Not The Riots We Were Expecting

[poliphilo]

Riots were predicted for this summer, but not these kind of riots. We were supposed to be having demonstrations about cuts, student fees, job losses, Tory misrule, all that sort of thing- respectable, middle-class grievances. What we've got is a sudden upflaring of disaffection in the inner cities- sparked by something the police did.

We'd forgotten the inner cities. We were too busy feeling sorry for the well-to-do. The pain of the well-to-do is dangerous to politicians. The well-to-do vote- and are capable of switching their political alleigance. Besides, the poor are used to suffering; a little extra hardship won't hurt them.

It would be absurd to argue- as some have done- that the police are being attacked in Tottenham because of disgust at their complicity with the Murdoch press- but that's not to say there isn't a connection. The fawning respect shown to Murdoch and the edgy disrespect shown to the Duggan family are aspects of the same corrupt corporate culture. The rottenness pervades the system. One law for the rich, another for the poor.

Yes it's very horrible what's happening on the streets of our inner cities."Don't they realise they're only hurting themselves?" Perhaps they do. Self-harm is a weapon of the dispossessed- sometimes the only weapon. How else are the very poor going to get our attention? No newspaper speaks for them, no politician represents them. 

Riot and revolution are powerful drugs. They get you high. They stop the pain. 

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If I understand correctly, the family of the dead man went to Scotland Yard to protest- in an orderly and dignified manner- and were kept out in the cold. There were policemen in riot gear barring the way and when a young woman stepped forward to speak to them they waved their truncheons threateningly....

It was in this context that the thing kicked off.

It began as an issue between the local community and the police, but very quickly escalated into a free for all. The people on the streets are mostly youths, but of all ethnicities (if race was an issue to begin with, it isn't any longer). Members of the dead man's family are as shocked as anybody by what has been unleashed.

There's a great deal of opportunistic criminality- of burning and looting. If there's organisation it seems to be local and small-scale. No leaders have been identified, and no-one is talking politics (except the politicians, of course).

And it's spreading out across the country. One of my LJ friends has just reported the burning of a Macdonalds in Oxford, of all places.

I suppose what I'm saying is that it's too early for explanations. We've had riots in British cities before now (we had a corker up here in Oldham ten years ago) but nothing on this scale.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

They went to the station in Tottenham, not Scotland Yard (which is in the centre of London, and about 10 miles from Tottenham). Other than that, yes - pretty much.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the correction. :)