Writing ^^ (We should not have any gangs in our Friendship)

All parents will give more attention to their teenagers but it does not happen to my friend. Since her parents got divorce, she withdrew into herself, felt abandoned and unloved. She felt totally alone but after she joined one of gangs in our school, she felt that she has found her new family. She never thought how the gang usually caused many problems and troubles in our school; she just felt that the gang was the most important thing in her life now. With her gang, she could not manage her time well until it made her grades was decreasing. She ignored what her teacher and her parents said. She just wanted to follow her gang. That was one of the real examples shows that gangs can give negative impact to teenagers. Actually it has been common issue in our society that gang in living has been followed by our teenagers. Klein and Maxson (2006) note that within the criminal justice system, a gang is defined as a group of people who associate continuously for the common purpose of engaging in criminal or delinquent activities. This paper examines why people join gangs is because of terms of age, gender, race, and culture. Egley and Arjunan (2002) report that the National Youth Gang Survey if 2000 revealed that there are several reasons why young people join gangs. These reasons include a search for love, and belonging and the need for some sort of structure and discipline. Often, young people want a group that they can commit to. There can also be a need for recognition and/or power, companionship, excitement, and activities. In some cases, teens are looking for a sense of self-worth, status, and acceptance. Others see the gang as fulfilling their need for physical safety and protection. For others, it is just a matter of 'family tradition.' After they think that they have many people that will not stop them but make it stronger and unbreakable. In fact we know that gang not only can limit our thinking but also limit our relationship with other people. It shows that we cannot develop our life with other people because of having a gang in our relationship.
With our gang, we tend not to care with other people. Do you still remember with a gang that consists of four girls from Senior High School in Jumawa, Pati, Center Java? The gang named Nero gang. Jawa Post told that this gang became famous because of their video has been published. The video showed how harsh they do to their friends in fighting. They did not think or care about their friend anymore. Or maybe, another example comes from Bandung. The motorcycles gang has been phenomenal too. They also did brutality to their society. Making noisy and disturbing Main Street has been their habitual action. They also did not care with other people life. They just do what they want although the people around them get the disadvantages from that bad situation. In fact, we are social human that need other people to develop our life an our mind so that our life can be more colorful.
We cannot be ourselves because our group will influence every change in our life. For example one of the members in Nero gang. Ratna, her life has been influenced based on their member’s life from Nero gang. Sumaryo, the head master of Jumawa Senior High School, Wednesday (18/6/2008) said that she used to be clever student in her class especially literature. She also seemed so good student and always obeyed every single rule in that school but after she joined Nero gang, the way of thinking from Nero gang has influenced her mind so that whatever her friends do or choose she must follow it. When one of Nero gang’s members was hurt by other person, other members judged her or him to their enemy too. Then they will do harshness to show their power. Based on Mr. Sumaryo’s statement we can know that our gang will influence ourselves. In fact, we must be able to filter which one is bad or good for our future life.
The gang is not always forever because everyone has their own life so we must be brave to face our own life. We have to be brave face every problem and challenges in front of us. Based on magazine I read, our brain is like our muscle. They also need practices; one of those practices is “feeling to be challenged”. Everyone has their own challenges in their life and so do we. From now we must be more independent not depend on other people to face it in every situation. There is a day that we will lose our friend one by one in our gang but we should let it become sad ending of us. However, that would be raising our maturity to move forward and become who we are supposed to be.
In our gang, we will feel that we have new relatives that will always accompany and help us in every situation. Although people around us or our parents do not care enough to us, we will still have them, where we can spend our time. As like the Nero gang, four members are basketball players, then they became very close because they are always together in sharing, playing or basketball practicing. Hastaning Sakti, one of psychologists from Dipenogoro University in Semarang, said that many factors can cause why they became too strict. If one from them gets hurt, as relatives, other member will take revenge. As the result we cannot think back that is wrong or right. We just see from our friend’s side not others. Actually this thing can make us always depend on our friends with every problem of us. We also are not learned to be more ready to face our life and our mind by ourselves. How we can be more mature, right? (Counter argument)
As human being we need a friend in our life because a friend is like oxygen and we need it in everywhere. But we must still remember that we are not always with our friends, we will find new days with new people, new problem and new challenges that we should try to face it by ourselves. So we should not to limit our life and our relationship to develop our future.