London Riots

[Baggins]

A dog may gape, charge, and maul in war, but he is no knight who knows the cause. The truth is as darthkiwi put it: they see what they want and take it by force. They have no true underlying value system such as marxism to justify it. If anything, marxism is another convenient straw man to justify their own marauding greed.

Thus you pretty much hit on the underlying aspects of every historical revolution based on Marxism. Karl Marx himself was inspired by the French Revolution!

In Marxist theory it's called Expropiation (I.e. 'loot the looters ('rich'));
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expropriation

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm#1a

It's appeared under Lenin, Under Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, Castro, etc.

It's actually largely one of the reasons capitalists consider marxists as greedy thieves and robbers.

Not every Marxist agrees with 'expropriation', but many do. It is usually found under communists rather than socialists.

The American revolution in contrast was a very different animal, and by many considered honorable and just cause. America didn't support the French Revolution  because it was far more violent, and involved things that the US considered dishonorable.

[Delling]

A dog may gape, charge, and maul in war, but he is no knight who knows the cause. The truth is as darthkiwi put it: they see what they want and take it by force. They have no true underlying value system such as marxism to justify it. If anything, marxism is another convenient straw man to justify their own marauding greed.

Thus you pretty much hit on the underlying aspects of every historical revolution based on Marxism. Karl Marx himself was inspired by the French Revolution!

In Marxist theory it's called Expropiation (I.e. 'loot the looters ('rich'));
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expropriation

For them to honestly BE MARXISTS, they'd have to UNDERSTAND what they are doing and be honestly WORKING towards that end goal... not just parroting Marxism because it's convenient. It seems you've just said that every historical revolution "based on Marxism" was actually an excuse to loot and pillage and had no real basis in Marxism at all...

I mean they could just as easily claim that "existentialism due to overthinking Schroedinger's Cat made them question the meaning of it all until they went insane and went on a bit of tear"... it would be just as unrealistic to expect that they knew what existentialism and Schroedinger's Cat are on about as to believe that they are genuinely trying to establish a Marxist state.

However, the revolutions in Russia at least to an extent WERE MARXIST because that was their goal and insofar as the corruption inherent in their leadership allowed, they accomplished a Marxist state (it's Marx's belief that a dictatorial, tyrannical socialist state will eventually give way to an egalitarian society based on equality and equal distribution that is the problem... but IIRC, Marx did say that you had to go through the former to reach the latter (again IIRC, it was in order to break the class system... how establishing a state mandated, run, and maintained uber-class ruling with carte blanche is supposed to help eliminate the class system... agnwrw... monws agnwrw (that's "I don't know... I just don't know") ... hasn't exactly worked out, has it, Karl?)

[Baggins]

You seem to be suggesting these attacks were unorganized. But the police are already saying that it was organized through social messaging groups and twitter. They were even passing out pamphlets among those involved trying to explain how to get away with it, and the idealogical reasons why they are doing it.

http://libcom.org/forums/general/anarchists-respond-london-riots-solfed-news-item-09082011?page=1
There is some entertainment to be had from reading the different types of anarchists and lib communists argue there positions on why 'looting/Expropiation' is valid form if resistance, and others who think they should be 'peaceful resistance only'. Anarchists never agree on these aspects!

Hell much of this is right out of V is for Vendetta (looting, vandalism, etc). Without the Guy Fawkes masks.

[Fierce Deity]

What's even worse is the message they are sending. They think they are starting a revolution, but when all of this dies down, they will be marked as terrorists and socialists (and not the good kind). Their message will be lost in translation, and the world will move farther away from their 'vision'. This wasn't the way for them to go, but their peaceful protests weren't being listened to either. How do you revolutionize a world that refuses to change its ways?

[Delling]

You seem to be suggesting these attacks were unorganized. But the police are already saying that it was organized through social messaging groups and twitter. They were even passing out pamphlets among those involved trying to explain how to get away with it, and the idealogical reasons why they are doing it.

http://libcom.org/forums/general/anarchists-respond-london-riots-solfed-news-item-09082011?page=1
There is some entertainment to be had from reading the different types of anarchists and lib communists argue there positions on why 'looting/Expropiation' is valid form if resistance, and others who think they should be 'peaceful resistance only'. Anarchists never agree on these aspects!

Hell much of this is right out of V is for Vendetta (looting, vandalism, etc). Without the Guy Fawkes masks.

Let me put it another way: a sort of ideological trickle down theory--the people at the bottom neither understand nor care about the "cause" in general: instead they see an opportunity to capitalize on an unfortunate event and other people's anger to get what they want.

I highly doubt there's some centralized control to this. "Man, that shop has a sweet TV in the window. Let me just tweet about how the owner is 'rich' and a 'capitalist pig' and 'supports the government'--those are all in this pamphlet the nice rioters gave me earlier--and how we MUST in our indignation--whatever that is--do something about this... and then when the windows smashed, the till robbed, and the inside's on fire, me and my buddies can make off with the TV." And, yes, the street gangs... being you know street gangs... probably are using mobile devices and social media to plan and coordinate their activities: coordination =/= conspiracy to overthrow government and supplant with Marxist regime. My point remains that to genuinely be considered Marxists, they'd have to be trying to do that!

I simply maintain that the general mass of the rioters are opportunistic people with no interest in establishing a Marxist state in England or anywhere else. The level of organization with which they execute their self-important pillaging is their own misguided affair.

Here have an example (I didn't want to do this, but whatever): http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150333636850851&comments and for more detail on the same event: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14480078

Yeah, punching that guy's mouth in and then colluding to steal from his backpack is totes gonna lead to a Marxist state in the UK... just like seizing government buildings and genuinely overthrowing the ruling class in Russia! Totally. Stealing people's bikes, mugging them for their cellphones, and pretending to help them up to rob their bookbags is utterly legit political protest and/or upheaval against the government and not private citizens at all: how could we have been so blind!

(See, I tried poetical and simple with the whole dog/knight thing... now, I'm just being hyperbolic and blunt. I don't really have a setting beyond hyperbolic, sarcastic, and blunt... so, I'll just stop replying now unless you WANT more of this... which I don't even want to produce, so, yeah...)

What's even worse is the message they are sending. They think they are starting a revolution, but when all of this dies down, they will be marked as terrorists and socialists (and not the good kind). Their message will be lost in translation, and the world will move farther away from their 'vision'. This wasn't the way for them to go, but their peaceful protests weren't being listened to either. How do you revolutionize a world that refuses to change its ways?

Uhm... you don't... you can't have a revolution if you can't convince enough people to go along with you.

[Baggins]

The irony is England already is generally a socialist nation, with a touch of state capitalism.This is using terms they describe themselves.

Based on what how British anarchists and regular citizens explained it to me while i was in England;
Almost everyone leans 'left' even their 'right' is generally left of the US politically (possibly left of US moderates even). They tend to view their version of 'right' fascists. If they consider the 'Torries' fascist you have a better understanding what try consider Americans to be. Although the politics are very different. Even much of our left is considered 'right' of their politics apparently.

Anarchists generally fall more to the left, although they rarely support any faction tend to support the lib dem party more often. They also don't feel terms like right and left are effective ways to describe the different political views, as they see both representing 'the government' which they generally don't support, seeing it as oppressive and a police state.

How they go about resisting the 'Police State' varies, some believe only peaceful resistance is valid, others believe more violent means are the only way to get attention.

The more violent of the anarchists were planning looting, squatting, or protesting the Tescos, and ASDA's (the UK version of Wallmart) in their neighborhoods while I was in England over a year ago. As they saw these representing the worst aspects of capitalism, large corporations coming into a community. Though they would definitely rob other types of stores as well. Last December a large group even took over and started fires in the Torres headquarters. Yes, having 'friended' some on Facebook I saw some of these calls to looting or squatting as well as the more peaceful protests in their messages before they happened! It was often haves vs. have-nots mentality. Even a touch of stealing from the rich to give to the poor and homeless (Robin Hood), many anarchists are homeless or poor. They didn't often steal for themselves but others. In general only food and clothing was the limits that they would steal for themselves. More expensive things were stolen to be sold for money which they often passed back to the community.

V for Vendetta actually does a pretty good job getting into the mind of many UK anarchists. It's actually one of their favorite 'books'.

UK politics is quite a bit different to American politics though that comparisons are not particularly accurate or effectively explain the differences. Looting in the US for example rarely ever has ideology behind it.

But in the UK I wouldn't be surprised if many of the looters are Leninist 'Useful Idiots' bring used by other more powerful factions trying to gain more power in the nation. To be discarded once they get their way. Remember even the 'evil' 'state capitalist' supporting Torries could be using them to their advantage to get more power. This ties into the theory that some of this may be a false flag event.

[Fierce Deity]

What's even worse is the message they are sending. They think they are starting a revolution, but when all of this dies down, they will be marked as terrorists and socialists (and not the good kind). Their message will be lost in translation, and the world will move farther away from their 'vision'. This wasn't the way for them to go, but their peaceful protests weren't being listened to either. How do you revolutionize a world that refuses to change its ways?

Uhm... you don't... you can't have a revolution if you can't convince enough people to go along with you.

I think more than enough people have gone along with this, and I know for a fact that nobody is fond of the downturn economy, so why are people still being so stubborn? Someone is stating the obvious, and everybody calls him a socialist. Then they take their practices by force, they call him a terrorist. They aren't going to win this by a long shot, but they definitely aren't better off just sitting around and waiting for the world to change by itself. Even if a world refuses to change, they have to at least try, I just wish they wouldn't have trashed a city to prove their point. Cause now they look like the bad guys, and their evil capitalist dictators look like the victim.  

[Baggins]

It's interesting that much of the Anarchists who say they promote the looting, also say they don't promote hurting the workers! Many of those admit while they have robbed stores, they have never physically assaulted the workers inside. Or if they burned them down, 'that no one was in side'.

With something this big, and camera's everywhere in London... It's hard to tell who are the anarchists, and who might be common muggers caught on video (taking advantage of the chaos)! Mugging happens all the time in London. The Anarchist riots occasionally happen.  

Someone is stating the obvious, and everybody calls him a socialist.

Or apparently a 'tea partier', judging by that one anarchist's quote. Tea partiers are now being called terrorists by the government.

I think it'd just a matter that partisan politics often contains a lot of name calling! Both sides see be other side as an enemy to the 'state'. Depending on how they want to run the state there are disagreements. Both sides think their way is the only way and the other way is 'evil'. If any one disagrees with one of the sides, they get labeled and lumped in with other groups they hate. Though both sides are generally a fault for causing much of the problems in different ways!

[Fierce Deity]

 

Someone is stating the obvious, and everybody calls him a socialist.

Or apparently a 'tea partier', judging by that one anarchist's quote. Tea partiers are now being called terrorists by the government.

I think it'd just a matter that partisan politics often contains a lot of name calling! Both sides see be other side as an enemy to the 'state'. Depending on how they want to run the state there are disagreements. Both sides think their way is the only way and the other way is 'evil'. Though both sides are generally a fault for causing much of the problems in different ways!

No doubt, I've come to that conclusion. But this will be more of a global scale. Bipartisan politics is a game of chess. You are always going to be against each other, and the game won't end until the other is completely wiped out or is in check mate. Getting rid of politicians in office is like getting rid of pawns. They are just a stepping stone.

But this entire confrontation is going to be a shot heard around the world, and no matter what party or country you belong to, the media is going to portray these youths as criminals, when really, they just want to be heard. It's taking the good with the bad. I just feel like the overlying term, "Terrorist" is going to be used indefinitely until this mayhem ends. I sympathize for them, but please don't misconstrue what I'm saying. This violence needs to end, but so does the catalyst which started this in the first place. If nothing is fixed, then it'd only be a matter of time before it happens again.

[Baggins]

Yes it needs to stop. Or this could turn into civil wars or WW3... Even the Black Hand group before WW1 had it's ties to anarchist movements, and they were used as a catalyst (their assasination of the Duke Ferninand) and reason to start the war.

[Deloria]

This is Darthkiwi posting on Deloria's account by accident, sorry for the confusion...

Britain is NOT a socialist state. We can own private property, ergo it's capitalist. Many services such as electricity and railways which were once government-owned are now owned by private companies. We do have free healthcare and the unemployed get welfare pay, but that's it.

I think more than enough people have gone along with this, and I know for a fact that nobody is fond of the downturn economy, so why are people still being so stubborn?

Every newspaper here is filled with stories of whole neighbourhoods coming out to face the rioters and defend their turf. Every news outlet that I have seen has portrayed the riots as a negative thing. Today, I WENT INTO LONDON and WALKED AROUND. I went into a restaurant and ATE FOOD. I even WATCHED A BALLET. I walked past thousands of people going about their daily lives and saw not a single rioter. Everything, in fact, seemed very much like regular, peaceful London, except that I saw a handful more police officers than I would normally. The people of London (and, I think, Britain more generally) do not want this "revolution", whatever that means. Almost everybody is disgusted with these riots and just wants them to stop.

Also, I have lived in the UK all my life and have only ever met one anarchist. And he's a philosopher. Anybody putting a Marxist spin on this is in a minority.

But this entire confrontation is going to be a shot heard around the world, and no matter what party or country you belong to, the media is going to portray these youths as criminals, when really, they just want to be heard.

I agree that social status and upbringing must be a factor in this, but the fact is, these people ARE criminals. They broke the law. Therefore they are criminals. And there's no excuse for that. They will hopefully all be punished as is appropriate to show them that this kind of behavior is not on. Delling is right: while they might be at the bottom of the social ladder, that doesn't mean they can't get back on it. They're not starving, they have welfare benefits. They are not rioting because they don't have enough to eat, they're rioting because they "think it's a laugh".

Ultimately, most of these people have not had a good start in life, and society must take some responsibility for that. But these are sentient human beings and they made the choice to commit all these crimes. There's just no excuse.

Also, WW3? Seriously? How the f*** would that happen? World War 1 happened because 1) Franz Ferdinand was assassinated 2) This started a domino effect of treaties across Europe and 3) Political tensions in Europe were already extremely high. You think somebody will attack us because they signed a treaty with... who?

[Fierce Deity]

This is Darthkiwi posting on Deloria's account by accident, sorry for the confusion...

I think more than enough people have gone along with this, and I know for a fact that nobody is fond of the downturn economy, so why are people still being so stubborn?

Every newspaper here is filled with stories of whole neighbourhoods coming out to face the rioters and defend their turf. Every news outlet that I have seen has portrayed the riots as a negative thing. Today, I WENT INTO LONDON and WALKED AROUND. I went into a restaurant and ATE FOOD. I even WATCHED A BALLET. I walked past thousands of people going about their daily lives and saw not a single rioter. Everything, in fact, seemed very much like regular, peaceful London, except that I saw a handful more police officers than I would normally. The people of London (and, I think, Britain more generally) do not want this "revolution", whatever that means. Almost everybody is disgusted with these riots and just wants them to stop.

I agree, it needs to stop. I just don't see how the handful of people who were starting this riot weren't somehow motivated for one reason or another. I studied biology, English, and history in college. When it came to history, I always wondered what it took to make a revolution successful. I always heard about revolutions in history and they would either go as far as a civil war or as short as a military suppression. I truly don't know how to gauge one revolution from another. Either a message is sent, or it's swept under the mat, so to speak. This riot seemed to have gotten a lot of media attention, so I had assumed it was much bigger than it really was. But my question will still remain, how does a revolution occur if the world does not change its ways? It seemed to have worked for many countries in the past. I can't predict the future, and don't know the fate of Britain's government. But once again, I don't want to mince words; I do want the violence to stop.

But this entire confrontation is going to be a shot heard around the world, and no matter what party or country you belong to, the media is going to portray these youths as criminals, when really, they just want to be heard.

I agree that social status and upbringing must be a factor in this, but the fact is, these people ARE criminals. They broke the law. Therefore they are criminals. And there's no excuse for that. They will hopefully all be punished as is appropriate to show them that this kind of behavior is not on. Delling is right: while they might be at the bottom of the social ladder, that doesn't mean they can't get back on it. They're not starving, they have welfare benefits. They are not rioting because they don't have enough to eat, they're rioting because they "think it's a laugh".

Ultimately, most of these people have not had a good start in life, and society must take some responsibility for that. But these are sentient human beings and they made the choice to commit all these crimes. There's just no excuse.

Without a doubt, the ones who have committed crimes will have to pay for them. Like I had said in the beginning of this thread, just because one believes in anarchy doesn't mean his actions will not have consequences. I'm talking about the actual anarchists who want change. I'm talking about the man who is sitting in his living room watching the news and accumulating his thoughts on how to rectify the political damage. Criminals will be criminals, but those who want change will be grouped up into one category and labeled as terrorists.

Let's say, there's a group of pacifistic protestors and a group of rioters, they are protesting the same thing, and the message will be lost to the violence. So the pacifistic protestors lose because the rioters couldn't sit still. It goes back to my question of how one can revolutionize successfully. But truth be told, if these rioters are doing this because they have nothing better to do, and are doing it for a "laugh", then I'm no longer a sympathizer. They can rot in a jail cell for all I care. 

[Baggins]

Hmm,so the 'hero worship' is already beginning. Folk myth is being set. Some parts of society, the 'socialists' and some on the left  (from the UK and around the world) are seeing, or 'spinning' the rioter's as 'freedom fighters'. Seeing the government as the 'enemy', and the corrupt evil empire. It's crazy, but 'martyrs' have been created from far less... Legends ands words, even ones developed from false ideas can be powerful...

If anyone has seen Firefly, they might remember a little legend, called the "Hero of Canton" from the episode Jaynetown? It portrays this phenomena.

Even earliest Robin Hood stories he was just a petty thief, before later stories added the benevolent aspects. Go figure he is also a now a anarchist 'folk hero'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmG4tPspd-E

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=25656

Riots: the voice of the unheard

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by Viv Smith

The media has condemned the riots in London as mindless acts of destruction. The Sun newspaper screamed about an "orgy of mob violence".

Tottenham MP David Lammy leapt on the bandwagon, saying the rioters were "mindless".

But he is wrong. The riots are a response to the violence that people are forced to live with every day—violence that flows from oppression, poverty and alienation.

Just hours before, the police and the authorities ignored a protest of hundreds of people who marched on Tottenham police station to demand justice for Mark Duggan, shot dead by police the previous Thursday.

The state tries to discredit riots as the violence of a minority. That's because it is terrified of mass resistance to issues like rising poverty and ongoing police violence. Anger at these injustices builds up like tinder—until someone lights a spark.

Ordinary people, who feel invisible most of their lives, take to the streets and take centre stage.

It's not about people smashing up their local area for no reason. It's about them expressing their anger, wherever they happen to be.

The violence of riots is minor compared to the violence the system inflicts on a daily basis—like the famine in Africa that is killing thousands of people and wars that slaughter millions.

Some say riots achieve nothing but give the state an excuse to clamp down on our rights. But riots can win important gains.

The riots in Britain in the 1980s forced the state to retreat from hardline policing. The government was forced to spend money on inner city areas. And they cemented the anti-racist atmosphere as black and white young people fought together.

The longest prison riot in Britain's history took place at Strangeways prison in Manchester in 1991. Afterwards it was rebuilt and particularly degrading practices began to be phased out.

Change

And we can't limit ourselves to what our rulers deem "acceptable" behaviour—it is designed to stop us from fighting for real change. What if black people fighting apartheid in South Africa had stuck within the boundaries of the system? The racist apartheid system would still exist.

Riots often happen in the context of wider resistance, like during a general strike in Spain last year when police sparked riots because they tried to stop strikers picketing.

They can involve people coming together collectively to resist, growing into much bigger movements for change as people get a glimpse of their own power. They can grow into urban uprisings where people take control of entire areas—like in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1969.

But the outcome can vary. One participant in the Notting Hill riots in London in the 1970s recalled, "It was fantastically liberating at the time. There was a sense that you didn't have to just take it from the police—if there's enough of you the police will run away. But the question is—what do you do with that feeling?"

Where there is a low level of collective organisation, and individuals are not connected to a wider movement, riots can rise and fall quickly.

The initial burst of power is difficult to sustain, and can be trapped in confrontation with the state.

That is why riots alone don't end oppression and exploitation. Riots worry the ruling class, but more is needed to truly scare them.

As the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg said, "Where the chains of capitalism are forged, there they must be broken."

Collective power in the workplace enables the progress of a movement to be decided democratically and collectively. That isn't the case in the midst of a riot, however liberating.

But it would be a mistake to artificially counterpose strikes to riots and other forms of protest. The critical issue is how to fuse their anger, energy and defiance with the political consciousness and strategy of collective action.

Riots represent the rage people feel at the injustice of the system. Socialists take sides—we support everyone fighting back. As Martin Luther King put it, "Riots are the voice of the unheard".

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/10/1005277/-The-morality-of-the-London-riots

Despite the breathless shock and the pleading rationalizations of TV news anchors, I don't believe that the rioters, looters, and vandals in London over the past week have any  responsibility to explain or to morally justify their actions at all.  These are angry, frustrated people living under a national and global system that, itself, cannot be morally justified...one that is designed to exploit its citizens economically, indiscriminately murder them in wars based on lies, rob them through slick financial instruments, and systematically loot the world of all of its natural resources.  This is a system that is designed and run to destroy lives and destroy the world for the benefit and pleasure of the elite billionaires.  How dare they ask the rest of us to morally justify anything.

When the world is, indeed, run by entirely selfish elite bankers, big oil, big defense, big pharma, etc., and no real democracy exists which would give its citizens the opportunity to instrument any real, fundamental change in the system (at least in the US or UK), when the government itself is clearly corrupt and illegitimate, then any action that involves the looting or destruction of property is probably not unjustifiable at all.

If individuals exist who are willing to risk enormous consequences (prison) to go out there and express this anger and frustration, then so be it.  When you oppress, sometimes people get fed up and fight back.  It is what it is and it should be totally expected.

[Fierce Deity]

Nice find, Baggins. This is exactly what I thought was going to happen. When a people is upset with the government, they have the right to speak out about it. But it's hard to determine who the victim is. Mixed messages are bound to be stirred up in the crossfire.

[Baggins]

Believe me my experience listening to the songs, poetry, and stories from the down and out in England, they often turned many 'criminals', or 'terrorists' (as the well-to-do's would see them) into folk heros and 'freedom fighters'. It's perspective shift depending on which part of society you belong to.

For an example;
http://www.birdsbeforethestorm.net/2008/10/folk-hero-cop-killer-anarchist-gets-plaques-in-london/

Obviously Guy Fawkes is another.

There was another guy more recent times, who is either dead or in prison, I don't remember which. But apparently, set off bombs, robbed a bank, and injured and alluded the police for several days before he was finally caught. I can't remember his name... I think he was a Greek. He was a common criminal, had no ideaology, but he became a folk hero to the true anarchasts, as someone who defied the state.

More support  or empathy towards the riots, or 'rioters as victims'...
http://www.indefenceofyouthwork.org.uk/wordpress/?p=1354

Just a week ago I happened by chance to be chatting in a kafeneion to some Greek young people about their situation. The conversation somersaulted from description to explanation to the question of action – what can be done to change things? To say the least the outlook is bleak. The unemployment rate in April for 15-24 year olds reached a high of 43.1%, compared to the national rate at 15.8%. Three of my four young friends held degree-level qualifications and joked that they were the stars of the popular sit-com, The 592 Euro Generation, a reference to the monthly minimum wage of €592 (£516) earned by those under 25. They chided me that I had not caught up with this satire which reflected their reality, serving coffee to tourists, their qualifications irrelevant.  The discussion turned to political protest.  Everyone argued about the merits or otherwise of orchestrated demonstrations under the control of the unions, the emergence of the Greek  equivalent of the Spanish indignants, , the Aganaktismenoi and the anarchist tradition of direct and often violent action. As we parted, iced coffees, by now half-empty and luke-warm, it was agreed, 'there will be riots again soon'.

A  few hours later I stumbled by chance over two pieces recollecting the thirtieth anniversary of the Toxteth riots in Liverpool. The first, Toxteth Revisited, set the background to the publication of a new book and exhibition:

Liverpool '81: Remembering The Riots, edited by Diane Frost and Richard Phillips  for the Liverpool University Press. The exhibition Toxteth '81 at the Museum of Slavery, Liverpool

To quote but one paragraph,

"Back then," says Michael Simon, "you saw it from where you stood: I was 13 years old, and from my point of view, it was about police brutality, which was invariably racist. Only with hindsight did we realise that it was about the machine, the system, the whole thing." Michael was born in Beaconsfield Street, one of six, to a father from Liverpool of west African, Antiguan and Irish descent and a Scouse-Irish mother. His father worked as an electro-plater for Triumph and Ford where the chemicals he handled preparing chrome badly damaged his health. For the boys in the family, says Michael, "harassment by the police was a daily thing, especially for the boys older than me. My older brother, our Brian, was forever being beaten up by the police; not even arrested sometimes – just beaten up. One time he was accused of robbing lead from a roof, and my mum had to go down the street and jump on top of him so he wouldn't get battered, and she got arrested too."

The second piece was an eye-witness recollection by Gerry on his blog, That's How the Light Gets In , from which I've pinched a couple of photos.  He recalls,

At the time my job was organising adult and community education courses in a local college.  One of the projects with which I was involved at the time was a course initiated by South Liverpool Personnel, an adult education centre in the Rialto buildings.  The aim of the course was to begin to rectify to the virtually zero representation of  local black residents on university courses and in professions such as teaching and social work locally.  The project in itself epitomised the deep social fractures that culminated in the riots.  Local community activists had been warning for several years of the probable consequences of these divisions.  Indeed, the 1973 Report of the Select Committee on Race Relations inquiry into educational opportunities for black people had noted that the black community in Liverpool was disadvantaged both inside and outside school.  The Select Committee concluded: 'Liverpool ... left us with a profound sense of uneasiness'

But I was brought back from history by sight of  a Haringey video,

As supporters of the Campaign will know one of the most articulate and creative young people's groups fighting the cuts has been SaveHaringey Youth Centres. In the event this video is not one of the group's creations [as far as I can see], but involves interviews with young people on the streets. The video is preceded by the following summary- After Haringey council shuts eight of its 13 youth clubs, local teenagers fear boredom will fuel violence between young gang members on the streets of north London. The video itself ends with a young man repeating, "there'll be riots."

Lewis Whyld/PA

And so it has come to pass.  Tottenham and elsewhere have been engulfed by a wave of anger directed at both police and property, triggered by the fatal and increasingly controversial  shooting by police of 29-year-old Mark Duggan. Inevitably the young people rioting are described as 'mindless thugs' by the police and indeed by Diane Abbott, a local MP, even as she notes that parts of the community were a tinder box waiting to explode. Somewhat contrarily these 'mindless'  elements are then castigated for being organised and coordinating their activities via social networking.

Other perceptions do echo the concerns of three decades ago. In London Riots : Tensions behind unrest revealed

One local university student comments,

"tensions – some racial – had been bubbling for a long time. "The police never talk to us, they ignore us, they don't think we're human in this area," he said. "We get pulled over all the time like criminals. If you're wearing a black hood, [if] you're a black man, they pull you over for no reason." He said Tottenham had a bad reputation for drugs, with very few prospects for jobs, but not everyone behaved like the dealers and addicts. "I'm from Tottenham, but I go to uni, I made myself good and got a job," he said. "But if I wear like a hoody and walk in the road, they'll just call you, check you and search you – that's a breach of your human rights."

He added: "I'm not happy about the rioting, but I think it was necessary so that the people will know what's going on in this community and they'll learn from that.

Drawing parallels and conclusions too hastily and easily will though be mistaken.  From the point of view of youth work, it is seductive to point to the young people's concerns about youth centre closures and the ensuing unrest.  There is a sense here in which the disappearance of the youth centre is a metaphor for the the disappearance of hope and optimism about the future, the growing lack of opportunity and choice. Of course it would be great to see the youth service cuts restored, but this must go hand in hand with a profound change of political direction in which ordinary folk, young and old, begin to take direct control over the issues effecting their lives. It is necessary too to think afresh about the way in which these riots are unfolding. 2011 is not the same as 1981.  The Toxteth uprising [as we preferred to call it] came at the beginning of the neo-liberal era of 'possessive individualism'. Is it romantic to suggest it retained a collective character rooted in a tradition of solidarity? The groups of young people coordinating the looting or liberating of plasma TV's, mobiles and designer shoes are the children of neo-liberalism's fetish of conspicuous consumption and its abandonment of of values and ethics – witness the corruption of political life, the utter mediocrity of our so-called leaders and the obscenity of speculative casino capitalism. The young people are not at all mindless, but what is exactly going through their minds? I suspect the reasons behind this outburst will prove complex. But if Martin Luther King was right to argue that 'riots are the voices of the unheard' we need to be listening to young people in their unity and diversity. I hope that youth workers and young people will let us know what they think is going on.

http://janousblog.nl/2011/08/riots-are-the-voice-of-the-unheard/

"Riots are the voice of the unheard"

10 August 2011 | Categories: News

After the death of Mark Duggan, all hell broke loose in the London area of Tottenham. Since then, the riots have spread from Tottenham to other areas of London, and in the past two days even throughout more of the United Kingdom. While London was relatively peaceful last night – those 16.000 policemen had the desired effect – Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham and Gloucester were not so lucky. Riots broke out in these cities, which were subjected to rioting youths looking and arsoning as they went.

Why are these youths behaving as they are? Is it still about the death of Mark Duggan, who was a 29-year-old father of four, or are they simply taking advantage of the riots that broke out in Tottenham to wreak havoc on their own neighbourhoods? When listening to these Croydon looters (via), it appears that the latter is true. "It's the rich people. It's the rich people, the people who've got businesses, and that's why this has happened, because of the rich people. So we're just showing the rich people that we can do what we want."

However, there seems to be more to these riots than it seems. Linda Duits analysed the behaviour of the youngsters who have taken to the streets to riot in a more political way in her article on DeJaap. She points to the fact that the rioters often come from poor backgrounds and have been promised the world. On TV, all they see are programmes about social mobility, such as Ladett to Lady. However, looking at their own lives, they find that these promises are empty, and their futures are looking very bleak. This situation is not new, of course, and according to Duits it was only a matter of time before it would have come to some kind of eruption. The death of Mark Duggan and the riots that followed it, provided them with the perfect excuse.

Fighting back with large numbers of policemen seem to be the answer to stopping these riots, considering the results of the police force in London which last night consisted of 16.000 policemen. Prime Minister Cameron promised that these youths would be punished: "If you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the punishment." Scotland Yard has put a lot of footage online in the hopes of identifying as many of the rioters as possible.

For an overview of the events following the death of Mark Duggan on 4 August, please visit the site of The Guardian.

Here is an older article from April 2011, calling for the need for a new riots! Also it also shares this reference to Martin Luther King's quote, "voices of the undheard...". I'm seeing a pattern here!

Voices of the unheard
In Perspective column by Weyman Bennett, April 2011
Thirty years ago the Brixton riots heralded a wave of unrest in Britain's inner cities that terrified our rulers and helped forge black and white unity

"Molotov cocktails were thrown for the first time on mainland Britain. There had been no such event in England in living memory."


These words come from a police report into the Brixton riots of 1981. On 10-11 April 1981 massive riots exploded in Brixton, south London, and thousands of people fought running battles with police. Some in the popular media described the unrest as race riots. They were not. Black and white joined together to find a voice: they are part of the battles that forged multiracial Britain.


Martin Luther King described riots as the voices of the unheard. The riots in Brixton and those that followed across the inner cities of Britain in the summer of 1981 were a response to Margaret Thatcher's Tory government that had been elected two years earlier. Thatcher was imposing enormous cuts, using unemployment to break workers' organisations and launching major attacks on working class people's rights. The riots in Brixton showed how racism sharpens class divisions. And that terrified Britain's rulers.


There was a determination, particularly in the black population, that the racism of the police and the complicity of the criminal justice system would not go unchallenged. The riots were an outpouring of years of anger over racism and police thuggery.


Black people made up only 6 percent of London's population, yet they accounted for 44 percent of those arrested under the "sus" stop and search law in the late 1970s. This law enabled the police to stop anyone they thought looked "suspicious".


Unsurprisingly, young black men looked very suspicious to a police force riddled with racism and a "canteen culture" based on racial stereotypes. Simultaneously, unemployment was soaring - official figures put it at 3 million in the summer of 1981. Young people were hardest hit, and black young people especially so. Some 55 percent of black men under the age of 19 in Brixton were officially unemployed.


One month before the riot a fire in New Cross in south east London had left 13 young black people dead. A majority of the black people felt that these deaths were not even investigated. A march of 10,000 people demanding a proper investigation was physically attacked by the Metropolitan Police. The Sun and other newspapers carried lurid reports about the demonstration.


Boiling point


The police then launched an operation they called Swamp 81 in which hundreds of plainclothes police officers descended on Brixton and stopped and searched hundreds of black people. The title Swamp 81 had come from an infamous speech made by Thatcher in which she said that people "were rather afraid that this country might be swamped by people of a different culture". People decoded this to mean people of a different colour. The constant harassment and the physical intimidation reached boiling point in south London.


Today the police routinely stop young Muslims and accuse them of being involved in terrorism. At that time the "enemy within" were young Afro-Caribbean men. Over four days police arrested 114 people and stopped 943, the majority black, although they targeted young white working class men as well.


The riot started when the police said that they came to the aid of a young black man who had been stabbed. But they did not call an ambulance and were far more interested in questioning him. The crowd demanded immediate action but the police response was to send for more reinforcements. The following day, 11 April, the police increased their numbers in Brixton to teach the local population a lesson for intervening in the arrest. They arrested a young black man waving to his friend across the street. The streets exploded; hundreds of people came to his aid and overwhelmed the police.


The police and the Tories tried to dismiss the riots as just about race. The Guardian noted at the time a remarkable thing about the riot was the complete absence of racial tension among white and black residents as they mingled and resisted together.


The riots spread over the summer to Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham and shook the Tory government. They began to immediately backpedal on some of their cuts. In inner city areas new recreation centres opened up and there was a massive expansion of further education to remove young people from the streets. The Scarman report that looked into the riots, though loaded with the language of racism, had to concede that the police role was counterproductive and that some anti-racist training had to be introduced.


But the most important development was the forging of black and white unity and the deepening of the multiracial nature of society. This was something the ruling class feared. It teaches us the important lesson that it is by no means automatic that unemployed and bitter workers will automatically turn on each other. Those who live and work together and face common enemies can join together and fight injustice.


Riots by their nature are short lived, but it took a quarter of the police force of London to subdue the Brixton riots and the combined efforts of four forces in the north west to subdue the riots in Liverpool. The fear that haunted the then Tory government was what would happen if they faced a much more widespread revolt, especially if the mood on the streets spread into the workplace.


Our job today is to make that fear on their side return.

(Posted on: August 11, 2011, 12:32:21 AM)

More of this common theme of 'voices of the unheard', and the rioters as 'victims' or freedom fighters;

The most surprising thing about these riots is that anyone is surprised. Here in Oxfordshire, youth workers have been predicting for months that things would kick off this summer. Of course there are riots. Of course there is looting. What else did they expect?

Some say that these are not political riots. What does that make them? Apathetic riots? This absurdity perhaps gets to the core of the misunderstood alienation of today's young people better than I have ever seen. When young people sit at home and quietly don't engage in democratic structures which they have never seen work for them, we are told that they are apathetic. And so when these same young people rip apart their communities and plunder the shops on their own streets, we are told that these are not political acts, that they are apathetic acts, a-political acts.

And that is absurd. I don't know the intentions of each of the people taking part in the riots today. I don't know for sure what the intentions of any of them are. But I do know this: every act is a political act. Whether it is intended to make a point about the government's macro-economic policy or intended to allow a pair of trainers to be stolen, the smashing of a window is a clear demonstration of a refusal to buy into society as it stands. However an arsonist explains their flames, whether they burn a building for fun, or with the intention of bringing about revolution, they are saying this: "The world I find myself in is not one in which I have a stake. It is not one I was allowed to help build. It is one which I am happy to burn".

I am sure that some of those who stole TVs did so because they wanted a new TV. I am also sure that there is widespread anger at the murder by the police of black teenagers, rage at the closing of youth centres, fear from the loss of the Education Maintenance Allowance. These things have ripped apart the lives of so many. But even those whose only expressed motivation was that they wanted a new TV were making a profoundly political point: they were saying that they have been so alienated from their own communities, and that they had so little to lose if they are caught, that they are willing to smash up their local shops and risk time in prison to add a few extra inches to the width of the machines which deliver their daily opiate.

Of course people feel they have nothing to lose. We have record youth unemployment. We have young people losing services on which they have relied for generations. We have seen almost as many deaths in police custody in the first half of 2011 as we saw in all of 2010.

And of course people are alienated. Power has systematically been removed from communities – handed from local councils to Parliament, from Parliament to government, and then privatised from the government to corporations. Those we elect no longer make decisions for us. We certainly have almost no role in making decisions for ourselves. People have stopped voting because they no longer feel that their vote makes a difference. And so of course people have started to shout in the 'language of the unheard'.

Of course, they haven't only just started to shout. The student protests in November consisted largely of the same people we see on the streets of London today: inner city FE students, desperate with rage at the government and fear for their future. I will never forget the tone of terror in the riots I saw outside Whitehall on one of those days 'They've taken away my EMA, how am I ever going to go to college'. If rioting is the language of the unheard, then their voices are loud and clear today. Whether they are protesting or plundering, they are saying the same thing: society is broken. Our communities are not ours. They are of the elite, by the elite, for the elite. It's time to rebuild. It's time to start again, and this time, all voices must be heard. Because riot is the language of the unheard, and no one is unheard forever.

(Posted on: August 11, 2011, 01:01:00 AM)

The last article was from here;
http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2011/08/london-riots-of-course-they-are-political/

(Posted on: August 11, 2011, 01:02:19 AM)

Keep your eye on this, this seems to be a handbook promoting violent riots;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_Insurrection

It was created by French anarchist groups.

(Posted on: August 11, 2011, 12:05:28 PM)

You can read the whole pamphlet here;
http://tarnac9.noblogs.org/gallery/5188/insurrection_english.pdf
Here is a good example of how and why they want these riots to happen;

The firestorm of November 2005 was not the result of extreme dispossession, as so
much rambling on has been done about; rather it was the result of the full
possession of a particular territory. Sure, you can burn cars because you're pissed
off, but to propagate the riot over a whole month and keep the police in longstanding
check, you have to know how to get organized, make alliances, know the
terrain to perfection, and share a common language and enemy.-Coming Insurrection, pg19-20

(Posted on: August 11, 2011, 12:28:16 PM)

I don't have time to read throught he entire book, so I don't know if I'm taking some of this out of context but its interesting;

Every practice brings a territory into existence – the territory of the deal, or of the
hunt; the territory of child's play, of lovers, of a riot; the territory of farmers,
ornithologists, or gleaners. The rule is simple: the more territories there are
superimposed on a given zone, the more circulation there is between them, and the
less Power will find footholds. Bistros, print shops, sports arenas, vague terrains,
second-hand book stalls, building rooftops, improvised street markets, kebab shops, garages, could all easily be used for purposes other than their official ones if enough
complicities can be found there. Local self-organization, superimposing its own
geography over the State's cartography, jams it and annuls it, and produces its own
secession.-Coming Insurrection, pg 46, 47

(Posted on: August 11, 2011, 12:32:32 PM)

And more on how they define 'oppressive governments';

A government that declares a state of emergency against fifteen year old kids. A
country that puts its health in the hands of a soccer team. A cop in a hospital bed
that complains that he was the victim of "violence." A mayor that passes decrees
against tree-house builders. Two ten year old children, arrested in Chelles for
burning down a game library. This era excels in doing caricatures of situations that
seem to escape it whenever they really do happen. It must be said that the media
haven't been very thorough in their efforts to smother, in reports of complaints and
indignation, the bursts of laughter that should greet news like the above.
An explosive burst of laughter would be the proper response to all the serious
"issues" that the present era likes to bring up so much. To start with the most
brutally suppressed of them: there is no "immigration issue." Who still grows up
where s/he was born? Who lives where s/he grew up anymore? Who works where
s/he lives? Who lives where his or her ancestors lived? And whose kids are these,
the kids of our era; the children of their parents, or of television? The truth is that
we've been torn wholesale from all belonging, that we aren't from anywhere
anymore, and that as a result we have at the same time an unusual penchant for
tourism, an undeniable suffering. Our history is one of colonization, migration, wars,
exile, the destruction of all roots. It is the history of everything that's made us
foreign to this world, guests in our own families. We've had our language
expropriated by teaching, our songs by variety, our flesh by mass pornography, our
cities by the police, our friends by wage labor. Add to that, in France, the ferocious
and secular work of individualization done by a State power structure that notes,
compares, disciplines, and separates its subjects from the youngest age, that
instinctively sniffs out any solidarity it might have missed so that there's nothing left
but citizenship, the pure, fantasy state of belonging to the Republic. A Frenchman is
more than anything a dispossessed, miserable man. His hatred for foreigners melts
together with his hatred for himself as a foreigner. The jealousy mixed with dread
he has towards the "cities" only proves his resentment for everything he's lost. He
can't stop envying the so-called "ghetto" neighborhoods where there's at least a little
community life left, a few links between people, a bit of non-state solidarity, an
informal economy, an organization that's still not totally detached from those who
organize it. We have come to such a deprived point that the only way we can go on
feeling like Frenchmen is to curse the immigrants, and those who are in a more
visible way foreigners like me. The immigrants are in a strange position of
sovereignty in this country; if they weren't there, the French would perhaps not exist
either.

(Posted on: August 11, 2011, 12:38:43 PM)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/convicted-rioters-victimised-by-other-prisoners-relatives-say-2344683.html

So apparently the common criminals don't like the rioters!

[Blackthorne]

If I ever wanted to give the definition of "TLDR" to anyone, I would point them here.  Nice dissertation, professor.


Bt

[Baggins]

It's several posts over a few days actually! Notice the splits.

Here is the latest;

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/convicted-rioters-victimised-by-other-prisoners-relatives-say-2344683.html

So apparently the common criminals don't like the rioters!