London Riots
Like most of you, I feel angry, conflicted and confused. Walthamstow was among the regions of London hit by the riots (quite early on, on Sunday) and as we are a neighbouring district of Tottenham where the problems started, that shouldn't have been any big surprise. Compared to some regions of London, however, we seem to have got off lightly.
Now that I feel a bit calmer and able to reflect a bit on how on earth this happened - how one incident in Tottenham spread violence not just across the rest of London, but also some other major cities in the UK - I can't help but feel that what we witnessed might just be the beginning of a 21st Century phenomenon, albeit not a pleasant one. Throughout history, riots have usually been sparked by a perceived injustice, or a series of political demands, then been followed by a spate of looting as opportunists take advantage of the otherwise distracted police forces. Certainly, this has been the case in the UK and the USA for hundreds of years. The Brixton riots in the eighties produced reports of old ladies grabbing handbags from broken shop windows, something which has been reported so many times I suspect it may even be an urban myth - but if so, it is at least myth which proves a point. The morally dubious will always be tempted.
What I believe was different this time is that the spate of looting, normally confined to an evening or at the very most a day, actually had an absurdly long-tail and a remarkably long reach. Not confined to areas within the radius of the original incident in Tottenham such as my home of Walthamstow and also Enfield, it made spectacular and (to me) unexpected geographic leaps, jumping to Brixton in South London which seemingly had no connection to the original incident, then very finally on to Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. In my view, this may have been the first series of lootings in history created by modern communications technology. Upon seeing how easy it was to loot stores in London, gangs and even middle-aged, middle-class people grabbed their opportunities elsewhere. If they were in any doubt, people were alerting them on Twitter and through the Blackberry mobile network. On Sunday night, I sat at home watching Twitter to see what information I could glean about where the worst would be happening next (wondering whether it might be near my street). Amidst the usual bullshit tweeted by attention-seekers lay some very accurate predictions. An acquaintance of mine who grew up in a rough area of London watched his old schoolfriends closely on his Blackberry to get tabs. "East Ham will go up tonight," he warned me. And then it did.
This a simplistic and controversial argument, but to me it's a compelling one. There are two ways you could view this spate of public disorder. The first is to believe that "the youths" (joined by a fair quantity of middle aged people who have gone unreported) are out of control, that they have gone "feral", that something has suddenly gone rotten in society, and this means that we're witnessing a breakdown of order in society/ the natural effects of capitalism gone foul and kids kicking back against it (delete where applicable). The second is to think that this was just a very modern, very unique riot which had a flashpoint in Tottenham, and then due to modern forms of communication had after-effects which spread to a far wider radius of the city, and then finally the country, long after the original trigger had been forgotten. As somebody remarked when I put this theory forward on a forum, "something physical went viral".
This takes nothing away from debates about criminality (or "revolutionary activity" if you want to live in a fantasy world, jerking off over the idea that suddenly all your Marxist pamphlets have come true at once) and what causes it, nor should it distract anyone from discussing what drives so many people to such an end. For me, it's hard not to remember the few visits I had to Tottenham and my one-off remark that the area seemed like "hell". The last time I went there, there were charred cars and buildings (the riot certainly didn't create anything new there) and some of the angriest looking and most despondent people I've ever seen. It looked like somewhere something very bad was due to happen at any moment, and would always have been my number one prediction if anyone had asked me where a riot might occur in Britain. What I could never have predicted, however, was that after years of being ignored, being London's dirty secret, the impoverished area which always seemed to be 'controlled' rather than having its issues addressed, this would happen. That the region would become a virus in itself, spreading its problems nationwide.
Whatever else comes out of the last week, my personal belief is that in future, Governments and Councils ignore improverished areas at their peril. The impact of their explosions may now be felt very widely indeed. We can only wait to find out if they actually take a more sensible approach in future. So maybe, accidentally, and without meaning to be, this was a sort of revolution - but only time will tell. Politicians and authorities have ignored the obvious signs before, so there's no reason to say they won't do so again.
Now that I feel a bit calmer and able to reflect a bit on how on earth this happened - how one incident in Tottenham spread violence not just across the rest of London, but also some other major cities in the UK - I can't help but feel that what we witnessed might just be the beginning of a 21st Century phenomenon, albeit not a pleasant one. Throughout history, riots have usually been sparked by a perceived injustice, or a series of political demands, then been followed by a spate of looting as opportunists take advantage of the otherwise distracted police forces. Certainly, this has been the case in the UK and the USA for hundreds of years. The Brixton riots in the eighties produced reports of old ladies grabbing handbags from broken shop windows, something which has been reported so many times I suspect it may even be an urban myth - but if so, it is at least myth which proves a point. The morally dubious will always be tempted.
What I believe was different this time is that the spate of looting, normally confined to an evening or at the very most a day, actually had an absurdly long-tail and a remarkably long reach. Not confined to areas within the radius of the original incident in Tottenham such as my home of Walthamstow and also Enfield, it made spectacular and (to me) unexpected geographic leaps, jumping to Brixton in South London which seemingly had no connection to the original incident, then very finally on to Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. In my view, this may have been the first series of lootings in history created by modern communications technology. Upon seeing how easy it was to loot stores in London, gangs and even middle-aged, middle-class people grabbed their opportunities elsewhere. If they were in any doubt, people were alerting them on Twitter and through the Blackberry mobile network. On Sunday night, I sat at home watching Twitter to see what information I could glean about where the worst would be happening next (wondering whether it might be near my street). Amidst the usual bullshit tweeted by attention-seekers lay some very accurate predictions. An acquaintance of mine who grew up in a rough area of London watched his old schoolfriends closely on his Blackberry to get tabs. "East Ham will go up tonight," he warned me. And then it did.
This a simplistic and controversial argument, but to me it's a compelling one. There are two ways you could view this spate of public disorder. The first is to believe that "the youths" (joined by a fair quantity of middle aged people who have gone unreported) are out of control, that they have gone "feral", that something has suddenly gone rotten in society, and this means that we're witnessing a breakdown of order in society/ the natural effects of capitalism gone foul and kids kicking back against it (delete where applicable). The second is to think that this was just a very modern, very unique riot which had a flashpoint in Tottenham, and then due to modern forms of communication had after-effects which spread to a far wider radius of the city, and then finally the country, long after the original trigger had been forgotten. As somebody remarked when I put this theory forward on a forum, "something physical went viral".
This takes nothing away from debates about criminality (or "revolutionary activity" if you want to live in a fantasy world, jerking off over the idea that suddenly all your Marxist pamphlets have come true at once) and what causes it, nor should it distract anyone from discussing what drives so many people to such an end. For me, it's hard not to remember the few visits I had to Tottenham and my one-off remark that the area seemed like "hell". The last time I went there, there were charred cars and buildings (the riot certainly didn't create anything new there) and some of the angriest looking and most despondent people I've ever seen. It looked like somewhere something very bad was due to happen at any moment, and would always have been my number one prediction if anyone had asked me where a riot might occur in Britain. What I could never have predicted, however, was that after years of being ignored, being London's dirty secret, the impoverished area which always seemed to be 'controlled' rather than having its issues addressed, this would happen. That the region would become a virus in itself, spreading its problems nationwide.
Whatever else comes out of the last week, my personal belief is that in future, Governments and Councils ignore improverished areas at their peril. The impact of their explosions may now be felt very widely indeed. We can only wait to find out if they actually take a more sensible approach in future. So maybe, accidentally, and without meaning to be, this was a sort of revolution - but only time will tell. Politicians and authorities have ignored the obvious signs before, so there's no reason to say they won't do so again.