Riots

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  • scottycelt

    Originally posted by aka Calum Da Jazbo View Post
    ..that poor lady who worked in a shop in Birmingham, she and her colleague had their handbags stolen, were threatend with and suffered violence, called the police several times and were told help was on its way ... none came ...and as she said all this for £5-95p an hour ...
    Well that poor lady can certainly claim that the 'authorities' have failed her ... unlike the young female looter who was interviewed by a reporter as she emerged from a shop carrying a Plasma TV.

    'Why are you doing this, do you think it's fun?' ... the reporter cried to her.
    'Yes, and it helps to pay me taxes ..' ... the young 'lady' retorted.

    Presumably she therefore had a job as well, and maybe even on higher pay than the mugged woman?

    I continue to maintain that to say social deprivation is the root cause of thuggery and wanton vandalism is a gross insult to the overwhelming majority of socially deprived people who would never countenance such wicked and selfish behaviour.

    It's a sad day when I end up agreeing with the likes of Nigel Farage, but he's the only politician who is talking any sense at the moment. Cameron's recall of Parliament in two days time is wholly inadequate and the police need the assistance of the army to send out a quick and strong message to the thugs or this could rapidly spread even further.

    The Government must show leadership and act to reassure the country NOW!

    Comment

    • aeolium
      Full Member
      • Nov 2010
      • 3992

      There's nothing "progressive" about rioting, per se, for all the "obvious" reasons you've so well spelt out; it's not a question of "siding" with forces of law and order, but of seeing rioting circumvents the possibility of law and order or any kind.
      No, although some rioting - for instance the poll tax riots in 1990 - can be imo a valid response to governmental injustice. And also the very different riots in North Africa were a justified response borne out of despair at corrupt and autocratic government and rising food prices.

      The rioting here is not of that kind. It is better described in those lines of Auden's: "Those to whom evil is done/Do evil in their turn" (the first evil in this case being neglect).

      Calum is right about the long pedigree of English rioting, for instance this one. And I was prompted to look again at sections from Barnaby Rudge about the Gordon Riots, including this Hogarthian evocation:

      He looked back, once, before he left the street; and looked upon a sight not easily to be erased, even from his remembrance, so long as he had life.

      The vintner's house with a half-a-dozen others near at hand, was one great, glowing blaze. All night, no one had essayed to quench the flames, or stop their progress; but now a body of soldiers were actively engaged in pulling down two old wooden houses, which were every moment in danger of taking fire, and which could scarcely fail, if they were left to burn, to extend the conflagration immensely. The tumbling down of nodding walls and heavy blocks of wood, the hooting and the execrations of the crowd, the distant firing of other military detachments, the distracted looks and cries of those whose habitations were in danger, the hurrying to and fro of frightened people with their goods; the reflections in every quarter of the sky, of deep, red, soaring flames, as though the last day had come and the whole universe were burning; the dust, and smoke, and drift of fiery particles, scorching and kindling all it fell upon; the hot unwholesome vapour, the blight on everything; the stars, and moon, and very sky, obliterated;—made up such a sum of dreariness and ruin, that it seemed as if the face of Heaven were blotted out, and night, in its rest and quiet, and softened light, never could look upon the earth again.

      But there was a worse spectacle than this—worse by far than fire and smoke, or even the rabble's unappeasable and maniac rage. The gutters of the street, and every crack and fissure in the stones, ran with scorching spirit, which being dammed up by busy hands, overflowed the road and pavement, and formed a great pool, into which the people dropped down dead by dozens. They lay in heaps all round this fearful pond, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, women with children in their arms and babies at their breasts, and drank until they died. While some stooped with their lips to the brink and never raised their heads again, others sprang up from their fiery draught, and danced, half in a mad triumph, and half in the agony of suffocation, until they fell, and steeped their corpses in the liquor that had killed them. Nor was even this the worst or most appalling kind of death that happened on this fatal night. From the burning cellars, where they drank out of hats, pails, buckets, tubs, and shoes, some men were drawn, alive, but all alight from head to foot; who, in their unendurable anguish and suffering, making for anything that had the look of water, rolled, hissing, in this hideous lake, and splashed up liquid fire which lapped in all it met with as it ran along the surface, and neither spared the living nor the dead. On this last night of the great riots—for the last night it was—the wretched victims of a senseless outcry, became themselves the dust and ashes of the flames they had kindled, and strewed the public streets of London.

      Comment

      • old khayyam

        I think what Lateral Thinking says is right.

        One thing i'd like to point out: When they say it is mindless criminality as opposed to political protest, maybe they are commiting criminal acts as a political protest. This is backed up by a graffito on a wall in the Hackney riot zone which, how shall we say, disrespected Cameron.

        Anyone who thinks they should just write a letter to their MP is completely out of touch. For example, they are tired of seeing people shot dead by policemen who never see the inside of a prison.

        Also, when people talk about 'them' disrupting 'the' community, they are actually referring to native londoners disrupting the communities of affluent, white immigrants from outside London whose initial crime was to infiltrate the original London communities that are now, as we see, left with nothing to lose (the irony being that they moved to Hackney because of its edgy cool).

        Comment

        • hackneyvi

          Originally posted by old khayyam View Post
          Also, when people talk about 'them' disrupting 'the' community, they are actually referring to native londoners disrupting the communities of affluent, white immigrants from outside London whose initial crime was to infiltrate the original London communities that are now, as we see, left with nothing to lose (the irony being that they moved to Hackney because of its edgy cool).
          'Them' are also disrupting the communities of affluent black native Londoners, non-affluent white native Londonders, non-affluent black native Londoners, non-affluent black immigrant Londoners, affluent white immigrant Londoners, non affluent white immigrant Londoners, of non-affluent Turkish shopkeepers, of non-affluent Nigerian marketstall holders, of non-affluent Vietnamese waiting staff ... shall I go on?

          Alot of people live in Hackney because that's where their families and friends are. Alot of other people live in Hackney because it's the best place they can afford to live.

          Did you not know this was our 'initial crime'?
          Last edited by Guest; 09-08-11, 15:28.

          Comment

          • Eine Alpensinfonie
            Host
            • Nov 2010
            • 20576

            I hope the government will think before speaking. After all, they've supporting anti-government riots in Syria, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, etc. It may not be the same here, but some of the attitudes have been alarmingly similar.

            Comment

            • Serial_Apologist
              Full Member
              • Dec 2010
              • 37908

              All shops in the square 3 minutes from where I live have been closed and boarded up all day today. The entrance to Tesco Express in W Dulwich restricted with bouncers inside, coppers out, according to neighbour. Long queues for basics at the newsagent next to Gipsy Hill station where I had to get my RT; a young guy in the queue saying "It's Crystal Palace's turn tonight; just got it on my mobile". Just asked one of the builders here to hide any stray scaffolding poles I've found lying around.

              Comment

              • Frances_iom
                Full Member
                • Mar 2007
                • 2419

                Originally posted by aeolium View Post
                And I was prompted to look again at sections from Barnaby Rudge about the Gordon Riots, including this Hogarthian evocation:
                Dickens here almost certainly recycling written accounts - the riots occured before his father was born

                Comment

                • aeolium
                  Full Member
                  • Nov 2010
                  • 3992

                  I'm not sure what sources Dickens used but I very much doubt he was recycling written accounts, any more than he did in A Tale of Two Cities (for which he used Carlyle's French Revolution as a source) - more like his own imaginative recreations of bare narratives.

                  Comment

                  • Anna

                    Originally posted by hackneyvi View Post
                    'Them' are also disrupting the communities of affluent black native Londoners, non-affluent white native Londonders, non-affluent black native Londoners, non-affluent black immigrant Londoners, affluent white immigrant Londoners, non affluent white immigrant Londoners, of non-affluent Turkish shopkeepers, of non-affluent Nigerian marketstall holders, of non-affluent Vietnamese waiting staff ... shall I go on?
                    Well said Vi.

                    I've had LBC on for a short while, seems most of London suburbs are shutting down early and LBC posted a list of what they say are possible targets (although where this information has come from I don't know) Strangely enough, a similar item on Sky News but then the reporter added that a policeman from the Met had said "but large areas of London will be unguarded" Hmm?

                    Perhaps, with the 16,000 police on the streets and the fact that plastic bullets possibly could be used if the situation warranted it the looters will be deterred from taking to the streets?

                    Comment

                    • Stillhomewardbound
                      Full Member
                      • Nov 2010
                      • 1109

                      Heard a lady in the queue complaining that all the UK's water canons were in Northern Ireland Yes, disgraceful isn't it. As in, successive Home Secretaries who've tutted ever the suggetion of their being used in Great Britain ... but Northern Ireland, ha, no problem ... away you go!

                      Comment

                      • Anna

                        Amongst all this blanket media coverage what I would like to see are some of the rioters interviewed (without fear of any reprisal) and hear what they truly think their reasons are about why they did what they did so that people can possibly start to comprehend.

                        Martin Luther King said that a riot is the language of the unheard, but Ralph Waldo Emmerson said what you do speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying.

                        Comment

                        • aka Calum Da Jazbo
                          Late member
                          • Nov 2010
                          • 9173

                          time lapse sequence

                          images
                          According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.

                          Comment

                          • Panjandrum

                            [QUOTE=Anna;73514]Amongst all this blanket media coverage what I would like to see are some of the rioters interviewed (without fear of any reprisal) and hear what they truly think their reasons are about why they did what they did so that people can possibly start to comprehend.
                            QUOTE]

                            I doubt you would get an "honest" response. They would probably say it was that there is nothing else for them to do. However, I suspect their motivations (conscious or subliminal) are broadly similar to those of football hooligans whose primary object is excitement, in face of a humdrum mind grinding reality. Face it, if your life is devoid of prospects or a future then this provides a sense of immediate power over the police and the rest of society.

                            Comment

                            • scottycelt

                              There are not going to be 16,000 police on the streets of London tonight. There are going to be 16,000 'available for duty and call at short notice' (and that includes part-time special constables and those from other forces) over a 24-hour period ... that's the official and presumably correct information from the Met itself.

                              Comment

                              • Serial_Apologist
                                Full Member
                                • Dec 2010
                                • 37908

                                Originally posted by aka Calum Da Jazbo View Post
                                Amazing photos, thanks calum. I'm sending these off to my friend in Toronto

                                Comment

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