London is burning around me. Two minutes walk away, shops are having their windows smashed in and cars are being set alight. The other side of London, in Croydon, a street has been razed to the ground – including a furniture store that has passed through five generations of the same family.
The police are struggling to keep pace with the spread of the riots. A commentator on Sky News has just explained that the police now have everyone out on the street, officers who have only received the most basic training in controlling public order.
News agencies are relying on mobile phone footage and telephone interviews as it isn’t safe for their camera crews to be seen recording footage.
Undoubtedly, the people involved are mindless thugs. Wilfully roaming from street to street trying to cause as much destruction as possible. They want to cause damage. They want to break windows. They want to leave with armfuls of loot.
The question is why?
It isn’t how; it is quite clear how they are doing it. It isn’t where they are doing it; it is quite clear that it is anywhere they feel they can. It is why? Why do they want to destroy their own communities, why do they want to endanger people’s lives by setting buildings alight, why don’t they want to stop?
The conversation is being dominated by disgust at these people’s actions. Yes, they are horrendous acts, but where are we going to take the discussion if we just cast aside the people responsible?
ASBO’s
The warm up act to this problem is the disaster that was Tony Blair’s Anti-Social Behaviour Orders. Created as a way of stopping socially unacceptable action by small groups of people, they soon became badges of pride to the very people they were supposed to stop. Why didn’t we learn the lesson from this? These people are at the bottom of society. And they are only getting further and further away from the middle.
What reason do they have to care about what the politically cherished middle class think of them? They don’t care about their local communities suffering with the damage it’s own inhabitants have done. These people and places provide them with nothing. They have no hope, they have no opportunities. They aren’t suffering because of the cuts, they are suffering more because of the cuts.
There are no facilities for people young and old, no prospects and no concern from the society above them. They don’t care if it is David Cameron, Nick Clegg or Ed Milliband in Downing Street. To them, no one cares about them, they look after themselves.
One picture doing the rounds on Twitter is of a looter making off with a 5kg bag of Tesco Economy Basmati Rice. Nowhere amongst the jokes about him being the worst looter ever was there anyone asking why you would feel it was worth stealing a bag of economy rice, even if it was a 5kg one.
The situation is sad. The question is why?
Newspapers and television frequently debate at great length the merits of British involvement in helping the developing world, or how cuts will affect ‘hard-working families’. Rarely is the main topic of discussion how on earth do we help the ever worsening situation at the foot of society.
The question is why? Why didn’t we notice?
I’d like to be clear, this is not a defence of the rioters (looters, protestors, thugs – whatever you wish to call them). It is an attack on those who castigate the people out on the streets without stopping to wonder what would move you to be out on the street, not caring if people thought you were a thug, rioter of protestor.
good one mate, i agree the prospects are grim n ppl are fed up…
The ‘why?’ question is a good one and it is getting lost.
I don’t have the answer but I certainly don’t think it is as simple as social deprivation. This rings hollow when people are seen looting, already decked out in expensive clothes filming their exploits on camera phones! The vast majority of these people aren’t homeless or starving. By virtue of being a UK citizen they have access to free health care and education systems that are the pride of the UK and envy of much of the world.
Ultimately I think they are looting not because life is so tough there’s no other option, but because of greed combined with a sense of misplaced entitlement. If they didn’t think they could get away with it, I don’t think they would do it. Real desperation is different: you act because you see no other way out irrespective of consequences.
I wonder if the failure of society is to educate an appreciation that you are responsible for the consequences to others of your actions. Ultimately violence, arson and looting are all utterly selfish behaviours of people with no social responsibility. If you actively harm society, how can you expect society to protect and care for you (let alone provide you with plasma TVs).
These criminals are despicable and if they don’t face real consequences, that represent actual deterrents (as you rightly point out ASBOs failed because they were not) nothing will change.
For society to function crime can not be seen to yield gains, regardless of scale.
Sorry for the hijack but typing that was extremely therapeutic!
“One picture doing the rounds on Twitter is of a looter making off with a 5kg bag of Tesco Economy Basmati Rice. Nowhere amongst the jokes about him being the worst looter ever was there anyone asking why you would feel it was worth stealing a bag of economy rice, even if it was a 5kg one.”
“Ultimately I think they are looting … because of greed combined with a sense of misplaced entitlement. If they didn’t think they could get away with it, I don’t think they would do it.”
I realise that this is late, but I came across your blog and had to throw in my “2 cents”. I have to agree with you both to an extent. The 2 quotes above do seem to contradict each other; I think the reality is that there were all types of people looting and rioting, for different reasons. Trying to put them all into one category is just silly.
The only answer I can think of is better education. Yes, it’s free, but education in this country is a joke. As someone who has been to both private and state schools, I’ve seen the divide personally.
Anyway, lunch time.
We may share a name but clearly not a mind.
I don’t blame you though; as a “journalist” it would not be in your interest to deviate too far from the neo-liberal script and there’s nothing worse than an unemployable journalist.
I really just don’t image anyone in politics or the media is ever going to be honest about why we had the riots, why the next lot will be worse and how bleak the future under the current [global] elite is looking. Never has thought-crime ever been so costly in a western democracy as it is now.
Anyway, hope you are working now – your Linked-in page is looking a bit un-loved.
All the best.
AB