How graffiti culture can save our nation

ZOM, originally uploaded by StuartWebster.

I can’t help but wonder how the UK ended up in its current economic predicament, how previous governments couldn’t see what was coming and how the current government can’t see the way out.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve been lucky enough to have time me to go out and photograph the ‘youth’ and their surroundings in central London ‘the inner city’. I’ve walked the streets between towering concrete monoliths where they live, seen the empty offices, warehouse and factories where they worked and the boarded up shops where they shopped before the crash came.

At times it bears a resemblance to some post apocalyptic landscape, not quite bombed out but not the place you’d want to live, the place that resembles one of the richest nations on the planet, the place that gave the world Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Then through the grey of the concrete and dirty CO2 soaked air a bright, vibrant, energetic slice of colour a statement of individuality, of creativity, of wanting to be seen and heard. Graffiti is by its mere existence, placement and immediacy like many social networking site Facebook, Bebo or MySpace a need by the young and in some cases displaced to be heard. By its colour, form it reflects the artistic, creative, technical life blood of many a young person caught in the potentially life sucking challenges of their environment.
If you consider that these are the same young people who are filling the air with text chatter, throwing up new web sites at a moment’s notice and uploading cell phone movies of their antics on to You Tube why oh why did some government committee recently say that a £6 per year charge to all phone users to pay for high speed broadband for all was no appropriate.
Could they not see that we as a nation have a fantastically talented, motivated and available group of young people who are waiting to enter this brave new world? That with the right infrastructure the UK could become the online support hub for the world whether it be retail, financial services or manufacturing there is not a single industry, trade or occupation that does not in some way rely on computers, the web or some other form of IT to keep it moving and informed.

Better yet that with a high speed internet connection to every home we would not need to rely on big office buildings that cost the earth to build and more to maintain, we would not need to pollute the air with thousands upon thousands of cars commuting to these offices every day, we would not need to further destroy our green and pleasant land.
What can you do to help I hope you’re asking, you can support those people whomever they may be who are fighting for this future better yet you can become one and fight for a brighter, cleaner, more engaging creative future not just for the young but for us all.