I’m huddled in the front room with some shell-shocked friends, watching my city burn. The BBC is interchanging footage of blazing cars and running street battles in Hackney, of police horses lining up in Lewisham, of roiling infernos that were once shops and houses in Croydon and in Peckham. Last night, Enfield, Walthamstow, Brixton and Wood Green were looted; there have been hundreds of arrests and dozens of serious injuries, and it will be a miracle if nobody dies tonight. This is the third consecutive night of rioting in London, and the disorder has now spread to Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol and Birmingham. Politicians and police officers who only hours ago were making stony-faced statements about criminality are now simply begging the young people of Britain’s inner cities to go home. Britain is a tinderbox, and on Friday, somebody lit a match. How the hell did this happen? And what are we going to do now?
In the scramble to comprehend the riots, every single commentator has opened with a ritual condemnation of the violence, as if it were in any doubt that arson, muggings and lootings are ugly occurrences. That much should be obvious to anyone who is watching Croydon burn down on the BBC right now. David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, called the disorder 'mindless, mindless'. Nick Clegg denounced it as 'needless, opportunistic theft and violence'. Speaking from his Tuscan holiday villa, Prime Minister David Cameron – who has finally decided to return home to take charge - declared simply that the social unrest searing through the poorest boroughs in the country was "utterly unacceptable." The violence on the streets is being dismissed as ‘pure criminality,’ as the work of a ‘violent minority’, as ‘opportunism.’ This is madly insufficient. It is no way to talk about viral civil unrest. Angry young people with nothing to do and little to lose are turning on their own communities, and they cannot be stopped, and they know it. Tonight, in one of the greatest cities in the world, society is ripping itself apart.
Violence is rarely mindless. The politics of a burning building, a smashed-in shop or a young man shot by police may be obscured even to those who lit the rags or fired the gun, but the politics are there. Unquestionably there is far, far more to these riots than the death of Mark Duggan, whose shooting sparked off the unrest on Saturday, when two police cars were set alight after a five-hour vigil at Tottenham police station. A peaceful protest over the death of a man at police hands, in a community where locals have been given every reason to mistrust the forces of law and order, is one sort of political statement. Raiding shops for technology and trainers that cost ten times as much as the benefits you’re no longer entitled to is another. A co-ordinated, viral wave of civil unrest across the poorest boroughs of Britain, with young people coming from across the capital and the country to battle the police, is another.
Months of conjecture will follow these riots. Already, the internet is teeming with racist vitriol and wild speculation. The truth is that very few people know why this is happening. They don’t know, because they were not watching these communities. Nobody has been watching Tottenham since the television cameras drifted away after the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985. Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news. In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:
"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"
"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere ‘’’
There are communities all over the country that nobody paid attention to unless there had recently been a riot or a murdered child. Well, they’re paying attention now.
Tonight in London, social order and the rule of law have broken down entirely. The city has been brought to a standstill; it is not safe to go out onto the streets, and where I am in Holloway, the violence is coming closer. As I write, the looting and arson attacks have spread to at least fifty different areas across the UK, including dozens in London, and communities are now turning on each other, with the Guardian reporting on rival gangs forming battle lines. It has become clear to the disenfranchised young people of Britain, who feel that they have no stake in society and nothing to lose, that they can do what they like tonight, and the police are utterly unable to stop them. That is what riots are all about.
Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis. They are not about poor parenting, or youth services being cut, or any of the other snap explanations that media pundits have been trotting out: structural inequalities, as a friend of mine remarked today, are not solved by a few pool tables. People riot because it makes them feel powerful, even if only for a night. People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing, and they realise that together they can do anything – literally, anything at all. People to whom respect has never been shown riot because they feel they have little reason to show respect themselves, and it spreads like fire on a warm summer night. And now people have lost their homes, and the country is tearing itself apart.
Noone expected this. The so-called leaders who have taken three solid days to return from their foreign holidays to a country in flames did not anticipate this. The people running Britain had absolutely no clue how desperate things had become. They thought that after thirty years of soaring inequality, in the middle of a recession, they could take away the last little things that gave people hope, the benefits, the jobs, the possibility of higher education, the support structures, and nothing would happen. They were wrong. And now my city is burning, and it will continue to burn until we stop the blanket condemnations and blind conjecture and try to understand just what has brought viral civil unrest to Britain. Let me give you a hint: it ain’t Twitter.
I’m stuck in the house, now, with rioting going on just down the road in Chalk Farm. Ealing and Clapham and Dalston are being trashed. Journalists are being mugged and beaten in the streets, and the riot cops are in retreat where they have appeared at all. Police stations are being set alight all over the country. This morning, as the smoke begins to clear, those of us who can sleep will wake up to a country in chaos. We will wake up to fear, and to racism, and to condemnation on left and right, none of which will stop this happening again, as the prospect of a second stock market clash teeters terrifyingly at the bottom of the news reports. Now is the time when we make our choices. Now is the time when we decide whether to descend into hate, or to put prejudice aside and work together. Now is the time when we decide what sort of country it is that we want to live in. Follow the #riotcleanup hashtag on Twitter. And take care of one another.
4 London youngest:Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult.
ReplyDelete"Ann Radcliffe"
I don't understand why they don't pick better targets. If you do want to burn a car, go find one that belongs to a truely bad guy/girl. They're so easy to find, instead of just setting fire to whatever store and flat you could find. And you would have a good statement, and perhaps even bring about real changes. This is just useless anarchy.
ReplyDeleteI come to this post via a FB link too. Can I just say (and apologies if someone has already made these points - life's too short for 122 comments):
ReplyDelete"Society is ripping itself apart" (it's been ripped for a long time),
"No one expected this" (I doubt that's true... I'm always surprised places like London are not continually burning for a whole host of different reasons) and
"The people running Britain had absolutely no clue how desperate things had become" (er, they did - they just chose to ignore it because it wasn't affecting any of their friends too much).
That's the way it seems from here anyway.
To all those people calling for the army, please remember, now more than ever, this is a battle for hearts and minds. Please see this in context.
ReplyDeleteThey are kids who don’t feel part of the values that we (sometimes forget) we cherish. Freedom of speech, democracy, and for want of a better phrase in our secular society, loving thy neighbour. They don't feel they have a voice, let alone an influence on what happens in this country through our democratic process. They feel so far away from the people allegedly representing them in authority, that democracy has failed them. They don't feel the grounding stability of a family who will make you feel unconditionally loved, whilst teaching you what is seen as wrong and right in our society. They are taught that education, work and healthcare are not just to be taken for granted, they are something to be fought. They are taught by our media, large corporations, and general mass behaviour that we value superficial looks, consumerism and individualistic behaviour.
But they are not lost. These are a finite group of deeply disenfranchised young people, who nonetheless represent a pervasive and growing, feeling in society. I for one am a 20 something in a fully time job with a loving family, and yet our government and authorities have disillusioned me so much I can certainly associate with their feelings, just not their recent behaviour.
So, how to start sorting this out? The good news is that people have been working with kids like this for decades. What works is compassionately, firmly, patiently showing them that as a society we value them, but this behaviour is unacceptable. You can use two of the most innately human characteristics: collaboration and creativity, to inspire people and give them the tools they needy live effectively in society.
How we deal with this now is critical. If we don't reach out to these kids now and reconnect them with society, the future repercussions are truly frightening. Just criminalising people only serves to separate them further from society. If we don’t deal with this now we will store up deadly group of people who have nothing to loose, feel even more hard done by in society, and are prepared to turn on their own communities. Let's remember that this is the generation who needs to be living in communities and culture resilient enough to deal with what is increasingly looking like the extreme strain of all our critical systems in food and energy.
But there’s more potential good news. Leadership and group mentality are always fiercely at work in teenage groups. You do what your peers do, and you follow the behaviour of the people you most respect in your group. Win over the relatively small group of ringleaders, and their influence can spread as quickly through their networks as it has in the past few days.
Looking at the work groups there like Urban Development (http://www.urbandevelopment.co.uk/) have done in Newham (the youngest borough in the UK, with one of the most multicultural populations, and the third lowest levels of socio economic deprivation) was the only time I have ever seen kids who previously didn’t actually, giving a shit.
Kids will run riot given half the chance, and that's exactly what's happened. Get the people the kids listen to talking to them, and publicly condemning this behaviour. On all our media: TV, facebook, twitterm blogs, myspace pages and back it up by activity in the real world.If they’ve shown us anything it’s confirmed that the power of the internet is to organise the real world. Let’s look at how we can use these profoundly new tools to re-organise our cities in these riots. The media is the only medium fast enough to deal with this spread. Don’t show then fear, show them boundaries and compassion. (http://we-are-living-in-interesting-times.blogspot.com/)
I've been reading this with interest and trying to think of the reason and a solution to all this. The one word that's shouting out at me here is RESPECT. In so many levels this is the one thing that is missing from these peoples' lives.
ReplyDeleteSelf Respect, respect for others, respect for authority and respect for community.
This is something that I fear is no longer taught at grass routes level; in the home. Parents does not seem to enforce control anymore. Kids are no longer taught that there are consequences to their actions.
Something as simple as teaching their kids to use a rubbish bin and not throw litter down on the street instills respect for their community. The community benefits from cleaner streets and people have a nicer place to live.
I look out my window and see young kids, and I mean 5 and 6 year olds, roaming streets well into the small hours? To me that says that the parents don't know or more likely don't care where they are. Petty mischief grows into more exciting mischief until the mischief turns into criminal acts. Until they see the consequences of their actions they will continue with this lifestyle and be easy prey as new gang recruits.
When they finally fall into the hands of the police they receive punishments that don't seem to register enough with them to stop them re-offending. As a country we are tied up in paperwork and red tape and fear of political correctness and peoples rights.
The law of this country is written to be followed but the powers that be must use their powers wisely and strictly enough to prevent re-offending.
If the punishment is not strong enough for a first time offender then the likelihood is that they will see it as not enough of a deterrent and they'll be back at the Station taking up valuable police time.
The paperwork that police have to go through every time they make an arrest or are called to a situation is debilitating. More paperwork at the Station means less time patrolling the streets and reacting to emergency calls.
If the parents took the time to teach their children right from wrong and respect not only for others but for themselves I believe that society would indeed benefit.
Brilliant piece of work! From fellow terrified Londoner...
ReplyDeleteHi Penny, I could translate this text into Spanish? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI agree with SJS - these people are not rioting against government cuts, lack of opportunities / jobs or the shooting of a local man... they probably don't even watch the news or know what is going on in a world outside their own selfish, insular lives.
ReplyDeleteThey choose to join in because they WANT EVERYTHING without EARNING ANYTHING... this includes tangible items such as the flat screen tvs or trainers they are stealing (for, this is just mindless theft) but also the respect they think they are due to, without proving they actually deserve any.
If there were job opportunities, is doesn't matter as they don't want to work; if there was a decent eduction on offer, it doesn't matter as they don't want to learn; and if there was a (much needed) sense of community spirit, it doesn't matter as they don't want to belong to one. We've spent the last twenty years teaching kids that they can have everything without working for it.
They simply think the world starts and ends with them and they don't give a damn because they know they can get away with anything.
One of the most intelligent pieces I have read about the British riots. Thanks for this. Stay safe.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say "they cannot be stopped" what you really mean is "they shouldn't be stopped". But they will.
ReplyDeleteTherese: Duggan's death might be a spark; social inequality is the flammable fumes, building up over the course of decades that it ignited.
ReplyDelete+1, insightful. We need more of this kind of analysis. The "immoderate" veering on violent right-wing reactionary talk about bringing in the army and water-cannons etc just won't solve anything, only stifle the poor for another short while.
This is easily the best piece of writing on the London riots I've read so far. Thank you for being so articulate and sharing it. I'm sharing it wherever I can!
ReplyDeleteBut that's just it, you are sitting inside a room with the rest of the cowering apathetic. Its easy to be an armchair activist. I was outside protecting our shops pro-actively. No matter how so-called "conservative" SJS might sound - this person is right. It's all about personal responsibility and its your choice to be either destructive or constructive in every move you take. Life is what you make it. I was responsible and accountable since I was 10 years old, whilst all the other irresponsible kids in my class did the opposite. There is no excuse, don't bemoan that you are owed a life of anything. You have to create it within all the limitations you have. In my mind, if you destroy all around you because you can't get what you want then you are a human sub species and a coward. ps. I think Will Smith proves as a moral and ethical African American, exactly what you can achieve when you choose the positive creative route with a sense of personal responsibility. The rest of you are lazy and indolent mentally.
ReplyDeleteBut that's just it, you are sitting inside a room with the rest of the cowering apathetic. Its easy to be an armchair activist. I was outside protecting our shops pro-actively. No matter how so-called "conservative" SJS might sound - this person is right. It's all about personal responsibility and its your choice to be either destructive or constructive in every move you take. Life is what you make it. I was responsible and accountable since I was 10 years old, whilst all the other irresponsible kids in my class did the opposite. There is no excuse, don't bemoan that you are owed a life of anything. You have to create it within all the limitations you have. In my mind, if you destroy all around you because you can't get what you want then you are a human sub species and a coward. ps. I think Will Smith proves as a moral and ethical African American, exactly what you can achieve when you choose the positive creative route with a sense of personal responsibility. The rest of you are lazy and indolent mentally.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this great piece of writing.
ReplyDeleteI'm from a lower middle class background (Australia), my family actually came from Lewisham before they bought the cheapest fare to Australia. I have been striving for a better life through education but i still feel despair at the inequalities still so present in all Western societies. I've known peers to forgo spending money on rent and food to buy a brand name piece of clothing instead. A shallow analysis will show that to be a sign of horribly shallow value systems. A deeper analysis may well point to a desperate cry for self worth, a root cause that doesn't have to be justified but does need to be addressed.
Yes, the violence is wrong. What are you going to do about it? and to prevent any more?
"I really object to your view of youth services being "a few pool tables".. The youth workers I have known (and have had to go on to do other things after being made unemployed) worked extremely hard with some of the toughest situations, parents and kids in our communities and achieved amazing results. "
ReplyDeleteI agree with this. I'm not a youth worker - but I work with many; I work with many young people from disadvantaged areas - fundraising to set up something that will give more opportunities.
I think this is a well written piece but the flippant dismissal of good work with young people is unfortunate. Surely the cuts in youth service provision would fit better into your claim that "after thirty years of soaring inequality, in the middle of a recession, they could take away the last little things that gave people hope, the benefits, the jobs, the possibility of higher education, the support structures" and lead to these events. Otherwise it's a bit contradictory!
Am I allowed to add my thoughts on this issue?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jasonpaulgrant.co.uk/attack-of-the-hoodies
@geo hyperform:
ReplyDeleteyou are awesome! and you understand the basic dis-ease and sickness we are now, globally being called to address. We need to build connections of like minds and hearts to strengthen a transition to deep connectedness and generosity. I have no way of knowing who you are, but keep your eyes out for the "one giant mind" movement. coming your way.
@geo hyperform:
ReplyDeleteyou are awesome! and you understand the basic dis-ease and sickness we are now, globally being called to address. We need to build connections of like minds and hearts to strengthen a transition to deep connectedness and generosity. I have no way of knowing who you are, but keep your eyes out for the "one giant mind" movement. coming your way.
Thanks for this. I'm from London but living now in Oslo - so it's all a bit apocalyptic recently...
ReplyDeleteWhile all sorts of media everywhere are clutching for clichés I did read Jonas Bals (pity about the name?) in Le Monde international with a few intelligent comments about how the supposed naïveté that is 'lost' is and was chosen and was never naïve and never innocent.
More importantly (or more appositely to your own story) he points out that while the madman's freakout was of itself isolated and unique, there are elements in his manifesto that are widely shared and *to which we must relate politically* (my own clumsy translation).
Things don't happen in vacuums and vacuums don't happen without natural abhorrence. It does warm the cockles a bit to see that someone is seeing the picture.
Watch this space - good luck.
"In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed; a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital. These laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market." Communist Manifesto
ReplyDeleteWhat's the unemployment rate amongst those who are wild in the streets?
My guess is that most of them are unemployed.
Fucking sums it up tidy like.
ReplyDelete2 Very useful sites in the fight against this idiots.
ReplyDeletePlease visit and try to help. It's the least we can do from our comfortable chairs.
http://catchalooter.tumblr.com/
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/metropolitanpolice/
Thank you very much!
Thank you for this post. I think it's a very clear perspective on what may be behind all of this.
ReplyDeleteI've read the comments of plenty of people who disagree, and think this has become much less about politics and oppression, and much more about greed and sheer violence. They make excellent points as well.
And I have to wonder why we continue to see things in black and white.
Why can't we understand that, yes, some of the people rioting aren't out there because they're desperate to be heard, but can we really go so far as to say that all of them are greedy and opportunistic?
We cannot completely coddle these protesters because of their background and upbringing, but nor can we condemn them all as violent, mindless mob.
They are people, and they can't be summed up in a few ideas any easier than you or I can be.
"Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis."
ReplyDeleteIncisive, and agreed.
But "watching my city burn", "one of the greatest cities in the world" and "society is ripping itself apart" are pure hyperbole (and cliche).
Primarily, I find this to be disturbing: "The so-called leaders who have taken three solid days to return from their foreign holidays"
Firstly, and least importantly, why the word "foreign" there? Is it to imply that going abroad is the hallmark of a cigar-chomping, caviar-snorting top-hatted capitalist? It look as if "going to Foreignland" is code for "disgustingly rich" which, at the turn of the last century it might have been. But it ain't now.
Most importantly is your implicit assertion that if only our leaders had returned earlier (or not gone to Foreignland at all) everything would be alright. If only our wise paternalist leaders had their hand reassuringly on the rudder of state, there wouldn't be unrest.
This is, of course, preposterous. This lazy belief in Leaders is prevalent in the right and the left (I've seen lots of comments on Twitter from left-leaning friends deriding the fact that our leaders have been on holiday. In holiday season, the bastards).
If only David Cameron hadn't cut this budget, it implies, Dwayne Scumbag wouldn't be nicking from an injured boy (youtube video: http://t.co/9wa2AAn). If only David Cameron/ Boris Johnson / Ed Milliband were sitting in their office in a suit and tie, it'll be OK because it's not the rioters' responsibility and it's not our responsibiliity - we can all turn on The X Factor and go back to sleep.
But David Cameron, scumbag though he is, did not seize power in a military coup. We - as a society - elected him, and no-one seriously expected him to do anything else other than gleefully rekindle Thatcherism.
We - as a society - enjoyed the practically free credit that allowed us to stock up on the shiny consumer durables that are being looted now. And we as a society tell each other that ownership of Brand X or machine Y is so important to your value as a human being that you should break a window to acquire one.
And if we as a society are so infantilised that we believe that we're helpless until a Leader comes back from Foreignland, then we're in even bigger trouble than it seems.
Please share this links on your social media sites. Let's name and shame. It's our turn to have fun.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/metropolitanpolice/
and
catchalooter.tumblr.com
Thank you very much!
Does ANYBODY reading this blog have a journalism connection? This essay needs to be published and read by politicians. Laurie Penny should be given a voice to publicly address leaders.
ReplyDeleteI'm in Texas. I've been to London several times, and this is heartbreaking. I'm so sorry this is going on.
@SJS I couldn't agree more with your post!
ReplyDeleteLife is about choices. My upbringing was not dissimilar to yours and yet I have made something of my life through the choices I have made.
There should be no excuses made for these mindless criminals.
Sorry this NOT a UK problem, this is an English problem. No riots in Scotland, Wales or NI.
ReplyDeleteThis is a rather patronising article followed by a lot of patronising comments.
ReplyDeleteYou're essentially saying these people are too stupid to find other means to express their frustration.
Give these people more credit - they know exactly what they are doing: getting stuff for free.
Interesting bit of analysis - of course it misses out that this is all about "how to teal a mobile phone in a new and fun way."
ReplyDeleteThis is not about "empowerment" it is about getting your kicks.
Full or words, empty of understanding.
Oh, and by the way. 90% of London saw no rioting or violence at all.
This is the type of reaction that is the reserve of middle-class people who like to believe that they think too much. They feign concern but are more than happy (secretly) that there own life is better than other peoples'. If everyone had more, there would still be people with less relatively speaking. These 'poor' people have more than middle class people had 60 years ago, but because relatively speaking by today's western standards it feels like less, the dummy is out of the pram. Two words, water cannon.
ReplyDeleteA beautifully written piece but I can't agree whole heartedly with it. You say that "Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this
ReplyDeleteweekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs...". People writing etc these days means people on blogs such as this as well as newspapers, TV etc. Clearly from the comments here there are plenty who know exactly what it's like. I am blind, paraplegic and I would say in the poorer end of society, I am happy and able to work but I haven't found a job recently, at least in part due to discrimination. No, this situation isn't about individuals. Undoubtedly these things happen during bad economic times, disenfranchisement, racism, consumerism and all the rest of it. But as another commenter pointed out what else can we do?: despite its problems, this country still does have one of the most generous benefits systems in the world, free education, social housing. So I don't know what else to do, which is probably why I'm not a politician: I see problems and questions rather than buzz words and snap answers.
You mustn't dismiss parenting as a factor either. It is obvious to anyone who thinks about it, and evident from some of the comments here, that one of the important factors that makes a difference between who becomes a skumbag in these situations and who doesn't is the parenting. And we live in a society where a significant proportion of young people see having a baby as a ticket to free housing and income. I don't find that comfortable to say: by no means am I "they're all scroungers" type person. But at the same time this is true, and it is wrong. Perhaps the good benefits system is in part to blame for not making people take responsibility for their own actions? At the same time I am not saying that everyone on benefits is a scrounger; and morally speaking, what do you do other than give someone a flat if they are young, single and pregnant? It will only be the innocent child who suffers if you don't. But how have parents, culture, society, let things get to a state where people will use the precious business of bringing another human into the world as a currency? No politicians ever seem to have debates like this: it's either cuts or leaving things exactly as they are.
I think at this time, apart from the immediate business of trying to clear up the mess, punish those responsible, mourn the dead who surely will arrive sooner or later, we must debate such moral questions. And I mean deep moral questions, not simply blaming particular individuals or halting all changes to the benefits system. But it won't happen. This outbreak will be used as an excuse for increased bureaucracy, inefficiency, tighter laws, suppression of free speech, job cuts, shoddy treatment of customers by insurance companies, and every other practice those who have power, in whatever form, are prone to doing.
Right now though I can't help thinking of individuals: my father, a frail confused man who spent his life working horrible shifts so that people can get to work on trains, my closest friend who is blind and therefore inevitably more vulnerable at this time, and my brother, also blind, hard working, caring and non violent, all of whom are in affected areas. Please let it stop soon.
@geo hyperform:
ReplyDeleteyou are awesome! and you understand the basic dis-ease and sickness we are now, globally being called to address. We need to build connections of like minds and hearts to strengthen a transition to deep connectedness and generosity. I have no way of knowing who you are, but keep your eyes out for the "one giant mind" movement. coming your way.
Things I find interesting: media seem to be showing quite a bit of PoCs, but citizen reporting is showing a much more diverse composition of the rioters. Feels like we are seeing shaping of the narrative again, much as we did during tuition fee protests when focus was on a few broken windows and Camilla looking horrified rather than protesters being kettled and beaten.
ReplyDeleteI'm an American student here just trying to make sense of things and this was one of the best pieces I've been able to find. Thank you.
ReplyDelete@Macate you dont think having a job is better then getting a lousy 70 pounds a week? people with your mindset is why this has happened in the first place.
ReplyDeletefantastic article, much respect from Australia.
@Michael Gambill
ReplyDeleteThe most useful perspective is one of pragmatic doubt. I do not know any of the protesters personally, so I cannot begin to suggest their motives or reasoning behind their actions.
I can appreciate the wider socio-economic situation however and then empathise with these people. I do not think anyone is condoning the actions, but I see people trying to understand 'why', without emotions clouding the issues.
Firstly, so that I am not misunderstood, I join everyone else in utterly condemning the mindless violence and looting we have seen over the last few days - and I have spent some while trying to make some sense of how on earth this could happen here in the UK.
ReplyDeleteAs a parent of two (now adult) children, I remember the seeds of generational conflict (that is what I think this is) being sown during their adolescence and over the last 20 years. The media and society has spent a lot of time 'criminalising' our teenagers; at the same time, a nanny state culture has not allowed them to take responsibiity for themselves or their actions.
Think about it for a moment; parents often fall into two camps - the overly protective and the ones who take no responsiility for shaping their children into the adults they will become. Kids run riot and there are no consquences ... so society has legislated for this highly visible minority.
What do we now have? If too many kids try to go shopping together they get banned from shops(fear of shoflifting), if too many kids hang out on a steet corner they are disbanded (intimidating to others); if too many kids hang out in a park they get hassle in case they may be drinking, or worse on the basis of fear of what they may do. If they get together to have a party in woods or elsewhere it is stopped and disbanded. what is there out there for our kids right now?
In my youth we went to pubs when we were underage and drank shandy, we had discrete parties in the woods with a philosphy of doing no harm so we wouldnt get bothered and it was generally accepted as OK so long as no one was disturbed by our actions - but that philosophy is there no more - instead we seem to have Zero Tolerance of just about everything.
The ID card has stopped underage pub entry, along with a wider culture that seems to disapprove of anyone having fun of any kind, whatever thier age. (When did you last go to a party and not get a noise complaint, even if it is just too much laugher and voices raised in merriment?) So what CAN our teenagers do? Not a lot, and if you are branded as louts or worse all the time, the leap from normal behaviour to rioting is not quite so great. They clearly dont feel like they have too much to lose.
Whilst what is currently going on is probably cuased by a small minority, the fact remains that as a nation we do not value ir respect our youth. We have a Zero Tolerance philsophy where they are concerned, and they have no voice. What repsonse does youth have to a culture of Zero Tolerance except outright rebellion?
I think society needs to think long and hard; the criminal elements must be brought to justice (actions must have consequences) but at the same time society has to address the deeper malaise that exists in our culture.
Thank you Penny,
ReplyDeleteI live in Australia, but was born in England and have family there. I barely knew about the rioting but now I at least understand some of it.
I think these pictures show some of the damage you are talking about : http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/inpictures/2011/08/201188233856953939.html
What a great entry. I came across your blog through a friend's post on Facebook (I live in the states). Keep up the great writing!
ReplyDeleteMachu pichu, perhaps that is your experience, but mine is quite the opposite. ONE pool table is exactly what they gave the kids at our local community centre after telling them they were shutting the local Library. The people in that community centre are parents from the area, NVQ's are popular with them but they haven't seen much if anything from the gov't.
ReplyDeleteA great post apart from I don't share your optimistic closing paragraph..
ReplyDelete"Now is the time when we decide whether to descend into hate, or to put prejudice aside and work together."
Unfortunately it is too late for that. The damage is done, the communities are divided and society broken.
It all started in the 1960's and each generation has made it worse. Prejudice is the natural reaction when you see your way of life torn apart.
Great piece - thank you.
ReplyDeleteWhy are some people having so much difficulty understanding the fact that whatever is or is not going through the minds of the looters, and however wrong their actions are, that there are still wider issues of which this is a symptom. Some of the things we're seeing videos of are horrific - bleeding children being mugged being the one that sticks out to me - but whatever culpability the offenders have, it does not detract from the wider socio-political and economic issues. Ironically the rioters, in some sense are just consequences and symptoms.
And just because one person gets out of an impoverished situation is no argument that another person should. It's simply a fallacy to think so.
excellent!
ReplyDelete@zetetic wrote "Ironically the rioters, in some sense are just consequences and symptoms."
ReplyDeleteWay to disenfranchise people - you're like herpes........or a runny nose.
This blog is the most sense anybody has made so far of the situation!
ReplyDeleteWell Done!!
please read LincolnCounselling - My thoughts are this is rent-a-mob, paid criminals and opportunist criminals perpetrating an agenda that will lead to martial law
ReplyDeleteSay what you will about those that are doing the rioting, for whatever reason. You know who I feel sorry for in all this? Not the rioters. Not whatsoever. It's all the innocent bystanders that are being affected by the rioters. Trashed businesses, homes, etc. THEM If the rioters are doing all this because of the inequality of their lives, just think how much worse those innocent bystanders lives are now, because of their violent actions. Deplorable in my opinion. They didn't even consider how this was going to affect the people they supposedly are standing up for. If they are doing it to raise awareness of being part of the 'have not' crowd, they just made some people lives a whole lot worse than their own. Shame on them.
ReplyDeleteHas anybody heard of 'mob mentality'? It only takes a small faction of dissidents to create this mess. People get caught up in the moment. Some like-minded individuals will jump on the bandwagon 'just because'. If you're lucky enough to not get caught, you just had a grand old time doing something that could land you in jail. What a thrill that is huh? I can only hope they meet the people they trashed and discover what their lives are like in the aftermath of these riots.
BTW, I have a friend who is black, who had a lousy childhood, and his schooling was nothing he would ever wish on another human being, and continues to fight to this day to fix what went wrong, but is he out there with these mobsters? Hell no. He is appalled at what he is seeing down the road. If these rioters truly did this for what is 'injustice', then everything he did for the past few years, just as he was getting somewhere with it, just went up in smoke. Literally.
I think it is opertunistic. In terms of actual enjoyment from it, lets face it, they do get a rush from it, and looting.
ReplyDeleteI have heard it said that there is a political agenda behind this but I think that is rubbish.
I think it is that some groups in the UK since they have to little simply have so little to loose except their criminal record and are too young to realise or care the importance of that.
It does to me highlight how fractured society is in the UK. How there are so many young people with so little to loose.
Dr. Martin Luther King said "A riot is the language of the unheard." I'm an indigenous woman from Canada and I totally understand what makes a city go up in flames. It's the anger of those on the outside looking in, the realization that no matter what kind of education you have or the jobs you can train for or the kind of "Person" you are, you will NEVER amount to anything in this society because you are not the same as those who are in the ruling classes.
ReplyDeleteSo glad SJS posted or I would have thought that I had just wasted 5 mins of my life reading a blog from someone who wants to make a name for herself by taking an alternate view. Did this epiphany come to you while you were writing in your living room, or did you immerse yourself in their daily hardships and experience it? While there are fragments of truth in there, I do not believe for one second that all these rioters are yearning for a forum to be heard. 'Now you are listening'. That statement reminds me of a spoiled child that screams in a tantrum - 'I want an icecream too'. You make it sound like its all our fault implying with that old chestnut 'Society is to blame' We oppressed them, we marginalized them, we made them feel worthless. I struggle to see what opportunities they missed out on?
ReplyDeleteThank you Laurie Penny for your thoughtful words. In our view, the rebellions, as we prefer to call them, kicked off in Tottenham, were, as you say from the "structural inequalities" that Africans and other oppressed people face in the UK. We see it as colonialism. The US and British empires are unraveling - which is a good thing! We do see many white working class people involved now in the "unrest" for a number of different reasons. In the US, the situation is worsening, AFrican people in the US are bearing the brunt of the economic crisis, as per usual, and police violence is on the rise. We call on true solidarity from allies of the African liberation struggle to join the movement for economic development, not police containment, for African self-determination. Our future lies in solidarity with the liberation of African and oppressed peoples, not with fighting for crumbs and trying to reform and dying but not yet dead empire. Uhuru! means freedom http://uhurusolidarity.blogspot.com/2011/08/solidarity-with-rebellions-in-britain.html
ReplyDeletePenny misunderstands violence. It can be mindless. It can also be fun.
ReplyDeleteThis is recreational theft
Well said. This is going around on Facebook. Was posted by a top literary agent in NYC on his page, picked up by the host of a CBC literary radio show in Vancouver.
ReplyDeleteSituation around the world in this regard brings to mind that Buffalo Springfield song from the Sixties:
There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down...
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound....
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Margo in Canada
David Lammy - although a Conservative and therefore anathema to some - hit the nail on the head when he said 'people in our community demand their rights, but with that comes responsibility'
ReplyDeleteI was born in Tottenham, and I don't recognise the place as portrayed in the media right now. Many of those stealing and burning down properties don't come from the area. Two girls were interviewed on BBC today - they said it was fun to destroy people's lives and they could do what they wanted. I come from a very deprived background (no education/lack of food etc) - I never felt the need to loot or damage. These yobs, and they are just that, meet by using social networks - they have Blackberries, computers etc. Deprived? Try Sudan.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants have come to London to do jobs that Britains wont do.Go to a hotel or restaurant in London and you will find that often every single employee is from another country.This narrative that the apologists for looting promulgate of"permanent unemployment, generational unemployment, no hope, exclusion etc, " is therefore total fiction. A bus fare to anywhere in London costs £1.30. People may lose their jobs in London particularly in a recession but they find other ones, they don't need to spend 30 years permanently unemployed.
ReplyDeleteI challenge any one of you to refute the truth in what I have just said.
Wolves and Rainbows - I just read your post. Just reinforces what I have said - so thank you for that. I can't watch the news - I am sickened by what has happened to the people who have lost their businesses - these aren't the 'rich' - they are small shop-owners who now have nothing. I don't have any sympathy whatsoever for these 'protestors'. They don't even know what they are protesting about - they are pig-ignorant.
ReplyDeleteObjective and empathic, you show excellent qualities in a journalist. Your understanding is on target. Thanks! Will tweet this.
ReplyDeleteVery well said. My old home city, Bristol, is also burning and I have friends there. I am worried about them but I am disgusted by some of the racism and ignorant vitriol spilling out of my friends across the country. So many people seem to have failed to understand why these things are happening and they believe the red tops that tell them it's because black people are more inclined to violence than white people!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your views so eloquently and I hope that you remain safe and that this unrest calms down soon so that we can begin to address the issues that caused it.
Hailing from Cleveland, Ohio in the USA. Laurie, what you've penned here seems to draw many parallels from the Hough riots that occurred in Cleveland in 1966. I've attached a link to the e-history: http://www.clevelandmemory.org/hough/
ReplyDeleteDoesn't seem like the world's learned much in the last 45 years, does it? And many of the comments made here echo those made back then.
Brilliant piece of writing, by the way. I hope it is widely shared. Wishing Peace for all in your beleaguered part of the country.
Thanks, Penny, for telling like it is.
ReplyDelete@SJS: While you are correct that people have responsibility as individuals, I think you will find that most people, anywhere, are followers. They are deeply affected by their surroundings and lack the ability to leave the herd that is the only home they know. It goes for the rich and insensitive, too. There is no honor in making people's lives miserable and then faulting them for failing to do good. While they should be held accountable for violence and vandalism, government should also be held accountable for not providing its citizens with an environment more supportive of individual achievement. How many jobs are there, really, for the people you left behind?
You say that the young people in these communities are "disenfranchised" but how is that the case? They have the right to vote the same as any other young person in the country. Of course they are living in tough circumstances and they have a lot to complain about but why does this give them to right to cause so much violence and destruction. You say nobody listens to them. But do they have anything to say? Does the government listen to any young people in the country? Or anyone else for that matter? We can't all go around rioting because noone listens to us. If you want to be listened to then say something worse listening to. If you don't like your situation do something positive to change it. I agree with another poster that your analysis on this is rather naive. We've been "hugging hoodies" for too long and see where that has got us. Time for a different approach.
ReplyDelete"People riot because it makes them feel powerful, even if only for a night." This sentence, in particular, made me think about the riots differently. Wonderful writing.
ReplyDeleteGreat post.
ReplyDeleteInteresting thoughts, excellently documented.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is we live in an over-populated corporatocracy that is inherently unable, and unwilling, to support everyone. People always have, and always will, fall through the net.
That so many people go unloved and are fucked up way before they reach the age where they are able to think for themselves and pull themselves up is unbelievably tragic.
"Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis. They are not about poor parenting, or youth services being cut, or any of the other snap explanations that media pundits have been trotting out: structural inequalities, as a friend of mine remarked today, are not solved by a few pool tables. People riot because it makes them feel powerful, even if only for a night."
ReplyDeleteI'm quite certain that all of these elements are equally and varyingly valid.
"Violence is rarely mindless" - really? I have to laugh at that notion as a woman who grew up in Chicago.
ReplyDeleteClearly more emphasis needs to be placed on education, social programs, and cultural integration. But, nothing justifies these youths' behavior. Their actions are disrespecting the privilege of living in the UK, and their fellow citizens.
Positive response from the local community og Peckham, 'post-it note wall' on the subject: "why we love Peckham" http://twitpic.com/63h8x0
ReplyDelete#londonriots
Thanks Penny, for your sagacious 24 year-old insights into modern British society. Your post-modernist ramblings don't really seem to have much of a central point, other than pointing out that everyone but you is woefully wrong about what's happening here.
ReplyDeleteIn times like these, smug little twits like you are our first line of defence.
Stay in your flat and blog.
Did you delete my comment because you thought it was off-topic? Please explain yourself.
ReplyDeleteWendy Snyder
Uhuru Solidarity Movement
You have a lot of sympathy for these people. They are not helpless and actually have good access to houses, healthcare and the educational system. If they want.
ReplyDeleteIt is the disenfranchised people in Somalia (who starve) and the sick workers in Chinese shoe factories (who manufacture the shoes these people steal) who I feel really sorry for. Not these.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"British society suffers from selective collective amnesia. How can anyone in this society call Africans thieves, criminals, and thugs?
ReplyDeleteThe British government and the rest of the European governments are involved in daily crimes against black people everywhere. Our presence in Europe itself is a result of British criminality that stole us away from Africa.
We are here because the whole economy of Africa, the Caribbean and wherever else black people live is based on the expropriation of our natural resources and unpaid labour and near free labour to benefit Europe and North America.
We cannot even begin to discuss the level of violence that comes with this colonial theft of our lives and resources."
Read the rest at http://uhurunews.com/story?resource_name=stand-with-the-resisting-african-workers-in-britain
And this is definitely on topic - thank you!
Well written. Poignant.
ReplyDeleteI am sharing it everywhere I can, including my blog. I hope that's all right.
Thank you so much for this write-up. I live in Los Angeles and have been through riots here. I thought that I understood what was going on. But this article showed me that the roots of the UK riots are much deeper and widespread than what we've had here.
ReplyDeleteI think many of us in the U.S. think of the U.K. as just a smaller version of ourselves. We forget that the politics and governments have subtle differences that change the basic foundations of how we live. Though things are looking bad here economically, they seem to still be better off.
I do hope that the UK is able to pull out of this a better and more successful country for your own sakes and also as an example for us to follow should we continue our downward spiral.
I agree with your analysis of the situation, but why advocate the 'cleanup'? While most of the opinions i see on #riotcleanup are 'it is us - true brits - coming together to brush these scum cretines away'??? Or, as someone said, #riotcleanup is a realization of a 'big society'. Now go do your part.
ReplyDeleteOK, I understand that it is important to look at causes and such.
ReplyDeleteBut my empathy lies with the 99% of these communities who are not rioting. They have the same problems as the rioters, but now they're also having their homes and businesses burned down.
They're the real victims, and they're every bit as poor as the mob. It is they that we should be supporting.
It's a little painful, when violent riots take place, that in spite of me being of the left, I end up feeling as if anyone who feels like me is a crazy rightist. I'm not. I just have a deep dislike for thuggery, and I know exactly what that mob would do to me if it got their hands on me, regardless of who I vote for, or which causes I support.
It is the peaceful victims of these riots that we should be supporting, and empathising with.
As I sit in Dalston, a palpable air of expectation, a foreboding, prevailing, I read with interest your incisive and very intuitive insight and account into the problem or problems which assault our community at large. (It having been forwarded virtually by a trusted friend...)
ReplyDeleteThe proselytising and inane babbling by the authorities and elected officials, and I use that term 'authorities' with such loose definition it is almost a misnomer,is so completely wide of the mark. How can these so called officials who pride themselves on their educated status, their privileged position, be so out of touch with what is wrong and endemic throughout. I listened to a guy called 'Bailey' on the news..he seemed to have an idea as did some professor speaking from Liverpool...The much maligned Police force, like any institution run by humans is subject to corruption and error, but the vast majority of it's workers are trying their best in the face of impalpable odds...they are expected to provide better service and a higher demand, on ever decreasing budgets. They have become statisticians for the Whitehall grey coats who sanctimoniously espouse and regurgitate ever increasing volumes of diatribe in the hope that the person on the street will like the proverbial mushroom, continue to remain in the dark and be fed...sh%te!
Any wonder that the disaffected and disenfranchised have said enough is enough. Yesterday evening as I walked up Ashwin St E8 en route to meet a friend in Arcola St, I passed a group of young men on their bicycles, it was early evening and they were gathering, attired for mischief and mayhem. These lads weren't thugs in the way the media seem to be purporting them to be, these were educated and articulate kids, let down by their communities, their institutions of faith and education, their sporting heroes and no doubt their peers at large. Quite naturally when you continue to cage and corral, there comes a point when even the most mild mannered and meek will retaliate and bite back. To apply a blanket reference to what is happening as mere thuggery and theft is negligence in the extreme Teresa May & David Cameron open your eyes and ears. I do not support violence nor indeed the pillaging, but who out there would walk away from the sweet shop empty handed when the shopkeepers back is turned!
The world is a very unsettled place at the moment, the money men and grey suits seem to have ruled with wanton abandon since Thatcher & Reagan...this laissez faire ethos is no longer, (was it ever?) acceptable. It's a time for measured responsibility, a time for communities to take ownership, to instill pride in the creation of environments that we love. It is no longer sufficient for we the people to sit on our lofty perches spouting rhetoric and philosophy, we must shake off our apathy and get down, dirty and involved...lest one day we look back and rue our ineffectuality...
The sirens continue...Kingsland High Road is in Lockdown...even the Barratt Building site above Dalston Junction is eerily desolate having released it's horde of Eastern Europeans and Paddys....we wait...and muse...and contemplate....Now is the summer of our discontent made inglorious by this son of..
April 2nd, 2011:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/apr/02/brixton-riots-anniversary
You write that no one expected this yet also say that "Britain is a tinderbox, and on Friday, somebody lit a match."
People had their eyes closed, or have been choosing to look away.
enjoyed reading this, refreshing.
ReplyDeleteHi from Spain!I just wanted to offer a different point of view from the distance, which is sometimes the best way to see problems.Here at home a lot of people, and this is thousands, took to the streets last May because they were sick of political parties,EU inept civil servants and corruption on every side.They had had enough of elections and promises that were never fulfilled and just scratched their heads because this democracy- which is only about my age and I'd say I'm young-is simply not the answer to our problems.And the worst is that no-one can come up with a better system.Nobody has the guts to criticise it either, since he would be labelled as pro-dictatorship.
ReplyDeleteI live in a small city and have a local council with 15 counsellors, an area council with 36 deputies, a regional council with another 75 , two Spanish parliaments (congress and senate) with 350 + 264 members and the european parlament with 720 members.I would say that's a lot of cars, secdretaries, houses and briefcases.I'm not sure I need that many people to discuss my future.
These people that were protesting in the streets in Spain and will continue to do so, did it in silence and peacefully growing by the day and sleeping in tents in the streets for months.I'm pretty sure these rioters have very unhappy lives.Perhaps some might be right to blame the system for it.The system, however, doesn't own any of these shops that were looted and burnt down.
@ SJS: While I can relate to your indignation as a person who managed to defy odds myself, I was ignorant of the mechanisms of oppression until I read "Ain't No Makin' It" by Jay Macleod.
ReplyDeleteThe book puts into perspective why people who emerge from poverty and oppression so often tend toward anti-social, criminal, apathetic behaviors.
It only *seems* they have a choice, when in reality, there are factors that will rob them of choice one way or another, and these factors are attributed to society's long term effects upon many generations of impoverished people.
Here is a link to the Wiki about the phenomenon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achievement_ideology
That being said,
many have mentioned the US being on the brink of similar riots, but there is a difference. Our police are armed, and this does result in death fairly regularly here for even a rowdy, mentally ill street-person. Fear is a powerful tool and lethal force is a slippery slope. Wishing death upon these people is in some way wishing for a police state.
A really well written article, very insightful.
ReplyDeleteSome interesting responses too especially some of the more dissenting ones.
It seems to me that understanding a problem is not tantamount to excusing it or justifying it. I vaguely remember some of my O'level History, I understand how and why Hitler came to power, I certainly don't excuse or condone his invasion of Europe or his attempt to exterminate all the Jews from Europe, if after WW1 there had been less retribution and more understanding there may not have been a Hitler. Many millions of lives later they learnt that punishing Germany again would lead to the same.
I am sure there are many people like the few here who have lived through similar circumstances to those now rioting, and like they say they are not rioting or mugging. So surely what is important is why, what was different for you, because there sure as hell was many differences. Different parents, different Grand-parents, abusive parents, neglectful parents, an influential teacher, a chance happening the list could go on. You basically got lucky. It really isn't as simple as a choice, that choice was arrived at for a reason, there were influences that led to that choice to get educated and get out. Not everybody has the privilege of that influence or influences.
Humans are not born ready to riot and all the other anti-social stuff we see every night on voyeuristic Cop with camera type programmes. So blame the parents, why not that's easy, what is going to change it though, that's not so easy because those same teens are going to have children and the problem perpetuates or what is more likely worsens. Crap schools, poor housing, draconian policing it all contributes. It can't be contained forever as it bursts out from time to time, and unless we do something radically different it always will.
What is not on offer from most of the dissenters to Penny Reds article is sensible and reasonable solutions. Maybe you genuinely want the bullets to fly as a solution, fortunately it will not happen, that's how Syria and alike deal with social unrest. So what are the dissenters solutions? lets see them here. You can forget short sharp shock, it's been done to death, it doesn't work. We already have the largest prison population in the West so forget that, and just consider the cost of locking more and more people up. So where are your realistic solutions to this, criticism is really very easy, creative solutions that will genuinely work are not, and they aren't free either.
Interesting and rational take on things, but I don't agree that it's not due to poor parenting, or that it's because kids have nothing to do and no opportunities. These kids learn their behaviour from somewhere, and it's a vicious circle of parents not inspiring their kids because they don't feel inspired themselves, the kids then don't think they're worth anything and so on. The parents don't teach their kids to be respectful which makes them disruptive to their communities and to their teachers and so on, and they have no real consequences from the police or their parents when they cause trouble. The kids are offered plenty of opportunities but they're not encouraged to take them, nor do they want to because in their opinion they don't believe they will ever be able to achieve anything. To stop the kids turning into rioters they need to inspire the parents, and give teachers back disciplinary powers without them being afraid they're going to get sued.
ReplyDeleteAll the people from the other sides of the atlantic who have congratulated this girl on her writing have no idea and should be ashamed of yourselves!! These people are NOT misunderstood. We live in a country with FREE health care, education and benefits. We have no natural disasters and are not 3rd world. These are greedy thugs who are destroying there own communities and prospects. Yes we have a bad economic climate but these arse holes are making things worse by cause thousands of pounds worth of damage. destroying jobs and homes. This is no revolution you are making this worse for yourselves and the economy.
ReplyDeleteYou've got plenty of your own "snap explanations" here, just like those you condemn. In fact in the same paragraph as you condemn them you make up your own.
ReplyDelete"They are not about poor parenting, or youth services being cut, or any of the other snap explanations that media pundits have been trotting out: structural inequalities[SNAP], as a friend of mine remarked today, are not solved by a few pool tables. People riot because it makes them feel powerful, [SNAP] even if only for a night. People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing [SNAP], and they realise that together they can do anything [SNAP] – literally, anything at all. People to whom respect has never been shown riot because they feel they have little reason to show respect themselves [SNAP], and it spreads like fire on a warm summer night."
The electric air of a street before a riot..you can't get that on the Internet and I haven't felt it since the 80s. Sorry, the reasons for the riots are obvious: social policy or the lack of it creates yobbery. See: London Riots: What the hell did you expect?.
ReplyDeleteMany of us have worked hard to drop this stereotype only to have it thrown in our faces by mindless idiots who are failing to get points across much less using violence. When had that ever worked in any advantage. I am outrage as a young adult in this country, I am already being judge now these have given the country to us. I felt great unease around around the public as they just flaring with disgusting looks. What is this going to mean for the young in this country in this present and the future effect
ReplyDeletePlease also remember the many, many GOOD people in all of these communities.
ReplyDeleteA little while ago Wolves n Rainbows wrote:
I have a friend who is black, who had a lousy childhood, and his schooling was nothing he would ever wish on another human being, and continues to fight to this day to fix what went wrong, but is he out there with these mobsters? Hell no. He is appalled at what he is seeing down the road. If these rioters truly did this for what is 'injustice', then everything he did for the past few years, just as he was getting somewhere with it, just went up in smoke. Literally.
And earlier this morning Lincoln Counselling wrote:
I don't agree with with the article, it's well written but is written by someone who has doesn't live in those communities or one like it. I do live in one, I grew up in one similar and I lived in the poorest areas of London. The forgotten are not the ones rioting, the ones rioting are those who mug, rob, beat up and intimidate their neighbours. The forgotten are the ones who know that when they are burgled by the "youth" who is now rioting there is no point calling the police because their estate scare even the police. The true forgotten are the ones who live in these communities but strive to live a life worth something. That look at the poverty they live in and don't steal but try to make a difference. That don't blame everyone else for their problems but find a solution for themselves. That don't use violence to be heard. And they aren't on the streets of our cities looting shops and burning homes. They are having their homes and communities destroyed by the few who don't care.
YES.
I watched guys in their 20's last night in Camden, who were all driving very new looking vehicles (Audi A3's, VW's, scooters etc) smash, burn and steal.
ReplyDeleteFor the last 20 years, a greater proportion every year of the UK's GDP has been funneled into the welfare state and nothing has changed. The country is broke. Everybody has to take a hit. Taxes are high, spending is cut.
Get on with life and don't try and pretend these criminals are some poor downtrodden folks who were never given the chance to fulfill their destiny studying engineering at university. They are lazy, stupid, scum-bag criminals.
Noun - domestic terrorism - terrorism practiced in your own country against your own people; "the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City was an instance of domestic terrorism"
ReplyDeleteact of terrorism, terrorism, terrorist act - the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear
These aren't misunderstood revolutionaries - they're domestic terrorists. Don't romanticize what they're doing. There is absolutely NO justification for people attacking their own communities, looting, burning and physically harming private citizens and businesses.
There are legitimate, legal methods of protesting governments, but what is happening in Britain right now is opportunistic violence and it is extremely selfish and self-serving.
Hi.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with your point on asking "Why hasn't this happened before"... Call me cynic, but I disagree that this will change anything. Remember the crisis in Paris and a few other cities in France a few years ago,... what has changed since then? nothing at all... things are just getting worse and worse...
Our politicians live an illusion, they have no clue of what the lay man lives, and why should they or how can they? They're issued from the class of society to whom everything is given from birth... They make their choices based on their personal experiences, the problem here is that their experiences have nothing to do with what goes on...
Just sit tight and hold on till everything dies down... unfortunately, in a month or two everyone will have forgotten...
@Jonno!
ReplyDelete"Mentally ill" should not be a pejorative. Just because someone has a mental illness, it does not follow that they are some sort of scum underclass.
Rioting is wrong. But we know enough about human nature and history to know that it also is a nearly inevitable consequence of pinning people up without logic, justice, opportunties or hope. The converse of that fact is that for those of us who actually have a little, it is in our best interests to share because then people are less likely to be driven to the kind of irrationality that leads them to destroy what little they have and -- oh, by the way -- take what's ours.
ReplyDeleteThat's not paying blackmail, because the concept of blackmail, or extortion, involves premeditation and willful intent -- a measure of rationality, in other words. But when you drive people crazy, sometimes -- Stop the presses! -- they don't act rationally. That's what we're seeing here.
SJS is correct to the extent that some -- indeed, perhaps even most -- who grow up in unfortunate circumstances still go on to make something productive out of their lives. But at least a small percentage won't, and when the total number living in such circumstances is large, so, too, then, is the number who act out.
Brilliant post... been watching Sky News constantly with no real picture of what the hell is going on. Love from Cape Town,South Africa
ReplyDeleteYour blog is being reposted all over the place and I can see why. Your clear, passionate and well articulated side of things is a reasonable voice that needs to be heard.
ReplyDeleteThe rioters may need to be stopped but at least let their voice be heard first instead of this watered down media crap!
Really great post, please stay safe!
ReplyDeleteWatching from the US, and hoping this burns itself out. It will, eventually, but the anger that spawned this will not go away. We can talk about individual motivations all we want, but the fact that so many people in these communities have so little regard for their own homes is a failure of civil society.
ReplyDeleteYou can decry the thuggery of individuals all you want, but the fact that they were allowed to stew in their petty criminality without any effort to drain that festering wound paints a very bad picture of social programs in the UK.
This is very much the same problem in the US, where that rage is building higher and higher, as young people have *no* options for making money. No future. And are bombarded with messages that they *must* have the latest clothes, or shoes, or whatever, if they want to be adequate.
Lack of opportunity, broken families, incompetent, cash-starved social programs, and a widening class divide. Show me the hope - if I didn't have a good family, I'd be one of these thugs. Because I came out of that crap. Low expectations, no opportunity, had to claw my way up the social ladder until I had a decent middle-class job. But I remember being poor, and having no hope. And being filled with rage.
Take a cue from TV, as presented by Charlie Brooker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP6L5S14ygY .
ReplyDeleteThese riots and their destruction are tragic. There is no doubt about that fact. However, this entire situation is attributable to the misguided neoliberal economic OPINIONS being shoved down everybody's throat. Not only does neoliberal theory not rise above the level of an elitist's WISH LIST, but its various components actually work against each other to create a very unstable environment for society in general.
ReplyDeleteAll of this horror and misery has an easily discernible SOURCE: it is the foolish mistakes made by politicians who have become pets of Israel and implemented the policies that its lobbying arms fed to them. What is remarkable about this situation is that it is identical to that of WWI and WWII and the Weimar Republic. Even though the history of that period has been papered over by organizations like Murdock's, there are many intellectuals, particularly Jewish ones who are very aware.
One of them, Gilad Atzmon, wrote a brilliant editorial that ties the events in Israel to a cultural problem now infecting the world. All young people should read it so that we can avoid stamping out the problem NOW only to have it resurface in 40 to 60 years.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/08/07/gilad-atzmon-the-landlord-wannabe-protest/
THE TRUTH FAIRY
I'm in America and am an American, an old guy in Oregon.
ReplyDeleteAs I see it we're playing with this sort of thing here. Many people, the age of my children and younger, no matter their education or efforts, are unable to find meaningful employment. This is true of middle-aged and older people who have been laid off.
The right wing wants to continue the tax cuts for the wealthy but they want to remove assistance to anyone who is not wealthy, in every area. They are loathe to cut spending on our insanely powerful and expensive military however. After all, every Senator and Congressperson has a military project in their district. And it's antiAmerican to dis the military even if we cut their budget in half we'd still have, by far, the most powerful military on Earth.
I don't like the riots in GB. Not at all. But I understand. The best to you. I do wonder what effect this might have on the complacent and numbed here in America.
Surely rock and roll has something to do with all of this youth rebellion?
ReplyDeleteWhat phony issue is going to be manufactured to explain away the real reasons why disenfranchised people are resorting to violence? Will it be video games? Harry Potter books? The last Arctic Monkeys album?
Breivik also used similar tactics to "be heard". It matters more what you want to say. These spoiled kids have nothing. My fellow countrymen come to UK and find jobs without UK citizenship, without education, without knowing language. My point is life's too god in Britain and it's about time to cut that welfare spending so that these lazy bastards move their asses and stat working.
ReplyDeleteWell said SJS. At every stage in life people have the opportunity to make a choice and these thugs and hooligans have over time through their own choices turned into imbeciles incapable not only of thinking of themselves but also about realising the consequences of their actions.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a country where there is no nanny welfare state, no benefits, no dole. If you did not work, you simply starved. My father had to sell coconuts by the streetside to feed himself and pay for his education. He barely made enough to put me through the education that I got. Because it was not granted that he or I would get any of it, we learnt to respect and value what we got.
These morons who have grown up on benefits take the privileges of the welfare state as a right. The ignorant fools do not have the first idea of what deprivation means. Send them to Somalia where people are dying now because they have nothing to eat, not even water to drink and they will realise how privileged they are and how they are trying to kill the very mother who has fed them until now.
As for you Penny, stop pouring vitriol out and use your medium to get these people to value what they already have and work to get what they aspire to. Living together in a society is not about proving points but about working within the norms of the society for general upliftment.
Dear Laurie,
ReplyDeleteI hope this isn't taken as a racist comment. But in most of the photos I've seen, it's mostly white and black youth that are committing the looting. Your above piece attributes the violence to larger social factors that reinforce poverty and associated crime; factors such as deteriorating schools, stagnating wages, dramatic shifts in the economy, and chronic underemployment.
However those factors aren’t exclusive to the black/white communities. According to Wikipedia over 20% of London’s population is represented by other ethnic groups; ethnic groups that are conspicuously absent from photos or news accounts of the riot. Unless you’re arguing that youth in those groups are on average better off than the broader population this fact is significant.
I it is cultural factors in the white/black communities that are the cause of this senseless destruction. These days youth in the white/black communities put higher priorities on sports, fashion, and "acting hard" than on education, self-respect, and self-improvement.
It’s no secret that there’s a disproportionate amount of South and East Asians students are going to colleges over those in white/black community. Youth in these communities have involved parents constantly reinforcing the value of hard work and study. Oftentimes children from these communities start from much poorer socioeconomic backgrounds. Quite a few mainstream media publications have written about colleges and universities getting a disproportionate amount of foreign students getting ridiculously high test scores, that if they accepted students on that condition alone, you’d have even smaller white/black student representation, especially for the more technical disciplines.
I believe parents of the rioters are not parenting. They are buying things for their kids -$200 sneakers for what? Bill Cosby made remarks concerning African Americans in his famous 2004 NAACP pound cake speech that criticize a pervasive cultural norm among African Americans:
"In our own neighborhood, we have men in prison.... I'm talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? Where were you when he was twelve? Where were you when he was eighteen, and how come you don't know he had a pistol?”
"They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is,' . . . and I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. . . . Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. . . . You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!" The lowest marriage rate of any group belongs to African Americans. Nearly 70 percent of our children have unmarried moms, and an equal percentage -- one source puts it at 80 percent -- will grow up without the presence of their dads.
Thank you for posting. I experienced the Los Angeles riots in 1992 firsthand and in the thick of it. It is a horrible and unimaginable confrontation with social forces run amok and I feel for you; no one who has not been in such a thing can truly grasp it.
ReplyDeletePeaceful protests against a seriously-questionable verdict provided a match to long-simmering social forces: grinding poverty, little future, corrupt police and gang warfare all combined into a mindless spasm.
No matter how thuggish, huge masses of people do not "just go out rioting" unless there are deep and long-standing forces at work. Police cannot run a country; 90% of people's good behaviour is by choice and on trust.
The comments about "their stealing 42-inch tellys" are from people who cannot comprehend that this is what has been sold to them as success for many years. Not understanding what is happening to them, or helpless against those social forces they see as immutable, they steal such things as a substitute for pride and self-worth.
I did enjoy immensely your statements about "ritual condemnation of violence" so I needn't say that obvious thing here :D
Stay safe, and don't let this destroy your faith in human beings. LA/92 did mine, and it's taken me many years to regain part of that trust.
Rise up and be heard! Just clean up behind you.
ReplyDeleteWell said. Well said. I lived in the middle of the riots in the US in 1968. I do not advocate violence for any reason. But, I do understand it. Mobs are mindless. They, for the most part, do not make political statements. They operate on a more visceral level. When there is no hope, the fuse will be lit over some perceived or actual slight. It then becomes out of control and spreads like a prairie fire. I think we will face the same situation here in the near future. Most here don't have any hope, no matter what our President says. Reality speaks much louder than empty words. I don't know what the spark will be, but it will come.
ReplyDeleteStay safe.
"They don’t know, because they were not watching these communities. Nobody has been watching Tottenham since the television cameras drifted away after the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985."
ReplyDeleteJust not true. I worked for an inner London council for 2 years & was a consultant to a London council for 2 years' before that, and it was massively evident that both councils really wanted to do stuff for people living in shit estates. They tried pretty hard to 'engage' (sorry, hideous word) those in need (of employment, education, help) but generally didn't. Not because they didn't try but because its really hard to do so.
As an American, I can only weep as I see the pain that was so evident in the US in the 60s. In particular, the Oakland, CA and LA riots were quite awful. The same basic problem, namely a disenfranchised, young minority with little or no hope of a better tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteThis is the same unrest that fuels radical agendas, worldwide.
May we learn to live together in peace and perhaps with that peace, we can learn what it truly means to love.
There simply is NO excuse to raid your own community. None. Stop giving them one.
ReplyDelete"Violence is rarely mindless. The politics of a burning building, a smashed-in shop or a young man shot by police may be obscured even to those who lit the rags or fired the gun, but the politics are there." -- penny red
ReplyDeletethis is wonderfully written. thank you very much!
kristin @
This is a great post! I wholeheartedly agree that there are very valid reasons for this outrage. I am from New York City where a lot of people are also feeling very frustrated with our government. I can understand why the poor communities all over Britain feel like they have been forgotten by their own government. What I don't understand is why they are in a large part, directing this anger inward at themselves? If the complaint is that libraries are being replaced by car dealerships and large businesses that don't give a damn about the local communities, then why not direct the anger towards them instead of the small businesses that likely belong to their neighbors.
ReplyDeleteYeah, 'watching my city burn'?'; 'Britain is a tinderbox...somebody lit a match...'? Are we living in the same city? The media are shamelessly inflating a few random looters into a huge citywide anarchist revolution. Don't get your news from the telly- it's completely warped. As for the political aspect - well, yes, the Tories are in power, so expect social unrest as the rich get richer and the poor go to the wall. But guess who votes for the tories? It ain't just the upper middle class. It's the ignorant masses who read the Sun and the Daily Mail. I hope they are enjoying their government.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I will hold you and your community in my heart for your safety. I remember what this feels like.
ReplyDeleteThis has so many echos to what happened in Los Angeles.
This is a reverberations as to what will come to other communities unless we get our collective heads out of our asses. People seem to want easy answers. There aren't any easy ones.
Yes, there are opportunists destroying their communities and attacking people for the joy of it. Nasty but each society has folks like this.
Yes, there is anger at on-going police actions/in-actions. What really resonated with me was the deliberate holding back of the police force deciding not to aid or protect. Same as L.A.
The delay of those responsible for governance until it was made overtly clear that the situation was totally out of control. Same as L.A.
The news media spewing what they don't know or their own bias as an overlay to reporting. I know there are historical videos of the idiocy that L.A. television news reporters and you are going to have hours of the same.
Really sorry about that one but bingo on that too.
And the true deeper causes will be glossed over as they have been in the comment threads.
People have to have something to do, to be or to contribute to a society. Human beings cannot be shelved and wished away. There are limited to being ignored.
Sigh. I'm sorry. You will all learn this in time. If you are lucky.
All I can tell you is that there will be an ending. Folks will get exhausted. There will be a military type crack down.
Then, after the dust clears will have to be hard decisions on what to do next.
I walked through the damaged and largely shuttered up high streets of Catord, Lewisham & Peckham today and noticed two things . Firstly, that the massive level of policing was the exact opposite to the way the economic rampaging and looting of the bankers was handled even though their criminal actions clearly blighted and devastated almost every high street in the country long before any rioters turned up. Secondly, I noticed that the middle class had colonised the areas around the train stations in these otherwise impoverished working class communities creating little islands of affluence that don't connect to the host communities at all.
ReplyDeleteThe people who inhabit these islands of affluence don't even shop locally so they are hardly going to miss local businesses that have been trashed and burned down.
I'm not scared to venture out and took the trouble to mingle with and talk to looters last night to try to get a better idea of what was going on. I saw grown men hauling plasma tv's across my local park and teen mothers struggling with a suitcase full of kids clothes. It just seemed like a spontaneous redistribution of wealth with a bit of destruction thrown in for good measure. People throwing their weight around because that's how the powerful in this society behave. Mimicking the bullying gang-like behaviour of the political parties.
Pathetic ?
Maybe but its a bit rich to deride the rioters lack of political consciousness when there isn't one mainstream party in this country that gives a stuff about the poor, disabled and marginalised and has sought to represent them.
I wasnt shell-shocked by the intensity or quick spread of the rioting at all , I've been expecting an outburst of anger from the streets for a couple of years. There again, I'm not huddled in a luxury apartment in a middle class enclave in Lewisham pretending that this rioting is far worse than what the bankers did because it very clearly isn't.
Sad to see people destroying their own neighborhoods but the causes of this seem clear to me. The young and powerless watch as more and more wealth is concentrated into fewer pockets. Then they are told opportunities for them must be curtailed (as in education) because their economy is in trouble. Then in the last few months they witness incredible levels of corruption in British society. The institutions they're supposed to believe in are corrupt and filled with hypocrites. The powerless lash out. Always. —Erik in Berkeley California
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thank you for a very insightful post. I just wanted to make a couple of points regarding some of the subsequent comments.
ReplyDeleteI hesitate to personalize things, but right now needs must. Someone referred to the 'logic' of SJS. Alas I see no evidence of any such logic. Instead I see someone jumping up and down telling us not to listen. SJS, and others, have made frequent allusion to the putative capacity for unrestrained choice. I'm not sure what it was you studied in order to 'better' yourself, but it could hardly have been anything involving sociology or psychology, because your postings are inept on both points. For instance, how do you account for the fact that children from Asian communities do do better at schoyol than average biiut their job prospects are considerably poorer? The point is that there is more at play than individuals can always change. Also, from a psychological perspective you assume that everyone has an equal capacity for choice, development and resistance to environmental influence. Can we have some evidence please? And 'No,' your personal experience isn't evidence.
More importantly, several people have talked about the breakdown of civil society. Let's be clear, for better or worse, in a few weeks this will have blown over. An enquiry will be established that will report in two years. Buildings will be rebuilt and in twenty years we will relive it again.
I'm 60 eyars old and I live in relative comfort in NZ. I have family in London and Wigan and wales and i lived for 4 years in London and what is happening to the UK breaks my heart.
ReplyDeleteBut reading this I'm sitting here with tears down my cheeks. At Last. Somebody says what needs to be said.
Thank you
How would you explain then, that it happens mainly in black communities? Why Curds, Turks, Pakistanis, Indians, Arabs, Chinese and many other immigrant communities manage to run businesses, get high education, work and develop their communities?! They also are immigrants, and many came into poor life conditions without work, language, or other stable basis. How many black business owners do you know? How many actually try to do anything, except just staying in the ghetto? How many do you know perceive the goal of working, studying and integrating? Is poverty, lack of jobs, lack of education and lack of opportunities the reason of those riots, or actually a result of the way these people choose to live? I am not a racist at all - I do not care what color or language or religion you are individually. But I'm very well familiar with the cultural and social phenomena of closed black communities inside white culture. I lived in Jersey City in USA for a couple of years, and I saw how it works - nobody works, nobody wants to work, nobody wants to have education. There are no families - only women with tens of children and men on social welfare. All businesses in a black neighbourhood are owned by South Americans or Arabs. The huge "projects" buildings, that the government built, are a disaster. But you know what actually did work and is changing the face of parts of Jersey City for the better?! Destroying the dense "projects" and building more or less affordable private housing, which brought more non black people into the neighborhood diluting the population like the famous check-board theory. As a result the general criminal, social and economical situation is getting better. But we are still far from teaching the ghetto people to work and live in peace with our cultural values. The whites were very good at colonizing and destroying Africa, but very bad at bringing something worth in exchange. It of course is still as our problem as theirs. And I agree with you (and this is an achievement of all the human rights activists - people who think they do the right deed for the sake of "equality"): by putting a tabu on raising specifically black and immigrant issues, made everything much worse - it brought to even bigger separation! We made ourselves victims of our own "correctness" by being afraid to raise racial issues.
ReplyDeleteGet rid of the welfare state and lock these vermin up.
ReplyDeletePenny, I'm searching for an explanation as to why the police response has been so slow and inept. It is hard to fathom why looters were left unchallenged in Wood Green for over four hours and why fires were left to burn for over an hour before security was provided by police for fire-crews.
ReplyDeleteThe police have usually been able to rely on Tory governments for increases in powers and budgets. However in May this year at the Police Federation conference, Federation chairman Paul McKeever said the cuts to police were 'wrong-headed and unfair' and "a form of retribution by ministers for foiled attempts to reform pay in 1993" according to this BBC report:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13434166
Is it too far-fetched to imagine that the response of the police is part of a calculated power-play to reverse cuts they are suffering to their budget, pensions and powers.
It seems certain that the outcome of the present moral panic will be that the police will be given extra powers and cuts to their budget reversed.
@phat_controller
Penny, I'm searching for an explanation as to why the police response has been so slow and inept. It is hard to fathom why looters were left unchallenged in Wood Green for over four hours and why fires were left to burn for over an hour before security was provided by police for fire-crews.
ReplyDeleteThe police have usually been able to rely on Tory governments for increases in powers and budgets. However in May this year at the Police Federation conference, Federation chairman Paul McKeever said the cuts to police were 'wrong-headed and unfair' and "a form of retribution by ministers for foiled attempts to reform pay in 1993" according to this BBC report:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13434166
Is it too far-fetched to imagine that the response of the police is part of a calculated power-play to reverse cuts they are suffering to their budget, pensions and powers.
It seems certain that the outcome of the present moral panic will be that the police will be given extra powers and cuts to their budget reversed.
@phat_controller
So your solution is what? Take the money from the rich of the UK and give it to the rioters so you can get rid of the "inequities?" Create yet another government program?
ReplyDeleteWhat Alex and Azelia's Kitchen said, x100. This is fuelled by social malaise, not poverty. The riots were coordinated by Blackberry - do you know how much those cost? I earn a decent salary now, and my phone cannot do anything other than text and make phone calls because I don't feel like I can justify shelling out that much on a mobile phone.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a disenfranchised ethnic minority community in a country that erupted into civil war in my early teens. My family was at the very bottom of the social ladder, economically speaking. My earliest memories are of my mother consumed by anxiety over how she will feed us. We only ate meat when we visited other family because it was too expensive for us. We had no running water. And let me tell you that we would never, ever have contemplated or condoned vandalising public and private property to make a point about how hard we have it.
In the background, helping to set the tone; the bankers are regarded as crooks; the Tories are the enemy of the poor; services are being cut to pay for the cost of the bailouts to the bankers; Labour lied to wage a war that cost a lot of money - and they are still lying; the police colluded in covering up Rupert Murdoch's corrupt media; manufacturing jobs sent to China or elsewhere; the occasional "suicide" by an inconvenient person who knows too much.....together (and much, much more) they provide all the supporting material one might need to develop a rationale anyone on the non-winning side of life might need to justify smashing a window and grabbing some for themselves....like all the other bastards did.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they don't know all the detail. But the vibe would be there.
Understanding is not necessarily condoning.
ReplyDeleteIt has always been easier to destroy than to create, and some people choose the easy way to express their frustrations. Getting free goods is a bonus.
ReplyDeleteSarah Elizabeth says "You say that the young people in these communities are "disenfranchised" but how is that the case? They have the right to vote the same as any other young person in the country"
ReplyDeleteIf you believer that merely voting "enfranchises" you, think again.
The fundamental reason that women's franchise was opposed was not because the powers that were did not want women to go into a voting booth, it was because they were terrified of what "women" collectively might vote FOR.
Suddenly doubling the number of people who could vote would make elections and policies "unpredictable", these strange new voters might actually want things that the "voters" of the time did not want, especially if they have personally benefited from those policies and practises.
As the young guy in the quote said, they tried the traditional methods, they marched, they probably voted if they marched, and they were ignored, not only by the political system, but by the media that is supposed to inform the community about what is happening to it.
Finding that the said media and the politicians and the police have been in a corrupt relationship for a generation, a relationship designed to benefit only those who already have more than they need, was very possibly the cocking of the trigger that was pulled by the shooting in the streets of Tottenham.
We glorify and sanctify violence in video games and TV wrestling and programmes like 24 and in actual war, we glorify those who own high status objects and who do not "earn" them in any fundamental sense, some of them are rewarded handsomely for trashing our economy.
But when people in suits do it using computers we take no action, we only pay attention when people do it with crowbars and lighters.
So now we are paying attention. The question is whether we can do anything constructive to change the course we are on. I'm not hopeful.
Madness on the streets of Birmingham for the 2nd night in a row but the politicians and the police will only look at the symptoms of these riots rather than the causes.
ReplyDeleteIf we carry on down this path of cut backs and social entrenchment, things are only going to get worse....
http://thesociallinguist.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/birmingham-riots/
What a load of rubbish this article is. Apologists such as Laurie Penny are an integral part of the problem - forever excusing and validating the behaviour of the poor disenfranchised & misunderstood youth/communities of England.
ReplyDeleteThere is no excuse for the riots. It is not part of some heroic struggle or the cry of the oppressed. It is just violence, destruction of property and a total lack of respect for other people in society. Laurie Penny's article is poor journalism because, at heart, it is not true.
Irish born, London is my home. Hit the nail on the head.
ReplyDeleteA remarkable piece of writing - truly brilliant.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written. I hope you and yours remain safe throughout this time- and I hope Britian figures out how to eliminate the racism, inequality and get to the root issues. As this unfolds, many American youths are asking if this is what we have to look forward to. Tension is very high here and we wonder when it is going to boil over. Good luck, keep up up the great writing!
ReplyDeleteMost of my friends are left wingers and are happy to analyse the riots in this way, happy to consider the causes of discontent, of a lost generation, but the counterbalance - and it is a very important thing missing from most blogs - is this is 99% analysis and 1% solution.
ReplyDeleteThere's a culture of thuggery in the uk underclass that we've let fester for a very long time in this country. The sad thing is that no matter how left wing you are, the immediate solution to this situation is right wing. I think we all know this, but the left wing is too scared to say it out loud - any article that ends with the suggestion that we need to repair our communities is both laughably self - evident but is equally myopic if you know in your gut that the underclass who did this can't be brought back into the fold. Does anyone genuinely think that they can? really?
We can be sorry about what we've done to these kids, because we are all part of the cause of how a society is shaped, and we can bear that in mind for the next generation, but the left wing has precious little to say at this point other than hand wringing analysis.
Can I also add - as all of the commentators have added who actually live in this country - police stations are not being burned down across the country. they weren't even targetted in london. this isn't political, only at the analytical "from a distance" level. the rioters themselves don't think it's political and putting words in their mouths seems a bit silly.
0h, and for every quote you can get from a militant teen at a shop, I can show you hundreds of quotes [twitter, bb, blogs, conversations] from teens who revel in violence, who are proud of it...
this article is about how to reach out to the next generation. it says nothing about this one.
The rioters are evil people who go through life seeking excuses to do harm.
ReplyDeleteResults of an easily-accessible benefits system, a politically correct-fettered legal system, and an obsession with "rights" - from children of the age of 5 asserting their "rights" to challenge the rules of the classroom - get a grip and get real - when you start paying tax and contributing to society, you'll have a "right" to protest....
ReplyDeletePenny,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the wonderful insight. I am working against gentrification in the DTES of Vancouver Canada. A place where riots will also be brewing soon. They are currently trying to shut down our safe injection site because we want to go back to having a worse AIDS rate in that neighbourhood then any african country. And cut welfare way back.
It seems the criminalization of poverty does come back to bite you. Let us hope for some real change.
Penny, do you actually understand how much university fees will cost people? I mean, in your blog you say that these people have had any possibility of higher education removed and I simply can't see what you've based that on at all. There is no discrimination in who gets the tuition fee loans and the repayments (if you actually look at the detailed figures) are very reasonable!
ReplyDeleteEvery time you use your platform to tell people they can no longer afford to go to university you are lying to them and putting them off higher education. How about giving them the truth for a change rather than just your usual hyperbole and soundbites?
If you are in London, affected by the riots and need a place of safety for your animals please contact ddawatch@aol.com or call 07899 724 800 or 0844 844 2900 in confidence
ReplyDeleteRevolutionary solidarity and greetings from the US, comrades!
ReplyDeleteIt fills me with optimism to know that the oppressed and toiling masses are on the move in England. Do not be swayed by the opinions of the corporate US media, there are many young people in the US that understand you fight against class oppression, poverty and racism and we urge you onward!
It is my hope that the popular insurrection becomes more organized overtime and eventually grows into a movement that can challenge and overthrow the current social order.
The future belongs to you! Fight on!
Get REAL Igor - bet you're just a bottom of the rung individual with a serious chip on your shoulder... rise to the challenge and effect change, but not without due consideration and "intelligence" - insurrection without focus is just plain thuggery.
ReplyDeleteI like your writing style, and you should have a very bright future.
ReplyDeleteI found your post mentioned on the democraticunderground.com site, and you write considerably better than those folks.
Sentiment there tended to run against the rioting youth, but appeared to turn after your blog was cited. It seems that your views they recognize as their own, as they border on the leftist revolutionary side of things.
Their views are not mine, however, and if we all are seeking a bit of hope out of the chaos that has rampaged across your country, I for one would find it inspiring if the mature adults across your country rose up and defended every building and every business against the kiddies quest for "stuff."
Where are the men in your country, and why are they not standing up to restore order? I would find it quite inspiring if they would rise up, smack the thugs all the way home.
I am very glad not to be there, since I just now saw the story on TV about rioting youth attacking firefighters as they were fighting the blazes. I know that situation could get me arrested for homicide very quickly indeed, since I would use any force needed to protect a firefighter who is attempting to save an entire community from being turned to ashes.
I hope you will remain safe, and I hope that these circumstances will not be so profound to you that your growth becomes stunted, leaving you permanently in your youthful naive left wing stage of development. It looks quite nice on you now, and means you have a good heart, but as you get older, it will begin to look pretty silly, since your heart will be balanced also with a great deal more experience.
Attacks on the fire and ambulance services are utterly abhorrent, at odds with civilised behaviour and any thug that indulges in such practice deserves the full ostracism that society can inflict on them - including a spell in an institution that will teach them manners. Let's start by getting tough on bad manners, disrespectful behaviour and downright rudeness, too much of which is evident in our society today....(PS - I'm not an ancient, merely someone who has values, manners and a conscience)
ReplyDeleteTo all those people who blame a capitalist society, can I just ask, what else is there?
ReplyDeleteCommunism? Maybe we should ask the Koreans what they think of communism? or maybe we'll look at how Russia or East Germany used to be?
We don't live in a wholly capitalist state, in fact we're close to straddling the two forms of governing - money is taken from the rich and given to the poor; the government (contrary to what some of you believe) works hard to reduce the rich/poor gap through education, taxes and benefits; people are given as much support as economically possible and yet have the opportunity to improve their situation.
I ask you now, is our system really that bad? When the government gives underprivaleged children the opportunity to improve themselves and their economic standing [through education] do you look at that and think "what disgusting capitalism"?
Please, it isn't society as a whole that creates the problem, or else more people would be rioting (not a couple thousand people, around 0.01% of the population)
It's the greed and opportunism of the kids involved in the riots, thinking they can get away with stealing from innocent local shop keepers, and burning the homes of families.
So stop spouting your romanticised nonsence about this being a cause of social inequalities, and realise that it is the disgraceful actions of a greedy few.
Could everyone please have a listen to this BBC interview with a couple of young ladies involved in the rioting before they make a judgement as to whether it's the UK that's failing them or vice versa.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424
To all those people who blame a capitalist society, can I just ask, what else is there?
ReplyDeleteCommunism? Maybe we should ask the Koreans what they think of communism? or maybe we'll look at how Russia or East Germany used to be?
We don't live in a wholly capitalist state, in fact we're close to straddling the two forms of governing - money is taken from the rich and given to the poor; the government (contrary to what some of you believe) works hard to reduce the rich/poor gap through education, taxes and benefits; people are given as much support as economically possible and yet have the opportunity to improve their situation.
I ask you now, is our system really that bad? When the government gives underprivaleged children the opportunity to improve themselves and their economic standing [through education] do you look at that and think "what disgusting capitalism"?
Please, it isn't society as a whole that creates the problem, or else more people would be rioting (not a couple thousand people, around 0.01% of the population)
It's the greed and opportunism of the kids involved in the riots, thinking they can get away with stealing from innocent local shop keepers, and burning the homes of families.
So stop spouting your romanticised nonsence about this being a cause of social inequalities, and realise that it is the disgraceful actions of a greedy few.
Thanks for sharing your awesome insight. Sending good thoughts to all of England from the US. May this result in the beginning of some drastic change in society everywhere. Change is not only needed in the middle east and in non-democratic regimes, change needs to happen in developed countries as well.
ReplyDeleteas an old cracker from the south who now lives in california and who is also twice your age, i really appreciate and respect your insight.
ReplyDeleteyes, looting/plundering/violence is never the answer -- that is a standard refrain that we can expect most civilized people to shout as a response to the goings-ons in your beautiful city. but, looking more deeply, there really does have to be a reason why this is happening, a reason beyond "thuggery." it's simply too easy to play "j'accuse" in such a way...
keep up the good writing, and keep the faith.
jimbob joebob
eatapeachforlove.blogspot.com
If it's true, as some commentators here seem to believe, that the current social/political/financial state of affairs has nothing to do with the riots and that they're simply the result of the innate criminality of those involved, why oh why don't we have riots like this more often? Why aren't these "mindless thugs" rioting and looting on this scale at least once a month even?
ReplyDeleteNo one is being asked to condone the looting and violence, but if you have any intelligence and insight and are willing to use them, you MUST conclude that the deep-seated, impotent rage that many of us have been feeling triggered this release of aggression.
We live in a time when we're being told to tighten our belts while our taxes are used to bail out the very institutions whose greed caused the financial collapse. Our welfare state is being slowly dismantled while the 300,000 richest people in the country are given a tax break. Our schools and the NHS are under attack and many of our social programs are ending, but heavy subsidies to big business continue. If you're not angry about any of this then you are either rich or stupid.
I hate the fact that my beloved city is being torn apart and I hate that many innocent people are being caused to suffer, but refusing to acknowledge the part played by our government and our selfish, consumerist, debt-based economy in all of this will only lead to more innocents suffering.
Well written. Gave me lots of food for thought. The target of the violence is a bit bewildering - they are eating each other! I was told as a kid that one day, the skinny ones are going to eat the fat ones. Is this the start? I am a fat one. Am I safe here is Sydney?
ReplyDeleteThese useless thugs are taking their frustrations out on the innocent, some of whom work their backsides off to earn a living and provide for their families. This is sheer criminality, I don't care what the cause is. If they cannot contribute to society in a meaningful way, there is only one option. Line them up one by one against a wall...you know what I'm getting at.
ReplyDeleteToday's fashionable oxbridge blogger is tomorrow's delusional and ineffectual politician. While I shouldn't ever be surprised that 24 hard years of fluffy bohemian living + 5 minutes next to a riot does not give much authenticity to a trendy blog opinion piece, I'm surprised that the intellectual elite cannot produce a hand-wrung gem beyond one that summarises to 'it's not their fault, it's societies'.
ReplyDeleteIs it not interesting to see these events unfolding at a time when the British establishment is bombing Libya in support of 'rebels'.
ReplyDeleteThe cant, hypocrisy and apparent inability of the ring-wing mind to to think laterally seems to have no bounds.
There're a couple of myths left there I would really encourage us to get over with. The first is that social change happens by moral suasion - it doesn't. It happens by force.
ReplyDeletePenny
ReplyDeleteI hate this line of thinking.
It costs nothing to walk into a local library and read a book or educate oneself.
It costs very little to get hold of a football and have a kickabout at a local park or in the street.
The 'they've been rejected and don't have anything to do' is a ridiculous excuse and does not wash with me. They could do either of the above with no harm done to anyone, instead they choose to stand on street corners intimidating the public, and now riot and destroy their local neighborhood.
'They are not about poor parenting'
What's going on now is quite clearly about poor parenting - if my kid was spotted in one of these photo's he would be severely disciplined and would be the first on the scene in the morning to clear all the mess up.
When I was young I was shown the inside of a cell and conditioned to believe that it was a place of hell and unhappiness - I get the impression that this sort of thing is no longer done by the irresponsible parents of today.
Please don't justify these riots by laying the full blame on the government.
Excellent analysis. I'm particularly grateful for the section that begins, "Violence is rarely mindless." I've been reading multiple accounts of the rioting, and been disturbed by how many of them assert that the rioters are completely unmotivated by politics. No kidding? Then why are they rioting now? Why haven't they been doing it every weekend? And why are so many of them concentrated in the same neighborhoods?
ReplyDeleteTo pretend there's no larger political or social context to these riots is to assert that the rioters have no conscious moral agency, and no grasp of events beyond their immediate personal desires. It implicitly models them as animals.
The comment threads are worse. You know you're about to catch a blast of unthinking hatred when they start by announcing that it's simple. Why are the riots happening? Because the rioters are evil. External forces have nothing to do with it. Each rioter has individually and arbitrarily chosen to be evil.
Does it ever occur to them that if what they're saying is true, London is doomed?
If you want to see an example, the person posting as "Jonno!" back up the thread is canonical: grotesque pathological hatred, fear of imaginary monsters, completely unwarranted "kill or be killed" rhetoric, and an initial invocation of reasoned discourse followed by a call to action that's actively hostile to anyone who wants to use peaceable strategies.
Jonno thinks he's still one of the good guys. He doesn't see that he's turning himself into a monster.
Finally: Someone asking "WHY?". Just as we should be asking "WHY?" about Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan,Palestine. Well written. KUDOS
ReplyDeleteSometimes it needs to get dark to see the light of the many small candles all around us who can lead us to a better place. You are one of those candles.
ReplyDeleteThank-you. This is the best analysis of the terrible situation once can find anywhere.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden, what is "imaginary" about this situation.
ReplyDeleteLet me put it to you clearly: if someone came up to your home and started smashing the windows, throwing lit torches, etc, what would be a rational reaction?
To just sit there and smile and say "well he must have good reasons, and it's not my home anyway, since private property doesn't exist, and he has every right to express his feelings, regardless of the consequences"?
Would you let any criminal murder or rape you, in order to be "fair"?
Honestly, if there was no notion of personal rights and protection from violence, we couldn't be even having this discussion!
How would it even be possible to invent the computer you used to type your comment, if the inventors were constantly under attack from thieves and criminals?
Most people are honest and wouldn't stoop to thuggery, but those who do should be punished, and the innocent should be protected.
When a man chooses to deal with others by means of violence, he should be answered by the same terms he sets: that is, answered back with violence.
When someone points a gun and starts shooting, THOSE OF US WHO WISH TO LIVE MUST DEFEND OURSELVES BY RESPONDING IN LIKE MANNER.
While you're on your high-horse talking about "political reasons" and how "violence isn't mindless", SOME OF US IN THIS WORLD WANT TO LIVE WITHOUT BEING THREATENED BY VIOLENCE!!!!
I posted about this on http://inukoarashi.tumblr.com/post/8685864617/hello-tumblr-may-i-blog-about-tottenham-for-moment and as an american it's hard for me to see what side is what; i had discussions in length over FB and my final words are i hope this cleans up and someone finds the absolute truth.
ReplyDeleteThe kids have learnt the lesson that theft pays, and is acceptable if no-one can do anything about it. We taught that lesson to them.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just the core career thugs any more, though they're taking full advantage of the opportunity to prey on the weakest and least powerful.
It's a rational decision taken by many, and often not the voiceless and dispossessed, based on the example set by the Nomenklatura. Theft had occurred, and no-one's gone to jail for it. It was unpunished, the well-connected bankers bailed out, the "everyone does it" MPs let off with a tap on the wrist - if that.
We've taught them that nothing is impermissible if you can get away with it. It's accepted by society at large, and it's the violent that get listened to, while the peaceful are ignored.
If this continues, then other parts of society will learn the same lesson - and there'll be a backlash far worse than the mass theft and vandalism now.
Hi Teresa
ReplyDeleteThe reason they're rioting now is they sense that the old order is crumbling and the police are on the run. that's political but only in a very limited sense, if the form of their protest is destruction. they don't even understand the word or concept society - go on, ask a random looter what they understand by the word. Or community?
they will continue to do this until there's a crackdown. i dislike the language that's being bandied about - I'm hearing animal and feral quite a bit - but the language of law and order isn't polite and it's based on structure.
i go back to my earlier point - there's a lot of analysis going on around here, but not a lot of solutions. my, it's just like reading the Guardian.
and i repeat - check your facts for chrissakes. i realise not many people read these kind of blogs, but police stations are not being burned down across the country.
do you know what I find most irresponsible about this blog? Most of these incidents weren't political. They weren't even riots. If you count the smashing of shops, police vans and charging, and burning of cars as a riot, then luton, where I live, has had 4 riots in the last 6 months. It hasn't. Be careful how you use that word. Some of us were around when the last lot of riots happened and believe me, you don't want it.
It is almost definitely true that these rioters are doing this to feel empowered - but the same can be said of a man who guns down dozens in a shopping mall, a man who beats his wife, or a policeman that bullies and abuses those he is charged to protect.
ReplyDeleteBravo SJS, bravo! At a first reading Laurie's post seems reasonable, astute even. To an uninformed person it appears to address the root of the issue, but in reality it is way off the mark, and the more I read it the more angry it makes me, because as SJS says, it's this kind of thinking that shapes the policies which have brought us to where we are now.
ReplyDeleteI too come from a relatively poor background, but I learned the difference between right and wrong at an early age, I worked hard at school and ended up with a degree from one of the best universities in the world. Many of my contemporaries did likewise, but alongside us there were always the few wasters who never had any interest in self-improvement of making any useful contribution to society. The worst it got in those days was when another kid from our street torched a neighbour's motorbike. They have always been there and they always will be, although now it seems in higher numbers and more out of control than ever before. Why is that? Is it because we don't make enough effort to understand them and make them feel included in society? Or is it because we make excuses for them and fail to give them the lead they need to carve a meaningful path in life by indulging their behaviour instead of punishing it?
The children of one generation are the parents of the next, and the problems we are seeing now can be traced back to the 60s. We have bred a nation of youths who have no respect for people or property, no discipline, and no desire to study or work, supported by a benefits culture funded by the rest of us. We have seen two or three generations of parents too occupied with their own lives to engage with their offspring, driven by a culture of the self borne out of cynical marketing and advertising which tells them that possessing stuff and preening themselves is more important than contributing to society and helping others. It speaks volumes that the mainstream tabloid media here is obsessed with celebrity stories and scandal when there are far more important things going on in the world.
When I was a kid we learned respect first in the home, then at school, then on the street. All that has changed. Some parents think that plonking their children down in front of the TV is a substitute for playing with them and teaching them acceptable behaviour. The kids learn from programmes which glamourise violence and make criminality cool, at the same time assimilating the ambitions of the acquisitive society which are endlessly propagated by the messages of advertising. They learn to idolise power, respect weapons and admire those who use force to gain control over others.
ReplyDeleteAt school they don't learn any discipline because teachers have been emasculated to the point of uselessness by the withdrawal of any meaningful form of punishment. Even detention is now not possible without the consent of parents. Children first learn respect through fear - fear of teachers, fear of police. Fear of getting into trouble teaches them the difference between right and wrong, and as they begin to understand and develop their own moral compass the fear turns into respect for those who shape their lives. Are we really doing our children a favour by removing the element of fear and instead trying to negotiate with them or rationalise their behaviour? As a child I had some teachers who initially I feared, but then grew to respect as I began to understand their commitment to our education and why they behaved as they did. Some of them ended up as friends in adulthood. All that has gone. A music teacher friend of mine tells me he has to lock half his students out of the classroom, because if he doesn't they will trash all the musical instruments and he is powerless to stop them.
Similarly, on the street there is no respect for the police. This is not because of aggressive stop and search policies - it is because stop and search is the ONLY tool they have been left with to deal with yob culture. Like teachers, police have been emasculated and the summary justice which used to be dealt out by them is no longer acceptable. Where once we had fear and respect for the police, we now see only jeering and taunting by youths who know they are powerless to respond. Lack of respect is further engendered by a culture which expects police to spend more time on traffic offences and paperwork than on public order and policing the streets. Then when someone is apprehended, charged and convicted, the punishment is usually ineffective. ASBOs are treated as a joke, a badge of honour, and time inside is regarded as an opportunity to learn further skills in crime from those with more experience.
When it comes to work, there is little incentive to work hard when jobs are hard to come by and the welfare state provides a relatively comfortable safety net. Government further frustrates the ambitions of those who might want to strike out in their own businesses by introducing ever more complex layers of bureacracy and setting HMRC on the tail of anyone who tries to be self-employed. Meanwhile, corruption, fraud and fiddling in government, big businesses and banking send a message that anything goes as long as you can get away with it, and if he's doing it, why shouldn't I? One 15-year-old girl questioned about her behaviour last night on TV replied, "It's about getting our taxes back", as if that justified the looting. Never mind that she's probably never worked and never paid a penny in tax in her entire life.
I have a friend who is a millionaire, a former director of Britain's largest retailer and a self-made man who started at the bottom aged 14 and worked his way up. His 20-year-old stepson, who has never had a job and doesn't want one, tells him he is an idiot for having worked all his life to support people like him. The stepson lives in a council penthouse flat and spends all days watching his large plasma TV surrounded by other home comforts. He was recently caught with a group of friends on the roof of a Carphone Warehouse shop, all wearing balaclavas and carrying tools for breaking and entering. When rounded up by the police, they told them they had gone up for a smoke, and it was cold. The rubber gloves they were all wearing were to stop their hands getting nicotine stains.
ReplyDeleteTo make the situation worse, lawyers connive with criminals, turning perpetrators into victims, with the result that the courts end up punishing people who have only tried to defend their properties and families while frequently the real criminals walk free, or get a brief rap on the knuckles before laughing their way out of court and on into their next misdemeanor. For many of these people crime has become a way of life, and prisons are the colleges where they learn the trade they practise with their friends and families.
Where will it all end? Who knows, but one thing is certain - things will only get worse as long as we keep trying to find excuses for criminal behaviour and wringing our hands instead of taking a hard line and beginning to teach discipline and respect from an early age like we used to. These are the things which make us civilised, the things which distinguish us from animals - although you wouldn't believe it when you see the behaviour we have witnessed in recent days. There are poor, disenfranchised people in societies all over the world, but few behave the way we have seen here in the last few days. Indeed, there are many countries where there are people far more deprived than here, but they do not have the kind of problems that we have. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind, and it is no exaggeration to say we have gone soft on crime. Now we need to take back control from the do-gooders and woolly thinkers who have preached restraint for so long and made excuses for this kind of mindless thuggery which has no place in a civilised society.
As usual the left are looking down the wrong end of the telescope and wondering why everything looks so small. Reading this blog posted on the Sydney Morning Herald made me think I'd woken up in 1912. How can the left maintain the same dreary 19th century analysis of everything that happens in this world in 2011. So those riots are about being "heard" about the "establishment" not listening to the downtrodden discriminated-against yoof and "po' folks". So this is all about the "Guvmint" not "doin' enuf". These riots are not about the government not doing enough, but about it doing too much. 40 years of nanny state intervention have taught these people that nothing is their fault and that all dissatisfaction in life is a state problem. These people are only fouling their own nest. This is not a problem for the "establishment" to solve with more handouts or by "listening". These people are like 25-year old brats who won't leave home and then trash the house because the fridge isn't full. The persistence of infantile left-wing thinking is like is one of the marvels of the age - like one of those species of fungi that live under rotting tree bark and remain there after bush fires level the forest.
ReplyDeleteYou're right on the money, Penny. Sorry about the unintended pun. lol
ReplyDeleteWill the people in charge take notice? I much doubt it. Sure they'll have an enquiry and there will be much gnashing of gums and hand wringing, but in the end, being a conservative government, their kneejerk response will be more police.
Where it goes after that is anybody's guess. Maybe it will settle for a few years, or it may come back bigger and nastier.
Fantastic blog. Thank you for writing from the inside as I wrote from the outside. You're beautiful! :)
ReplyDeletehttp://thoughtforyourpenny.blogspot.com/2011/08/oops-wrong-hole.html
justin, you're so right
ReplyDelete"40 years of nanny state intervention have taught these people that nothing is their fault and that all dissatisfaction in life is a state problem."
The state has been robbing money from the productive in society and distributing it to the unproductive, the incompetent, the failures.
Now the bastards have such a sense of entitlement that they think they can go even further than the state and commit armed violence and daylight robbery in the literal sense.
Let's see how long they can survive by destroying other people's property. Let's see how long it will be before they turn on eachother like a bunch of cannibals.
From a very interested observer form across the pond, thank you for this excellent analysis and log of the events. I have shared this with a lot of my friends who are following the events and want to comprehend the complexities. Thank you and peace to London and the UK.
ReplyDeleteRush Limbaugh has this to say about the cause of the riots. I tend to agree. http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_080911/content/01125109.guest.html
ReplyDeleteIt was good to read your blog "Panic On The Streets Of London" posted on www.countercurrent.org dated 09-08-2011.
ReplyDeleteYou presented your views different from the Mainstream media.I live in India and I am tracking the news via BBC world News Satellite channel.
Mere condemnation of the event appeared in the channel but nobody went to depth of the event ,its causes,its consequence and its future implication on the British society.
Your your analysis is worth of praise and the ruling and governing class people should take some lessons from the post.
Have a Good day Ahead
Amar Sambadas Khade
India
Really? I wouldn't want any of the rioters taking care of me. Let's cut short the "months of conjecture" that will follow. If the "politics are there", they have all the sophistication of Jackass, and much the same motivation. There's a famine in Somalia, a real revolution in Syria, and a war in Libya. I have no sympathy at all for the rioters' pathetic sense of entitlement.
ReplyDeleteI live in New York and my heart is breaking. This is England? I pray it is not. Stay vigilant and stay safe.
ReplyDeletegreat analysis. props.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant piece of writing.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theycallmeher.com/2011/08/ldn.html
ReplyDeleteI'm from America. That's what I thought. We're befuddled. Sorta.
I wish mainstream media could produce work half as coherent and a tenth as balanced as this article. Laurie Penny should be commended for this most articulate and even-handed article she has contributed to the situation. The interview on RT also puts all leading commentators to shame for its concise and impartial commentary. Thankyou for your efforts Laurie, from a Kiwi fan
ReplyDeleteWell written and very insightful piece of journalism. One small thing you left out of this, however, is the root of ALL of this malfeasance. USURY!
ReplyDeleteThat's right, USURY! Take the people's money out of the people's hands and charge them to lend it BACK to them at incredibly, heinous interest, and sooner than later... the money lenders will be run from the Temple. I cannot believe it has taken SO long for the people to respond. And though the media is spreading the notion that these riots are mostly comprised of youngsters, they are fighting their father's and mother's battles. I cannot condone any destruction of personal property, but I also cannot condemn the expression of a people so dispossessed of their own worth that could commit to such a display.
Stop trying to figure out "why" and ask yourselves "why not sooner?" The inequity and pure lies and outright distortions of the ruling class have led these young warriors to this point. They want the TRUTH! And they deserve it. And they are willing to risk everything they know, own and love to get to it.
God Bless this event and I pray for all of the victims. There is SO MUCH MORE TO OUR EXISTENCE THAN WE HAVE BEEN PRIVY TO, AND SO MUCH COVERED UP ABOUT WHO, WHY AND WHAT WE ARE! THEY KNOW THESE TRUTHS AND HAVE KEPT THEM IN A LOCK BOX FOR THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF YEARS. ALL THE WHILE, EXPLOITING THE LOVING, FORGIVING AND TRUSTING TRAITS OF ALL MANKIND...to their utmost advantage.
THE GLOVES ARE COMING OFF. MAY THE LORD HAVE MERCY ON WHAT COULD EVER POSSIBLY BE LEFT OF THEIR PUTRID AND DISGUSTING SOULS WHEN WE ARE DONE WITH THEM AND THEIR ENTRAILS. HE WON"T HAVE MUCH TO WORK WITH, I AM GLAD TO SAY.
And so, I had my say... peace on you all!
"What we have on the streets of London and elsewhere are welfare-state mobs. The youth who are shattering their own communities represent a generation that has been suckled by the state more than any generation before it."
ReplyDeletePlease do read the whole article at :
http://www.malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/special-reports/42706-less-political-rebellion-more-mollycoddled-mob
psst! SJS (9 August 2011 03:49) ... I agree, "there's NO justification for their actions, no excuse." But YOU, with all your education and choice, have been made a vile creature not any more attractive than looters you condemn. Where's your love of life and fellow man?
ReplyDeleteYou would condemn the author of this report? At least there was soul a reader at some distance could connect with! You, on the other hand, are repulsive, an abomination of human spirit: a Nazi in the making. Cold. Foul.
Of course you "would be sincerly happy to see copper-jacketed projectiles put them to rest." You have been well-trained to think this. Your "education" was worthless. You admit so much claiming "you cannot change the way these people behave because they LIKE the way they are." Did you talk to the likes extensively to gain such certain knowledge, or did they teach you this in school?
Myriad component causes over several generations led to this, I suppose. Chief amongst them perhaps is the socialist compact that has kept these disaffected alienated youth alive on the margins but failed to fully engage them. Not to condone their brutal assaults on their own homes - for that they fully deserve the merciless blows of a tightly held truncheon. Britain has reaped the bitter harvest of seeds that it has sown over generations.
ReplyDeleteA Fantastic post > Your Second to Last paragraph speaks to the world:
ReplyDelete"No one expected this. The so-called leaders who have taken three solid days to return from their foreign holidays to a country in flames did not anticipate this. The people running Britain had absolutely no clue how desperate things had become. They thought that after thirty years of soaring inequality, in the middle of a recession, they could take away the last little things that gave people hope, the benefits, the jobs, the possibility of higher education, the support structures, and nothing would happen. They were wrong. And now my city is burning, and it will continue to burn until we stop the blanket condemnations and blind conjecture and try to understand just what has brought viral civil unrest to Britain. Let me give you a hint: it ain’t Twitter."
The USA had better wake up fast.. It's heading down the same road.
Much as I expected, this is a massive pile of right-on liberal tosh. Excusing the inexcusable to make a political point. Almost exactly the same and no better than the rubbish spouted by Nina Power in the Guardian yesterday. Its not the rioters fault, they were driven to do it by the mean old Government and nasty neo-liberal middle class daily mail reading bastards.
ReplyDelete'The people running Britain had absolutely no clue how desperate things had become. They thought that after thirty years of soaring inequality, in the middle of a recession, they could take away the last little things that gave people hope, the benefits, the jobs, the possibility of higher education, the support structures, and nothing would happen. They were wrong.'
The last little thing? Ok. So what benefits have they had removed? JSA? no. housing benefit? no. (not for those in housing association properties) council tax benefit? no. child benefit? no. A free education up to 18? no. The jobs? What the new jobs that have been created in the UK which have been taken 4 times out of 5 by willing immigrants? The possibility of higher education? I don't even know what this means. Perhaps you are referring to a time when it was free but only 10% of people went to university and they still wouldn't have gone. Or maybe 5 years ago when they might have gone and would have paid more up front. Its hard to say. The support structures I can only assume are the youth clubs that have been closed and yes I will concede they have gone, but that is hardly a justification for the disgraceful scenes we have been witness to.
No, I'm afraid it is the victim culture you and your ilk have been pandering to for the last 30 years which is to blame. A culture that has encouraged laziness, ignorance, dependancy and disrespect that has finally come home to roost. With a post like this, for all the good it will do, you might as well have been out there with them.
Powerful writing, wise beyond your years. My deep admiration and respect.
ReplyDeleteClarence Wong, San Francisco
It's hard not to feel a bit patronized by the idea that rioters are less to blame than the bureaucrats who failed to address (and likely exacerbated) the myriad problems resulting in the violence. Yes, there is more to blame than some bs about a lack of after-school programs or supervision, but it's important that there are people in these communities who aren't rioting, who have been trying to change their lives. Are we really so willing to say, "They don't know any better; they have it so hard. The government should do something about that," and be done? Our sympathy belongs to the victims, not the rioters. It's a shame the neither all of the vandals nor all of the politicians responsible will face up to their crimes, but don't leave either out. They aren't children, they aren't disabled, they're young adults who have decided what they want is more important than anyone else's rights, and they must be stopped.
ReplyDeleteInteresting if a little polemical: you say "Riots ... are not about ... a few youth services being cut" before going on to say that it happened because leaders thought "they could take away the last little things that gave people hope ... [including] the support services". Nobody genuinely believed it was just the pool tables that caused this - the youth clubs were, for me anyway, a synechdoche: they symbolised the overall abandonment and marginalisation of entire communities.
ReplyDelete@Macate: Welfare (or "Social Security"... think about that term beyond the personal application) exists to protect society from those that it cannot or will not adequately educate or support. In the same way that National Health Services were created to protect the rich from plagues spread among the poor (see Foucault's Birth of the Clinic / Social Medicine), the dole exists to protect society from its poorest members. It is no wonder the country is in turmoil... http://thierryennui.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/the-true-cost-of-condem-cuts/
Thanks for an excellent post.
ReplyDeleteThe comments thread brought up so many topics I'd have to write another essay just to answer them all. I don't think Poor Parenting is a valid answer to why people riot.
I've known too many people who come from abusive backgrounds and overcome that disadvantage. Despite stereotypes, it's not even based on poverty. I've known middle and upper class abusers and neglectful parents who pay the price when their kids turn into bullies kicking them around. Parenting isn't easy for anyone.
You can't legislate that.
You can only create conditions that give people a chance to pull themselves together when tragedy strikes. The harder things are in general, the harder it is for anyone to overcome a personal disaster - be that divorce or job loss or death or catastrophic health problems.
When people live close to the edge, one more trauma is enough to make them snap. It doesn't matter which person snapped. Riots happen when the problems are so widespread that everyone more or less agrees on what's wrong and someone screams out a short simple slogan.
I think the issues that cause the riots are real whether individual rioters look at it that way or not. They're a large group of people who have been reduced to a crowd.
If you want to know what it feels like to a rioter, go to a sports event or a big concert for a band you like. Immerse yourself in the crowd. Cheer and yell and shout with everyone else, forgetting all your individual ideas and ethics in favor of being one with the crowd.
That group rage is the nature of all riots. Group hate creates them when racism is endemic, there's the riots that helped bring Hitler to power. I'm not saying riots are a good thing. I'm saying that they're a human thing and they happen when life gets so hard for so many people that the easy simple answers in a slogan are enough to get most of the people in the area joining the crowd.
From then on it has a life of its own. Firing on the mob won't stop it. Killing someone in the mob won't slow it down, that only inflames it. Deal with the causes and sort out individual situations, reach out and help people afterward.
The clean up groups are wonderful, there's also a human response to altruism after any tragedy that's rich and empowering. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people who rioted are out in the cleanup doing something positive.
Yes. There needs to be some rebalancing in the economy. For some reason I don't fully understand, even the extreme wealthy seem to be running on the edge desperate to hang onto whatever they can get - and they don't get it that they won't have any customers if the money doesn't flow in both directions. The economy in the USA has hardened arteries. If it doesn't flow out into jobs and put paychecks into people's pockets, then there's no customers for the new cars and new gizmos and new green technologies.
There are good solutions to these social problems. Making them real is a lot harder than running in the streets and breaking things, but I do what I can. Thank you for this post. Thank you for sharing your perspective on what's happening in the UK. Good luck with it, for you and everyone else in your country.
Teresa Neilsen-Hayden, thanks for a great comment.
ReplyDeleteThere's not much that I can add to what you said about Jonno except that the Opposite Team of mob mentality is out in force reducing everything to simple slogans and howling for counter-violence.
Thanks PennyRed - great article. As a fellow Londoner I've also watched in shock as London burns. But I doubt many (except maybe those ministers in their ivory towers/tuscany holiday homes) will be surprised. For too long the police have been above the law when they should be above reproach. And while nobody in their right mind would condone the destruction of so many businesses and homes of ordinary innocent bystanders, when are we going to talk about the 'criminailty' of the bankers who have been systematically raping this country for years? why will the rioters be 'hunted down and brought to justice', but it's only 'conversation' that's needed about the police corruption and bias which has plagued our poorer areas - and particularly black communities - for years? what about that criminality? Why is someone who steals a TV from Argos a thief, but when Goldman Sachs and Vodafone don't pay their tax for years (Goldman Sachs owes £19million, Vodafone between 2 and 4 billion) that's something different altogether? Ordinary people are fed up of the corruption which we pay and pay and pay for the greed of the people at the top - and then we're surprised when they take what they can get. Of course the riots are dreadful, but if you give people no other outlet for their frustrations, this is what happens. Truly, we get the society we deserve.
ReplyDeleteI wish this viewpoint was the one to believe in, seriously. I wish it could be plight of the oppressed here in all its glory, finally the common rising against the state oppression. Maybe, this is the case; but let's all be honest here, it's only a small percent. I see pictures of rioters and it doesn't take a professional of human emotions to see that thug mentality and opportunism prevail. I refuse to romanticise some of these 'disenfrachised', fashion-conscious adidas thugs - many here have pointed out that reality is always greyer, more complex. Viewpoints like this are truly the ones of someone that *wants* the perfect 'anarchist' ideals, and projects that wish onto the world. Unfortunately, it lacks objectivity, which is what happens many times when one is blinded by its own biases.
ReplyDeleteI respect what you have to say but from the interviews to some of the looters just said it was "fun" or they were getting their taxes back ! .... and some of the looters have jobs. I think some of the problems are "overcrowding and boredom" but there are lots of people/places that are never mentioned and have nothing but I don't see them rioting. At their ages I had 3 part-time jobs (because I couldn't get a full time job (this was in the 70's and 80's) and worked instead stealing ! and burning down buildings. I now live in Brisbane with a house by the beach !!!! and I was born and raised in London in some of the poorest neighborhoods. But it never compelled me to riot ? I remember people being on 3 day weeks, blackouts due to strikes, high unemployment rates etc etc ..... Sorry but I really don't think there is a feasible excuse for these riots ...
ReplyDeletedylEmz said...
ReplyDelete"Mentally ill" should not be a pejorative. Just because someone has a mental illness, it does not follow that they are some sort of scum underclass.
You make a good point.
I said that in the heat of the moment, and didn't mean to imply that people with real mental disabilities should be in any way categorised with the london rioters.
In fact, I would put the mentally ill far above the rioters in virtue. They, who's mental abilities aren't perfect, seem to act more intelligently and rationally than the rioters.
The rioters, many who have full mental capabilities, have CHOSEN to disregard their minds and act as mindless brutes.
Thank you for sharing all this. Really touching. My sister lives in Tottenham and I, myself living in Lithuania, cannot believe all this.
ReplyDeleteMedia is revieling no real reasons for what's happening. So thank you again:)
Quote: "The politics of a burning building, a smashed-in shop or a young man shot by police may be obscured even to those who lit the rags or fired the gun, but the politics are there."
ReplyDeleteWhat? This statement is, scientifically speaking, unfalsifiable. You're saying, in effect: "the rioters are rioting out of political reasons, even though they themselves do not know it." If they themselves don't even know the reasons for their behavior, how can YOU know the reasons for their behavior?
If you are content with basing your political views on unfalsifiable statements like this, why should I believe you and not someone like Katherine Birbalsingh, who argues these rioters are just mindless, valueless thugs? At least she has the benefit of actually trying to educate these children on a day by day basis: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/katharinebirbalsingh/100100161/no-wonder-these-kids-think-stealing-trainers-is-ok-everyone-makes-excuses-for-them/
@SJS
ReplyDelete"You cannot change the way these people behave, because they LIKE the way they are. They lack any moral compass, any social responsibility, any willingness to be productive. In the place of those purposefully belayed virtues, they have weaknesses: desire to steal, to "make fast money" at the expense of those of us who work hard, to cause others pain, to seek "popularity" within their gang, to watch the world burn.
There's NO justification for their actions, no excuse. They made their bed, and I for one would be sincerely happy to see copper-jacketed projectiles put them to rest in it."
JAWOHL, MEIN FUHRER. UND AFTER VEE HAVE CRUSHED DE VERMIN ON DER HOMEFRONT, VEE MARCH ON POLAND.
Seriously, I realize I'm running the risk of invoking Godwin's here, but you're more or less quoting Mein Kampf almost verbatim; all you're missing is a ramshackle critique of the Young plan and remarks about "degenerate art."
And to anyone prefacing remarks with "I'm not a racist, but [racist remark]" I would like to say you're not an asshole, but everything that comes out of you is shit.
And on that note, good night and good luck.
Do you still maintain that "the struggle of citizen versus state is essentially a romantic one"?
ReplyDelete