Voices: The London Riots

August 11th, 2011 by Latoya Peterson

Are they really surprised that this country’s culture is swamped in greed, in the acquisition of material things, in a lust for consumer goods of the most base kind? Really?

Let’s have a think back: cash-for-questions; Bernie Ecclestone; cash-for-access; Mandelson’s mortgage; the Hinduja passports; Blunkett’s alleged insider trading (and, by the way, when someone has had to resign in disgrace twice can we stop having them on television as a commentator, please?); the meetings on the yachts of oligarchs; the drafting of the Digital Economy Act with Lucian Grange; Byers’, Hewitt’s & Hoon’s desperation to prostitute themselves and their positions; the fact that Andrew Lansley (in charge of NHS reforms) has a wife who gives lobbying advice to the very companies hoping to benefit from the NHS reforms. And that list didn’t even take me very long to think of.

Our politicians are for sale and they do not care who knows it.

Oh yes, and then there’s the expenses thing. Widescale abuse of the very systems they designed, almost all of them grasping what they could while they remained MPs, to build their nest egg for the future at the public’s expense. They even now whine on Twitter about having their expenses claims for getting back to Parliament while much of the country is on fire subject to any examination. True public servants.

– Nathaniel Tapely, “An Open Letter to David Cameron’s Parents”

 

(Via Baratunde and Jason)

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  • Rochelle

    Obviously this episode should be seen through a political lens, with a careful examination of the structural and historical factors that have caused and/or conditioned what is happening. Any brush off in “mindless violence” parlance is, I agree, very dangerous.

    But dangerous, too, is any wisp of romanticization of this violence by those who want to cast the rioters in the role of the ‘people’ and the politicians or police as the ‘enemy’ and everyone in between as stagecrew. I am not rooting for rioters, and I don’t think there’s anything cool or forgivable or empathetic about smashing glass and taking shit.

    Clearly this is just anecdotal, but I’ve lived in London and I saw some truly astounding violence there. I wouldn’t call it ‘mindless’ but more like ‘disinterested’, meaning there was no clear economic or social-justice motive.  On the southside of Chicago (where I lived before), you got jumped because somebody wanted your money or you did something to piss somebody off. In London I saw a guy getting stabbed by a group of young (white) men in hoodies outside my flat. They didn’t know the guy, they didn’t take any of his stuff. It was just random. It reminded me of the Clockwork Orange, and it wasn’t an isolated incident.

    Any attempts to cast this as a ‘brown-people’ phenomenon is pure, unadulterated bullpoo. The fact is, the vast majority of the rioters are young, white men, who can classify as ’NEET’ (not in education, employment or training). So yes, I don’t have any qualms saying that the UK is experiencing a huge social problem with a group of people who are not integrating well into society and causing problems as a result: young, bored, white men.