On Friday a man named Mark Duggan, 29, was shot and killed in an attempted arrest by the police. The next day a peaceful protest at the manner in which this father of four was killed descended into violence and rioting in the Tottenham area the man called home. It was a politically minded riot, one which was born out of frustration at a system which allowed this to happen. Yes it wasn't all like this but there was a point to it. The following evening the rioting continued but it moved to more looting than rioting, forgetting the initial cause of the riots and instead just taking an opportunity to watch their community burn. Yesterday however the riots moved into far more terrifying territory, shops were looted, streets were on fire, cars burned to a cinder. It made the so called 'student riots' look positively tame by comparison and it was heartbreaking to see people in a community taking away the livelihoods of local shopkeepers and publicans.
Yesterday's events have been divisive. If there's one thing we're united on it is that they were wrong and they need to stop. However the reasons behind them have left most people stumped. Some seem to suggest that the riots were initially a politically charged reaction to the shooting of Mark Duggan before they descended into copycat riots which were bred on greed and lawless society. Theresa May described it best by calling it "sheer criminality." Monday's riots however were a different breed. The violence was disgusting, the images I've seen have made me angry and sick. There was a picture circulating on Twitter of a woman jumping out of her window to escape the flames and I among many others were quick to decry it as a fake. The sad truth of it was that it was genuine but it reflects how unexpected these scenes were to the majority of us that we were so quick to dismiss the image. Perhaps a naive view but I'd call it hopeful, back when I like many other still had hope that the riots would stop.
They didn't though, the images on the news and the Internet, especially Twitter, were a horrible sight. There is a video which you can watch if you you have a strong stomach here as a group of rioters appear to help a bleeding boy up before robbing him and leaving him to an unknown fate. The only piece of light in this was a startling video of a Hackney woman, standing up to rioters and delivering an astounding speech in the face of the looting and vandalism (you can watch that here). The media line on the riots has flitted from "blame social networking" to "why didn't Cameron come home quicker?" I think therefore in the interest of fairness that I should argue the other side of both of those arguments, regardless of my own opinions on the riots. Firstly the knee jerk reaction to blame social networking. Yes of course they used social networking to organise themselves, the Arab Spring has used social networking to organise its protests against oppressive regimes so why wouldn't people use social networking to organise which Greggs to burn and which Curry's to steal their new 42' TV from? Some ridiculous corners of the Internet and the media seemed to suggest it was new technology which started the rioting. Yes the Internet can be a breeding ground for such things but it has also become a breeding ground for hope. Today a Twitter account and website have been set, (@Riotcleanup and www.riotcleanup.co.uk respectively) with the aim of cleaning up the mess that the rioting youths have left behind and showing them the community spirit that they feel so disconnected from. They react against the community because they feel it has nothing to offer them and no place for them but it is young people again who have set up the sites and organised themselves to clean up and rebuild the broken society.
Now I'm going to talk about Cameron, a man of whom I am not a fan but of whom the media has vilified for all the wrong reasons in this. As the tension built and the rioters rioted, social commentators on Twitter and even the BBC questioned where Britain's Prime Minister was in all of this. The answer was that he was on holiday but he didn't go on holiday as the riots began, he didn't run away from the issue, he just happened to be on holiday when it started. The first night of rioting was terrible but seemed that it would end quickly and as has been the case, Tottenham has been the scene of less and less violence since that night. The areas in which rioting has taken place now are copycat riots, but not copycat in the sense of mindless looting (although in the case of some bragging about their exploits on Twitter I'm sure that's true) but the anger has come from the alienation of these people in their community, I cannot stress that enough. Anyway back to Cameron. The idea that he could not make decisions from Italy is ridiculous and shows a real ignorance of the workings of government. If the riots had not escalated further the Prime Minister would have made his decisions via telephone or e-mail but apparently we needed to see his face, his slimy, pudgy and not exactly inspiring face. For what purpose? Today his statements have essentially been him condemning the riots, as if the talk was that he might support them. The words are not enough and will not bring comfort to shopkeepers whose livelihood has been taken from them. What Cameron needs is action, he needs to question the workings of the police force not cut their budget. He needs to stand with the country, encouraging those in the community to be present, visible and not just spectators. His good friend Boris needs to be here more than Cameron if anything, as Mayor of London it is his time and his responsibility to be a strong figurehead, not necessarily something you'd expect of him, but forget politics, we need leading. Sadly it seems at the moment that the government is not up to that job.
We need to keep the riot clean up going long after the physical damage to our cities has been repaired. The government is out of ideas so now we're up. This started because people felt a lack of community, let us end it by building a new one. Sites like Twitter and Facebook may have been the breeding ground for braking windows but it can be used to do more than fix those windows, it will be needed to build community from the ground up. Like the Norwegians though after their recent tragedy, we need more democracy, not less.
Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.
EDIT: Breaking news just as I wrote this article the Police confirm the first fatality in all this as a Croydon man, shot in his car, dies in hospital. It began with a death maybe it'll end with one but terrible that this had to happen for the events to sink in for some people.
Much better articles than I could ever write
Camila Batmanghelidjh - The Independent here
Mary Riddell - The Daily Telegraph here
and awlways worth a read, no matter your opinion of him. Littlejohn.
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