Aug 11 2011
What’s Behind the London Riots?
Nearly a week of rioting across England has shocked its residents and international onlookers. It began on Saturday August 6th in the North London town of Tottenham when a peaceful protest over the August 4th fatal police shooting of a black man named Mark Duggan spiraled out of control. Over the next few days, protests escalated throughout Tottenham, and the violence spread to Enfield and Brixton as banks were attacked, cars set on fire, and stores looted. By Monday, riots had spread to Birmingham and Liverpool, two of the largest cities in Britain, and even to upscale areas around London. British Prime Minister David Cameron condemned the riots as “criminality pure and simple,” while the police referred to the spreading of violence as “copycat criminality.” By the middle of the week there were 16,000 police officers on the streets to quell the riots. As of yesterday more than 700 people had been arrested, and more than a 100 police officers wounded. A 26 year old man was shot in Croyden, South of London earlier in the week and died later in the hospital, becoming the first casualty of the events. Later, 3 Muslim men were killed in Birmingham after being run over by a car – police have launched a murder inquiry. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Cameron issued what’s called a recall of Parliament – calling MPs back from their summer recess, to tackle the issue politically. Because social media and wireless communications were fingered as the main modes of communication between rioters, the Prime Minister has suggested curtailing access to digital networks. Mainstream media coverage of the riots have been unable to pin down what exactly is driving the riots. Writing for the Washington Post, Anne Applebaum says, “The rioters themselves do not wave signs. They do not chant. They weren’t protesting any particular government policy, as were student demonstrators in London last winter. They have not sought publicity for their views, if they have any. They hide from cameras and dodge journalists. And thus have they become the inkblot in a kind of national Rorschach test.” Yet, austerity measures around the UK this year led to the closure of scores of libraries, youth centers, and other social services. One activist with the group Occupied London, focused on responding to the cuts, told Al Jazeera English that the “problems in the community [are]…a bubble of anger and anxiety and oppression that has to be burst.” This morning, David Cameron refuted that view, saying “This is not about poverty, it’s about culture. A culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities.”
GUESTS: Rob Berkeley, Director of the Runnymede Trust, a racial equality think tank in Britain, Daniel Elton, Managing Director of Left Foot Forward, a political blog, Jaya, a member of the Occupied London collective
Find out more about the organizations of our guests at: www.runnymedetrust.org, www.leftfootforward.org, and occupiedlondon.org.
View a Guardian video report published on July 31st, just days before the riots about the closure of youth centers: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/video/2011/jul/31/haringey-youth-club-closures-video?CMP=twt_gu
2 Responses to “What’s Behind the London Riots?”
These are not ‘UK riots’ and they are not happening ‘across Britain’. When rioting occurs in Northern Ireland it is never described as British or UK, such a tag would be inaccurate and unhelpful, so I think it’s important that we accept that these riots are English and try and address the factors in English society which has cause them.
Thank you for your comment – we corrected our headline.