the Few; the Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context. What’s happening in the UK seems to have striking resemblances to what was happening in the New York subways in the 1980’s and 1990’s and which Gladwell documents extremely well.
It seems crazy, certainly worrying, that not many days (hours) go by without hearing of a knife crime on the streets of the UK. And I keep asking myself why…why now…it reminds me of the reason I left the UK in the first place…at the back end of the Thacher Years, when the UK was loosing it’s way. Anytime I speak to my friends or family still living there, there is not too much positivity. The difference between 2008 and 1987 when I left, seems to be 24 hour News. Every 15 minutes. I just wonder if the next stabbing is being influenced…
Then we have Robert Mugabe. This man is being seen as the plague of the world. Yet, not so long ago he was being celebrated, even given a honorary knighthood by the Queen in 1994 (under the John Major Government). What could possibly have gone so wrong?
You don’t need to dig too deep on the internet to discover stories of how he got to power in the first place. How he was actually being supported by both the USA and UK to succeed the regime of Ian Smith. The Lancaster Agreement may give us some clues. Britain made some promises which it seems they did not keep when the political colours changed with the entrance of Tony Blair.
I would like to hear a serious debate about what happened between 1994 and 2008, as I am just getting this sneaking feeling that we are not being told the whole truth…why does that not sound strange…
