As a result of the recent riots, it seems like every man and his dog has returned to their blog to pass comment. I’m therefore going to, in typical riot style, join the masses and put forward a brief (turned out not so brief) post. It’d almost be wrong not to. One thing I must say however is that most of what can be said has been – I won’t claim to be adding anything new, although I have managed to agregate some of the better stories of the past week or two. The unfortunate problem is that the people with the power to change things aren’t listening, so we might just have to shout louder to escape the liberal echo-chamber. Please though, no looting.
In many ways, when the rioting started, it felt like the 80s – or at least what I envision the 80s felt like. Tottenham at least was a fitting location and it was all very reminscent of the 1985 riots. Once again, it was sparked off by the death of a civilian at the hands of the police. A peaceful protest, as so often happens, turned ugly and violence ensured. Over the next few days however, it became clear that the nature of these riots were substantially different to those in the past. I recall a police officer who was involved in both the ’85 riots and those of last week, saying how in previous times, rioters focussed their attention on the police, provoking them, fighting with them; in the recent riots, he continued, the focus was much more on property, on arson, vandalism and theft. The new way of fighting the police, apparently, was to destory everything – as if proof of power over them.
Inevitably, after the immediate coverage, comes comment and analysis. In general, the more liberal media did a fair job of this. Camila Batmanghelidjh’s article in the Independent is a good example, citing how young people feel pushed out of even their own communities. As Martin Luthur King said, “There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society, who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don’t have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it.” In a way, this sums up a lot of the motivation for the riots. It doesn’t make it right, but it does explain it.
Another refreshing article was that by former Deputy Commissioner of the Met, Brian Paddick. He describes his experiences in the 1981 Brixton riots and the long-term scarring to the community and police relations afterwards. It’s interesting what he says about the community thinking the police were “wasting our time policing ‘weed’”. It’s almost certainly a feeling shared by many people today. Almost ironic then, that all the talk among the government and right-wing press is about “cracking down” and “zero-tolerance”. The truth is that zero-tolerance not only takes police resource away from the important things, it also fosters a culture of distrust with communities. If a man is shown no leniency by the police for a carrying a small bag of marijuana, is he likely to come forward if he becomes involved with serious criminals? The zero-tolerance rhetoric cumulated in calls to bring in Bill Bratton, former LAPD police comissioner. Of course, we’re all aware that there are no trust issues between police and communities in LA anymore.
As the riots carried on it was clear that the level of police manpower available was simply insufficent to stop what was going on. As a result, several civilian groups gathered together to protect their property. Turkish and Sikh communities made the news for strongly, yet peacefully protecting their property. Unfortunately, with the good, always comes abuse. Just as the looters had abused a peaceful protest to start the riot, extreme right-wing groups then used the riots as an opportunity to push their agenda. In Eltham, the EDL organised a gathering – so at least the white people could protect their property. This is one reason I am very glad the riots ended when they did, because with the involvement of the EDL and BNP, it was about to become a race issue, if it wasn’t already.
Back on the police front, politicians were talking of harsher tactics including bringing back the water cannon. The detail here was that the police rejected the need for such devices. It was almost as if Mr. Cameron were content to push onto the police methods even they didn’t agree with, in order to satisfy a bloodthirsty public. It’s notable that those most in favour of these measures were those, such as Mr. Cameron, that have had the least exposure to them and their effects.
Fortunately, the mainstream media, even the right-wing mainstream, mostly know better than to blame race. I say mostly, with a hat tip to Mr. Starkey for his appropriately medieval analysis. Personally, I blame white culture for Mr. Starkey. Regardless, the Daily Mail saw it fit to do what it does every time anything bad happens: blame the liberals. Max Hastings rants about the moral failures of Britains youth, but somehow fails to actually tie causality to liberal policies. In fact, he carries on to deploring Britains youth as “feral” and “wild beasts”. At least in doing so, he provides a perfect example of the blind exclusion which has created the beast he so despises. It’s easy to use buzzwords like “feral youth” and “liberal experiment”, but the right-wing media never seem to make any solid links between the thing they’re saying we should hate, and truthful events. Max ends with:
Liberal opinion holds they are victims, because society has failed to provide them with opportunities to develop their potential… Most of us would say this is nonsense. Rather, they are victims of a perverted social ethos, which elevates personal freedom to an absolute, and denies the underclass the discipline — tough love — which alone might enable some of its members to escape from the swamp of dependency in which they live.
Yes, discipline is the problem. Lack of discipline is obviously the cause of high unemployment for example – these people are obviously too undisciplined to get a job. Nothing to do with the fact that there are far more people than jobs available. Lack of discipline is obviously the reason these people feel like they have no investment in the world. Nothing to do with people like you constantly spitting on them and calling them “feral”. Spot on there, Max, you verbally-feral snob.
Once the right-wing media had tired of blaming “broken Britain”, single mothers and “benefit scroungers”, it then turned its eye on what it fears the most: the media it cannot control. It wasn’t long before phone calls had been made and David Cameron was calling for Facebook, Twitter and BBM to be banned – either for suspected rioters or in general during the time of a riot. There are two main problems with this. Firstly, social media was used by both sides, not only to organise the riots, but by communities to organise clean-up operations. Social media is demonised because it is new and poorly-understood; for some reason, our attitude to that which we do not understand is to demonise. Ultimately, social media is no different to a telephone or postal letter, it can be used for good or bad.
Secondly, any ban of social media sets a dangerous precedent. The idea of cutting off communications for the public is never a good thing. It is in times like this that draconian laws get pushed through with public support. These laws however, are rarely balanced to their original purpose. How long before political radicals are banned from Twitter? How long before it’s not rioters, but socialists? It sounds far-fetched, but history and events abroad tell us otherwise. We can say, “yeah, but that will never happen here”, but that’s what was said in places where such things have taken place.
In the end, it was a boost of police manpower that ended the disorder. Less than amazing, given that the reason it went on so long was a lack of manpower. While the politicians had ranted about extreme measures, they had ultimately ignored the boring solution, the solution which the police arrived at themselves. There was a notable change in the public mind at this point: fear was replaced by anger, defence gave way to vengence. While the right-wing media continued to rant about the corruption of the lower classes, there were a few exceptions. A refreshing article in the Telegraph, of all places, questions whether the corruption of the upper classes sets a good example. It’s easy to forget that while the damage caused by the riots, the burned out cars, smashed windows and rubble, lies in plain sight, the damage done to this country by the banks and corporations runs far deeper. The total bill for the riots is a speck on the trillions pumped into the banking system. It seems that it takes the obvious to bring the public to anger.
Of course, along with every analysis comes a proposed solution. One “solution” which made the news was the petition to cut all benefits and housing for those involved in the riots. As Owen Hatherley described in the Guardian however, it’s actions like this which are the completely wrong response. The people involved with these riots feel like they have nothing to lose – the last thing we want to do is take what little they have from them. If they feel like this when they have a roof over their head, what will be the effect when all these people (and their children) are on the streets? That’s certainly not to say that they should not be published, but there’s a difference between punishment and creating a city of the homeless.
On the subject of punishment, I was surprised by quite how far the government seemed willing to go to prove its crowd-pleasing point. As horrible as the total effect of these riots is, it doesn’t make any of the individual crimes that composed it – the robberies, vandalism, assaults and arson – any worse than elsewhere. When we had down sentences four times longer than normal, are we not effectively saying that someone who steals during a riot, with everyone else around them doing the same thing and plenty of people encouraging it – is worse than someone who, on another day, gets out of bed and decides to steal, completely of their own motivation? Again, I’m certainly not saying stealing during a mass-looting is “okay”, but I think the guy who gets up and decides to steal on his on is probably the more morally-lacking. Giving someone four years for a creating a damn Facebook group? That’s at the bottom end of the sentencing range for *rape*. What message does that send out? That rape is no worse than creating a Facebook group?
One thing I really dislike about times like this, is that anyone who suggests there may be a deeper cause is then branded as a “sympathiser”. They’re treated as scum themselves. We seem to work a false dichtomy between social factors and individual actions being to blame. The truth however, is far from binary. Yes, ultimately, each person who was involved in the riots was responsible for their own actions and some of those actions were terrible, but this doesn’t mean that they themselves, the way they think and their perception of the world, aren’t products of the society we have all created. They may have made the wrong choices, but they did so having a distorted view of the world that has been impressed upon them: from being told they are “feral youth” to the way we equate posessions and money to worth. These riots were not political in nature, but this does not mean they do not have political causes at their root - if you go far enough.
I’m going to end with a great article from the New York Times, which nicely sums up a lot of what I’ve tried to say. Our biggest mistake with this whole affair has been a refusal to take responisbility. The Daily Mail likes to believe that there are good people and bad people, and that’s the end of it. Good people do good things, bad people do bad things. The world is far more complex than this however. Even on a simplistic level, we must question, what creates bad people? It goes along with patriotism in the bin of “choices we make before we are born”. Our politicians have shown they are more than willing to play the popular card and “get the bastards”, rather than accepting that deeper change needs to happen.
The riots are a product of aimless anger – it doesn’t make them right, but when the world seems content on screwing you over, it’s easy to just blow a gasket. In this case, that happened on a mass scale. If this country continues to choke the underclasses, they will continue to lash out in the only way they know how. We may have got a lid back on it now, but for how long? When we are making the real problems worse, probably not long. All the while we can continue to blame the “liberal softies” and ask “why don’t the lazy bastards all just get jobs?” while manipulating the economy to reduce the number available. We can continue to push maximum freedom for the rich and draconian punishments for the poor (funny how libertarianism only applies to one’s self?), maintain our culture that says “money is worth and you are worthless”, but we shouldn’t be so surprised when London burns again.