London's Burning

Tottenham Hale Carpet Right

Twitter has been a very fractious place since the riots.  People are clearly scared, perhaps angry. And they're throwing round a right load of old crap*

*I am the fountain of all wisdom and therefore entitled to say that.

 Things I noticed:

• The left (in particular) FALLING over themselves to condemn the violence.  Erm, yes, isn't it kind of self-evident that smashing things up, destroying businesses, setting fire to cars and stealing Plasma screens isn't exactly something to be condoned? I believe in a market economy with a social conscience.  What do those views have to do with these events? Zero.  Accordingly I shouldn't be afraid that because I'm "a lefty" that I might be labelled as an anarchist by the Right, if I do not state the completely bloody obvious.
• Many a Tory calling for the "FULL FORCE OF THE LAW" to be brought to bear on the offenders. I'm sure it will be. Given the nature of high profile events like this I don't think we need to worry too much about namby-pamby magistrates and judges (are they actually any?) going all touchy feely and lenient on this one.
• People saying you shouldn't make PARTY POLITICAL GAIN out of this.  This seemed to come mainly from LibDem coalition supporters.  Cast your mind back to Clegg's somewhat silly pre-election rhetoric that "Tory cuts" would lead to "riots in the streets" and begin to wonder why they're a bit defensive. But why shouldn't this be discussed in the light of government policies, if appropriate? Any event, social policy, policing, even a war in which thousands die is the subject of party political debate. Why exactly shouldn't these events be?
• An obsession with MATERIAL DAMAGE. WHY does the press and everyone else put material damage on such a pedestal? Yes, it's terrible.  I'd be devastated if my car were set on fire.  I'd be beyond consolable, though, if my mother were beaten or burnt and put in hospital. People being injured (private individuals and police) is far worse though.  Why no interviews with them or pictures of that? Because we're a property obsessed society that evidently places greater importance on things than people. We saw it during the student protests, we're seeing it again now.
• People saying THIS ISN'T A PROTEST, IT'S A RIOT.  Erm, no shit, Sherlock. Did anyone from any side *really* suggest this was a valid form of political protest? No of course it isn't: arson is crime, rioting is crime, stealing electrical goods is crime.  So again why state the ever so incredibly obvious?
• The Daily Mail AND the Telegraph BLAMED TWITTER.  Do I really need to point out that the Brixton and Toxteth Riots, or Broadwater, managed along just nicely without the wonders of social networking sites? I hear the distinct death rattles of the traditional media somewhere here.
• People saying NOTHING JUSTIFIES THIS. Quite, but see below.
• People saying "SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST THUGS/CRIMINALS".  This annoyed me rather a lot, see below.

The Below Bits

So.  Let's conform immediately to Godwin's Law.  I like studying/ talking about the Third Reich, and again I'm allowed to do this (see * above).

When I talk about the Third Reich,  I say for example that the causes of the Holocaust can be traced back to 2000 years of organised Christian antisemitism, to the Versailles Peace Treaty, to the polarisation in Europe between far right and left, to the economic situation in Germany.  Not terribly contentious: all holocaust museums tread this familiar path.  However, what this is not is AN EXCUSE.  An excuse is a justification.  It is an EXPLANATION.  Explanations are not the same thing.  

The above is rocket science. My point isn't

Is the foregoing set of propositions, *actually* rocket science?  Then why, when anyone speculates as to the possible causes of this rioting, does at least one person (often many) jump down their throat to say "that's no justification".

NO, IT'S NOT, AND IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE.  It's an explanation, not an EXCUSE!  We need to understand why things happen if we want to learn from them.

What is the Explanation then?

So, if we are dare, we move to all the speculation as to why this happened.

Why did it happen? I don't know.  You probably don't either, but it doesn't stop some of us speculating to high heaven from the comfort of our armchairs.  I don't know these areas of London well or the problems they are facing.  I am pretty sure there is a combination of complex interrelated long term factors (economic deprivation, race relations, lack of opportunity, failing education, failing parenting) along with some short term ones (anger at police behaviour, anger at local cuts, jumping on the bandwagon, chance to nick a TV, chance to watch something go up in flames) etc. 

What I do see though is the traditional polarisation between the political camps and people generalising wildly.  "It's not something you can sort out by throwing money at"; "It's all because of anger at the cuts"; "It's nothing to do with deprivation, it's just people being criminal"; "it's because of lenient sentencing" etc.

My own feeling? It is likely to be a big mish-mash of the long and short term things I've mentioned, plus some I haven't.  Around 300 people were apparently involved: perhaps there are 300 different sets of reasons.

Look at the costs; worth examining the causes?

I do agree with the brilliant @gaijinsan21 however that we *are* more generally on the edge of a fundamental break-down in the social contract across the country.  This has been going on a long time, but the financial crash, cuts and fear of cuts have made it much worse.  Many people feel alienated, angry at authority and particularly politicians, and do not understand why the State props up banks, but we are continuing to pay in so many different ways.  There is fear for the future, for economic stability and for our prospects.  It's a very unhealthy mix and it's not confined to Tottenham Hale.

In the areas affected by the riots it's not too contentious to say the Met has also lost trust with swathes of people.  It goes further though: it's not just localised, and it is not just with the economically deprived that this has happened.  It's also with middle class people whose default setting is to be on the side of "law and order".  I still instinctively respect my Suffolk Bobby; but right or wrong, I look on the Met with fundamental distrust.  I'm unfortunately no doubt not the only one.  This has been particularly the case since the kettling of students last autumn.  It benefits absolutely no one that a large group of young people has had such appallingly negative experiences at the hands of the Police.  Throw in stats on young black men being stopped and searched, repeated individual and official Met outright lies and cover-ups over the past decade, and we do have an issue which (according to local interviews and in my unqualified guess work) has to be <one> of the more significant factors in this.

Back to Godwin

We also come though to the those who say: forget the causes, some people are JUST CRIMINALS.  Well, I disagree.  I think you're morons.  And I think that you are skirting dangerously close to taking the philosophical line of none other than the Nazi Party.  People are not genetically or congenitally predisposed to crime ("Berufsverbrecher" was the term given to the "habitual criminals" who wore green triangles in the concentration camps).  

People BECOME criminals, they are not BORN criminals, nor will they necessarily remain so all their lives if they have broken the law once.  They make choices; stupid choices, wrong choices, bad choices.  But they do so out of the background of the circumstances they face.  These are economic and social circumstances (including quality of policing), the circumstances of the upbringing and education they have received, the experiences they have had, their opportunities for the future, as well as the prejudices they face in their daily lives. If these circumstances change then levels of crime change.  As I heard more than once, those with the least have the least to lose.

It's also important to note that many people live in economically deprived areas such as Tottenham.  The vast majority in the same boat did not make the same choices that the rioters did.  But the larger that boat, the higher the absolute number of people who will inevitably choose to join in.

People are a complex mixture of potentially good and potentially bad.  We all have both capabilities within us.  Does anyone of these people spouting off that "some people are just bad" actually believe that if you took one of these kids and raised them 2 miles away in Holland Park, attending a £30,000 school, showering them with love, affirmation and affection, that they'd still be out rioting and looting from PC World?  As I said: moronic.  To write off individuals as "bad" and predisposed to crime is even worse than that: it is inhumane and wrong.

Heavens, Rant Over!

Well, that *was* a rant wasn't it?  I really hope for everyone that tonight is quieter in London.  I love that city and so do millions of others.  There are big problems to be addressed here.  Hopefully people much more qualified than I will begin to do so.  Shouting "They're just criminals!" will not solve the problems, though, not matter how many people do it and how loud.