Being as far removed as I am to what is/has been going on in the past few days in London, it's not something on which I am perhaps qualified to write but I had an email from MG today saying that it had even extended to his local retail park!
Now MG does not live in a 'sink estate'; most of the properties around him are either 'Victorian artisan dwellings' or '30s' semi detached, the vast majority of which are owner occupied or privately rented. There is very little 'social' housing. What land could be used for social housing lay waste for decades until they built the retail parks in an attempt to 'rejuvenate' the area.
So, why 'riot' there?
I should like to say before I begin that there is very important evolutionary issue here. Human males are statistically much more likely to have a violent altercation with another male between the ages of 16 and 23 than at any other time of their lives. You can guess why! Sex! Mammalian males have a tendency to compete in fights over the right to breed, especially in apes, like humans. It's why the cannon fodder in wars are generally the youngest; they are already 'primed' to fight. (I'm not excusing this behaviour, merely pointing it out.
I've tried to do a little background reading on the circumstances which led to the initial riot and it seems that an armed black man was shot dead by armed police who, as far as I can determine, was wanted for 'questioning'. Now the London police are not usually armed, it's a special squad, so there is at least the possibility that the police expected him to be carrying a weapon, which of itself is a crime in the UK.
The police appear to have been initially reticent about giving the full details but they always are, every discharge of a firearm is investigated before they release any more that the 'bare bones'. The family, understandably upset by the shooting, organised a peaceful demonstration to complain about the police's behaviour.
The Tottenham district of London has been prone to periodic outbreaks of rioting. It has a large black population which feels disadvantaged; it has a lot of badly engineered sink estates; a lot of youths have been poorly educated and thus find it difficult to find work; there is furthermore a high level of crime and the police use their 'stop and search' powers to the full, some might say to overflowing. So there is a social backgound to all this.
There are rumours, not reported in the press as far as I can tell, that what sparked the riot was the treatment of a teenage girl when she 'confronted' a police line; a trucheon was used! Whether this was deliberate provocation to promote a response, whether she just wanted to know the time or whether it is all internet fabrication, I do not know. However a riot ensued. In the course of this riot, I understand, Molotov Cocktails were thrown at police and buildings, along with other large objects, local shops were torched and cars overturned; ah, the spirit of 1968! Wholesale looting followed.
I would like to ask but one question. To make a Molotov Cocktail, as everyone knows, you need a glass bottle, petrol or some other highly flammable liquid and rag or paper to provide a stopper and a fuse to ignite the petrol. Who caries such things around with them? Even if you make one on the 'fly', you are going to have to buy a bottle of cheap vodka, drink it or tip it down the drain (milk comes in cartons and other beverages in plastic), a length of tubing so that you can siphon the petrol from a car's tank, a newspaper and some matches if you don't smoke; all in all about £12.50 and that's just for one!
So, might there be a degree of organistion, orchestration, here? I merely ask the question.
However, what appears to be happening around the country and elsewhere in London is simple mayhem for the sake of it and theft of consumer goods under the guise of a protest against 'rich' people; it would be funny if it were not so dangerous and damaging. Get real, kiddies! When you target local shops, in your High Street, you target not the rich but people who earn about the same as your parents or less. When you target 'big business', do you think they care? They are insured! It's a minor inconvenience if one store out of 1,000 is out of action for a month or so for a refit. They refit stores all the time! It's just one more.
I once wrote a blog about paeodophilia; about how certain individuals prey on the naivite and defenceless nature of the young; is this any different? Only the naive would spout the nonsense that these people are coming out with!
Just a brief aside to Donnacha DeLong, I heartily agree with you; anarchy has been getting bad press ever since Cromwell, perhaps before. Good that the Police retracted it.
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