The 111 Files: MH17 beyond us but we can fix own mess

Inspector Bruce Horne.

I HAVE been thinking a lotabout the two acts of terrible violence that have dominated the news over the last week.

One occurred on the other side of the world, the other closer to home; both were theoutcome of unlawful acts allegedly perpetrated by people belonging to organised groups characterised by a disregard for civilised behaviour.

If the conversations I havebeen joined to are any indication, another common thread is that both events have impacted at a personal level on Rotorua people.

Violent deaths always raise questions. The first usually arise from an effort to process the shock, questions such as: "How can people do such terrible things?" Later, we move to the "how can we fix this" type questions; such as: "What can we do to stop this recurring?"

The late Stephen Covey, one of the great thinkers of our time, said one of the keys to being effective was understanding the list of things we were concerned about was nearly always longer than the list of things we could influence, so we should focus on those we could influence.

What makes the sickening television images of the militia's behaviour at the MH17 crash site in Ukraine so frustrating is our inability to do anything to stop it.

Distance and international politics are barriers to any intervention you or I may contemplate. But taking a stand against violence in our communities is a different matter. As Edmund Burke, the 17th-century Irish statesman, said: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

If you read about the most horrific crimes inflicted on our communities in the last 50 years, you will find gang culture was behind most of them. Some people think we arestuck with gangs and their culture of cruelty and bullying and brutality. I don't. And whywould we want to be? I understand that the problems are complex, but that should not be a reason for giving up.

There are men in our community who have eventually seen gang culture for what it is and walked away from it. We need to find ways to encourage more of them to do that. And asthese people live in our community, not the other side of the world, we can do something about their behaviour. All it takes is for good people to stand together and say: "It's got to stop.".

But setting boundaries is only the beginning. The other part of the solution is showing people there is a better way. It begins with hope and developing a vision of a better future; ideas I will flesh out a bit more next week.

Inspector Bruce Horne is the Rotorua police area commander.