The violence we’ve seen in London over the past three days has been indiscriminate. The family of Mark Duggan deserve answers from the police, and they must get them sooner rather than later. But the masked mobs on our streets are not rioters, they are criminals, and people should stop apologising for them.
I’ve lived in London all of my life, and I’m a proud resident of Haringey. So the past few days have been deeply upsetting and disturbing to me as I’ve watched people burn and smash their own streets and shops. Residents have been forced to hide in their houses, and flee their homes for fear of attack and arson. This isn’t London.
London is the city where people in July 2005 stood firm alongside each other when we were attacked by terrorists. London is the city that has looked ahead optimistically to the 2012 Olympics in order to renew parts of our city which have been neglected for decades. London is the city where people live side by side, accommodating one another everyday in tough and challenging circumstances.
My grandparents moved from Dagenham to Wood Green in Haringey in the 1950s to raise a family and set up home. The looting and vandalism which took place in Wood Green on Saturday night would have shocked them deeply. Today’s residents of Tottenham and Wood Green have not only felt the real and immediate impact of the violence, but will sadly have to live with its long term effects – another blow to the already difficult image that Haringey has in the media.
Residents in Tottenham will rightly expect a proper response from our leaders, local and national, and in particular from the police to the initial violence that followed the peaceful vigil outside Tottenham police station on Saturday.
Yet we must separate the anger about the shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham from the indiscriminate violence and pure criminality which has erupted since. These are not riots or political protests, they are looting gangs and mob-led violence.
It must be clear to every Londoner watching the events of the past few days that a number of problems are brewing in our neighbourhoods that have nothing to do with the shooting of Mark Duggan. Gangs of hooded youths smashing up shop fronts and small businesses, and terrorising local residents and communities is totally unacceptable; and is anathema to many Londoners. The violence in Enfield, Clapham, Hackney, Lewisham, and Brixton, is simply criminal looting, and when this is over we must ask why this has happened.
So while politicians should urgently worry about the causes of this violence and the effect it will have on community cohesion, it is equally clear that a number issues are being blurred here. There is some ill-advised commentary from woolly academics such as Nina Power who have already tried to claim that young people can’t be blamed for wanting to express their anger at the economic situation through violence and pure criminality. She claims that the violent scenes ‘all take place against a backdrop of brutal cuts and enforced austerity measures. The government knows very well that it is taking a gamble, and that its policies run the risk of sparking mass unrest on a scale we haven’t seen since the early 1980s.’
I’m afraid this isn’t an argument that I can buy, and I’m sure many ordinary Londoners will feel the same.
If we are going to move on as a community in London from these sad and disturbing events then the first thing we should do is condemn violence, and publicly reclaim our communities from crime and violence antisocial behaviour. And learning the lessons from London’s past this needs to be done in partnership with the police and our political leaders.
You say that “politicians should urgently worry about the causes of this violence” but then criticise Nina Power for doing exactly that. You then accuse her of claiming that young people could not be blamed – a claim which is not present in her article to which you linked.
You pick out that she referred to a backdrop of cuts and austerity, but don’t mention that she also raised the issues of distrust of the police, disproportionate use of stop-and-search on black people (analysis by the LSE and Open Justice Alliance found that they were 26x more likely to be stopped and searched than white people – http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/17/stop-and-search-race-figures), poverty, unemployment and inequality.
So to summarise, we need a debate like the one started by Nina Power, but not like the one started by Nina Power, because she said it’s all about the cuts, even though she didn’t say it’s all about the cuts, and because she said that young people can’t be blamed for the criminality, even though she didn’t say they couldn’t be blamed for the criminality.
Got it.
I agree with many of your points but why isn’t it a ‘riot’?
Here are a few definitions of riot I’ve just looked up:
A riot is a form of civil disorder characterized often by disorganized groups lashing out in a sudden and intense rash of violence against authority, property or people. (Wikipedia)
1. A wild or turbulent disturbance created by a large number of people.
2. A violent disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons assembled for a common purpose. (The Free Dictionary)
A violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd (Oxford Dictionaries)
I think what you mean is they weren’t protest, as there was no political motive, but riots they were.
What also needs to be explained is why the Met Police can deal with protesting students but are incapable of dealing with these marauders. Why is it the Met Police become rubbish under a Tory government?
We need to protect the working classes from the criminal classes.
Occam’s razor suggests that those stealing from shops can be best judged by their actions. They are not protesting about society or the police but are simply looters.
The current disorder is bearing down hardest on poor people in poor areas – and no true socialist should support that.
I am wholly against the Coalition’s policy on cuts but I suspect that many of those rioting would take up a job if one were available, would not use a youth centre if it hadn’t been closed. Much – most – of this is organised
looting, vandalism and thuggery from people utterly devoid of any sense of self-respect or respect for others.
A curfew should be imposed. Blackberry connections should be shut down just as mobile phone lines were during the 7/7 bombings.
I am sorry to say this but if matters do get worse the police should be armed with rubber bullets and other disabling weapons to shoot on sight at anyone seen to be damaging property, wielding a petrol bomb or causing physical harm to others.
The magistracy and judiciary must also ensure that sentences are tough so that rioters do not get away with charges of disturbing the peace.
As a part of ANY sentence, those convicted should be forced to do repair or general clearing up and also have to meet victims – shopkeepers and residents whose property they have destroyed. These criteria should not be instead of custodial sentences but part of a sentence.
Its good to see some socialists in the world and i do not mean this article but the replies left. Things need to be controlled but what matter is what we do afterwards do we give these young people a chance to progress, to educate them and help them to change or do we arrest and neglect them? These are our communities, our people and if you push people into a corner they will rebel.
So when is not a riot,
When there is work foremost
When there is a notable amount of disruption of help
When one can read a book
When one can feed your children
When one can fill the aspirations of life skills
When can give children a good Education
When one can look after the elderly
When one can look to others as a way of keeping in good health
When one can go to hospital and know you will be treated in a clean atmosphere
And know that your love ones will be looked after from the cradle to the grave
hen one knows right from wrong
It’s good to have someone to kick off the debate, but the notion that ‘good working class Londoners’ are having their lives disrupted by others who may not have been invited to join the workforce really stinks of shallow pseudo-socialist workerism walking into a trap of its own brewing.
We all need to think carefully about the reasons for the rioting, arson and looting and if we are to find solutions we must first identify the sections of society these marauding hooligans come from. The following groups appear to represent the vast majority of culprits:
1) young people between the ages of 15 and 25
2) males
3) black
4) people happy to inflict mindless violence
5) people with no moral dimensions when it comes to civilised behaviour.
Free education
Free health service
Free school meals
Benefit system
Votes for all
Deprivation?