Louise Roberts: We are at the stage of dobbing in kids for making a bit of pocket money
From Melbourne Twitter narcs going after enterprising kids to mums being shopped to the cops by neighbours, coronavirus continues to bring out our worst petty sides, writes Louise Roberts.
We’re now a country of cops and dobbers, where youthful entrepreneurial spirit is crushed by busybodies.
And if you don’t happily snitch on someone for “breaking the rules” on COVID-19 behaviour, you are in fact the outcast, the criminal.
There’s no doubt we’ve hit peak insanity when a stranger admonishes and tweets a photo of two kids selling lollipops and soft drinks, while at the same time insisting they should be grassed up to the local council for flouting coronavirus restrictions.
The boys, who looked about primary school age, were flexing their fledgling business skills in a fairly rotten year for our younger generations.
“They didn’t listen to me” whined the dobber in Melbourne who has mercifully since gone into social media hiding.
After all, aren’t the social, school and health trials dominating 2020 the most potent junior lesson in resilience, in how to not be afraid and how to talk to human beings?
The alleged crime scene included a container of Chupa Chups, seven cans of fizzy pop plus a handful of sweet packets arranged neatly on an ironing board disguised with a tablecloth.
One Twitter user replied: “OMG, arrest them immediately. Selling soft drinks and lollies on a sunny spring day, how dare they.”
These children were sitting in the fresh air and sunshine nearby on their camping chairs, hoping to drum up a few coins.
Under current restrictions, Victorians can only leave their home to shop for food or other essential items, exercise, permitted work, or for caregiving, compassionate reasons or medical treatment.
But what these would-be mini moguls unwittingly illuminated is how the corona worm has turned.
Social distancing, practising good hygiene, looking after elderly family and friends, checking on those we fear struggle with their mental health. We’ve happily dedicated ourselves to this.
The pandemic has reinforced our glorious side as Australians.
But now we have those who feel justified in pursuing others whom they decree are not obeying the rules.
Living with restrictions has meant huge sacrifices made, so people are policing and punishing because they believe so much is at stake.
Normal rules on the taboo of dobbing do not apply we’re told.
Remember the TV footage of officers in marked cars moving in on picnickers, book readers and anyone else bereft of a valid reason to be outside?
We want to trust each other but also we want to out the corona enemy in our neighbourhood. Virus vigilantes in effect.
And no matter then that should be a pair of otherwise bored kids sitting in the sun trying to earn a few extra dollars.
How are we to know that behind their front door is a family struggling financially, where pocket money has been sacrificed to buy essential items?
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It’s self preservation, the argument goes. So how does that work with the soothing mantra that we’re all in this together?
Total compliance is never going to happen. And as we learn more about the virus, the draconian restrictions that may have made sense early, when knowledge was thin are harder and harder to justify across whole populations.
Most of us should be content enough to look after our own affairs.
The majority of us doing the right thing probably don’t trust the rogue and potentially dangerous minority to do likewise but that doesn’t excuse a witch hunt.
Dobbing has also been an escalating hobby here in NSW since March. There’s been reports of mums in the southwest of Sydney who says the police were called on them for planning birthday parties for their teenagers.
Then there was the Central Coast mum who rented out her granny flat to an essential care worker only for neighbours to report her to police.
Tanya Watson tied a huge note to her fence calling out the busy body for reporting “us to police with false facts”.
What appears to be a rule breaker can of course be entirely legitimate.
The question for our kids is: what does it do to a society if we invite this sort of cynicism of our neighbours?
Meanwhile in the UK this week it became illegal to socialise in a group of more than six people except in a special case like a wedding.
It’s the British Rule of Six, introduced after a rise in coronavirus infections, with a 100 pound fine attached. But it’s still OK to go grouse shooting in groups of up to 30.
The UK Minister Crime and Policing Kit Malthouse was asked if people should dob in rule breakers and he helpfully replied: “Absolutely, yes, through the non-emergency number.”
Corona may pass or we may have to live with it.
What is in no doubt is that our mistrust towards each other will certainly poison generations to come.
@whatlouthinks
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