Violence is uncool
I recently read a most disturbing fact: the murder rate in my home country, Ireland, has tripled in the last decade, which some have partly attributed to an increase in binge-drinking. And I thought Irish people already drank and fought a lot. To be honest the high level of street violence is one reason I am glad to be out of the place. Conversely, the fact that Prague is as safe a capital city as you could hope to find is one of the things I really appreciate about living here. It's something most foreigners, men and women, comment on. Obviously there are a couple of bars in the city where trouble might be relatively likely, and the train stations are best avoided, but I can honestly say I can walk around Prague at any hour of the day or night without looking over my shoulder. And that, to me, is a wonderful - and rare - thing.
I recently read a most disturbing fact: the murder rate in my home country, Ireland, has tripled in the last decade, which some have partly attributed to an increase in binge-drinking. And I thought Irish people already drank and fought a lot. To be honest the high level of street violence is one reason I am glad to be out of the place. Conversely, the fact that Prague is as safe a capital city as you could hope to find is one of the things I really appreciate about living here. It's something most foreigners, men and women, comment on. Obviously there are a couple of bars in the city where trouble might be relatively likely, and the train stations are best avoided, but I can honestly say I can walk around Prague at any hour of the day or night without looking over my shoulder. And that, to me, is a wonderful - and rare - thing.
A few weeks ago I was in the pub with some English mates of mine, including one guy who admits to having enjoyed the odd scrap in his youth. My friend mentioned that he'd recently seen that rare thing, a fight in a bar in Prague.It was a typical Czech fight though, he said with obvious scorn, just a bit of drunken pushing. What, I wondered, would have constituted a good fight: somebody being beaten unconscious perhaps, a glassing, gouging or stabbing? Give me a bit of drunken shoving ahead of broken glass and bloodshed any day of the week.
The fact is that for all my nation's reputation for friendliness, many young Irish men seem (like young Brits) to be permanently wound up. It's something I've often thought about but I've never come up with any reasons why. The only thing I do know is that the last place I want to be is on a typical Irish or British high street at midnight on a Friday or Saturday. The level of violence cannot be simply attributed to daft licensing laws - there has to be something in the people which the booze brings out. And, thankfully, that something is largely absent from the Czech psyche.
On the subject of fighting, my favourite story about street violence involves a guy called Stephen Pastel, the leader of the Glasgow rock band the Pastels. The story goes that Mr Pastel was set upon by a couple of thugs on the street one night and in an effort to get them to stop said - optimistically - "guys, guys, don't you know violence is uncool?". What a great line, and not a bad philosophy at all in my opinion.
