Progress readers may be familiar with, may have even seen, The Wire, HBO’s hard hitting and much hyped series about life in Baltimore which charts the collective failures of policing, legal and social structures to stop drug and gang cultures in some of the poorest American communities.
In many ways, the show is typically American – hip hop music, baggy jeans and street slang dominate. But does it have some lessons to teach us?
For those with a commitment to progressive values, one of the most striking depictions is the extent to which The Wire reveals the unequal life chances that those born into poverty and deprivation face.
This was reinforced by the recent World Health Organisation (WHO) report which highlighted stark regional disparities within the UK. It stated that a boy in the suburb of Calton, Glasgow, could expect to live 28 years less than one brought up in Lenzie, a few miles away; one born in Hampstead, London, could live around 11 years longer than a boy from St Pancras, five stops down the Northern line.
The WHO recommended that above all, governments should invest in high-quality education with a focus on intervening in the earliest years. This is not a groundbreaking solution – this Labour government has consistently focused on education as a key tool in ensuring equality of opportunity. But these statistics are shocking and should be a spur to all those committed to social justice to rethink approaches to child poverty – clearly, current responses are nowhere near enough.
But in reflecting on these unequal life chances, we should also stop and consider the challenges that face children born into some of the poorest and most disadvantaged contexts in the world.
Let us look at the lives of children in Southern Sudan. While much attention has been focused on Darfur, much less notice has been paid to the three decades long conflict in Southern Sudan, which halted in 2005, though peace and stabilisation are by no means now a certainty.
Sudan is one of the world’s poorest countries and it has one of the most under-educated populations in the world. The UK Department for International Development estimates that only 20 per cent of school age children are enrolled in school in Southern Sudan. There are high levels of illiteracy in the population and low levels of support for children’s education, particularly the education of girls (who comprise only 26 per cent of all children enrolled). Daily school attendance is poor and drop out remains high – it is estimated that only 0.3 per cent of school-age children complete all eight years of primary education (Sommers 2005).
Ultimately, a country’s ability to emerge from a period of conflict will depend on its ability to offer hope and opportunities for the next generation. The world over this means investment in early years, good quality primary and secondary education, and job opportunities for the future.
The consequences of not tackling these inequalities in life chances affect us all. The gang and street violence that The Wire so chillingly shows is just one product of the social tensions it can lead to, as poverty and lack of education create their own deadly cycle of violence and despair. This means that wars on terror, drugs, and knife crime are unlikely to succeed anywhere in the world unless they are about providing opportunities and education at an early stage to break down these deadly cycles.
And we should all be aware of the fact that inequalities act as a barrier to our common values – sadly someone living in Hampstead feels little in common with their neighbour in Kings Cross, and even less so with those in Southern Sudan. If popular portrayals in the media act as social commentary and help bridge that gap as well as entertain, then all the better.
Leni Wild is writing in a personal capacity.