Thread: Riots in the United Kingdom

Several people know that I normally live in London and have asked me about the riots.
I am not there right now (in fact, I am North of the Polar Circle, in Sweden).
Thanks to those who care about me, it's really nice

Anyway, here is an extract from a paper (The Independent is a major British paper, one of the better according to me) which summarizes this.

It's not about race, any kind of organised political struggle etc. Just a symptom of "sickness" in a rather well-off country.

It's disturbing and it's a failure of the state and society --- The UK is a society without any religion, ideology or strong family bonds. Only one thing matters; money and consumption. Some people are excluded even from that because they have no money.

People have their heads filled with violent American TV dramas and films and play violent computer games where they are the villains, scoring points for causing damage. I think their perspective on reality is skewed. They don't even understand that they are ruining their own societies.

Originally Posted by http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-britain-has-experienced-its-katrina-moment-2334812.html

"We know enough about these riots and those perpetrating them to know what they are not. This is not a political protest. The rioters have no agenda. It is not centrally directed. The goal is acquisitive looting or brainless destruction. The original riot in Tottenham on Saturday seems to have been sparked by a community's sense of grievance against the police. But what happened in Woolwich, Toxteth and Bristol on Monday night is clearly not an anti-police protest. Much of it is copycat rioting. Criminal gangs and antisocial youths have seized on an opportunity to run amok, knowing that the police cannot be everywhere at once.

Nor is this a response to public-sector austerity. Reports of the Government's cuts might have added to the air of desperation in many poor communities. But the fact is that most cuts have not been implemented yet. This is not a riot driven by new media either. BlackBerrys and Twitter – neither of which existed during the inner-city civil disturbances of the 1980s – have doubtless played a role in fanning the flames. But new media is hardly a sufficient explanation for this antisocial spasm. This is also not a race riot, in the manner of Brixton, Toxteth, Handsworth or Broadwater Farm in the 1980s, either. The rioters of 2011 are racially mixed. And there is no overwhelming collective grievance against the police for racial harassment as there was three decades ago.

This disturbing phenomenon has to be understood as a conflagration of aggression from a socially and economically excluded underclass. A disaffected criminal fringe, made up of people who feel they have no stake in society, has decided to exert itself on the streets. Alienated young men and women, some of them barely more than children, have taken this as an opportunity to steal, riot, burn and to generally kick against authority."

The police summoned backup to London from across the country, and put so many policemen on the street that no rioting in London was possible on Tuesday. So instead it broke out in other cities.

As it's been 100 years ago, riots in world's countries looks normal and during the last couple of years TV reports from different parts of the world showing agressive mobs have become a trivial thing.


All such things look similar. In the result of some clash between civilians and the police the former suffer. This fact becomes the reason for accumulated grievances to explode. Immediately, there appear spontaneous manifestations, riots, looting and robbing. Often the rioters use all available communications like mobile phones, Internet in general, social networks in particular. Riots become global. Police gets reinforced and in some cases authorities even bring the army. Riots get suppressed, people get arrested, the communications are jammed or blocked, as authorities try to keep control over the situation.


As usual. With the only difference that the reaction to riots in Egypt, Libya, Syria differs from the reaction to riots in France or UK.


Remember the recent events in France. There were also riots, broken glasses, burning cars and other 'mandatory attributes'. And it all started the similar way. Originally the police were in pursuit after some suspects that ended up in the crash against some wall.
A 18 years old guy irritated his neighbors for driving at nights without a muffler and they called the police. By some unknown reason that guy chose to escape and crashed to death into a concrete fence. This incident was considered 'an atrocity of the regime' by the inhabitants of poor quarters and ended up in a big riot in August 2009. Two years before that two teenagers in Ville Le Bell had died the similar way while escaping from the police. Then hundreds even thousands of young people had been smashing and crushing everything in sight and over 100 police officers were injured, not to mention the civilians who happenned to live nearby.


In that same year a security officer in Paris Metro tried to detain a ticketless passenger who put up a fight and injured one man. Police officers who came to help had to handcuff them. At this very moment people 'outraged by this arbitrary police actions'. This whole thing quickly turned into a grand riot that covered several quarters of the city. The barricades were quicky erected (along with the old French tradition) and the police had to use tear gas to put it down.


Well, and the most infamous riots in France began after two teenagers hid from them in a power substation ignoring the warning labels and got accidently killed by electric current. Police was put to blame, as usual. The riots spread over a hundred towns and cities. The rioters shouted 'Intifada!' and 'Death to France!'


This summer's events


On Aug, 6th a police patrol stopped a taxi-cab with a 29 years old local inhabitant Mark Daggan. Something happenned and Daggan was shot. On Aug 6th a 300 men mob assembled near the police station demanding "justice". In the beginning this meeting was peaceful but then the crowd set fire to several police cars and a bus. Several nearby stores were looted and burned. Special police forces were dispatched there but the crowd started throwing bottles with Molotov's cocktail at them.


Mass riots spread over to other cities. Police tried hard to stop this. In Manchester the police forces numbered over 16 thousand.


By this moment over 400 people are already arrested in London. London prisons are already overcrowded and new prisoners are sent to nearby towns.


An important thing here is that police cannot gather a substantial number of men to put down all local incidents. The rioters resemble a more flexible and coordinated force than usual. They use Facebook and Twitter for coordination.


Doesn't it remind you of something? Facebook and Twitter were the 'engines' of the arab revoltion. All attempts to block access to these resources was treated by the Western media as a violation of human rights to free speech and freedom of information. Google even launched a free service which anyone with a cell phone could use to send a message to publish. Everything was done to help the 'rebels' to takl to each other and co-ordinate the next attack.


When, on the other hand, the riots begin within the Western countries, the situation is quite the opposite. A powerful British politician David Lammy urged Reserach in Motion (a manufacturer of Blackberry smartphones) to block the chat which rioters in London use. A respectable manufacturing company has already agreed to help the police in search of the riot instigators.


David Cameron characterized the riots as a 'disgusting crime' and promiced to punish all who participated.


Frightened London inhabitants urges the government to bring the army to suppress the riot. Well, if they agree then how this situation will be different from what's happenning in Syria?


As it was expected, no human rights activists are making any statements. They keep silence. Nobody demands to provide a free Internet access to the 'rebels' in London and Birmingham. Nobody accuses Cameron in violation of human rights.
What they call a struggle for freedom agains tyrans in Syria and Libya in UK they call a struggle against 'disgusting crimes' and 'the demonstration of the force of law'.


The comic element of the situation has already been noticed in Iran, by the way.
They troll UK like this:UK riots: Iran calls on UN to intervene over 'violent suppression' | UK news | The Guardian

Very interesting perspectives Ramil! I had already forgotten about the Paris riots but now I remember..
The other points were really interesting. I'll quote some of the highlights from the Gurdian article that Ramil links to.

Ahmadinejad, class! He has as much right to express an opinion about this as the UK has to whinge about Iran, as far as I am concerned.That should make people think, for sure.

Originally Posted by The Guardian

On Tuesday night, conservative websites sympathetic to the Islamic regime called on the Iranian government to offer refuge in its embassy in London to "UK protesters in need of protection".

Imagine if China stepped in and offered some kind of free online support to these "freedom fighters". Or if Belarus started giving them money to support their "struggles". Maybe they should escape the country and seek political asylum in Russia.

This has been boiling for a long time when you think about it. There are some very serious social problems in the UK.

Originally Posted by The Guardian

Ahmadinejad said the protests were the result of London's imperialist policies of the past three centuries and of ignoring the poor. "Time is up for few capitalist families with different titles to loot other nations and governments and making them slaves," he said.

"Instead of giving up their wealth to control their deficit, the burden has been put on masses. There are pressures in crisis and it's evident that people would protest in such a situation," he said.
Ahmadinejad said British officials should stop meddling in other people's affairs and instead worry about their own. "Instead of interfering in others' affairs in Afghanistan, Iraq and attacking Libya, they should deal with their own people."

Whilst he should mind his own business ,really, I think that his feedback has a lot of substance to it.

Frightened London inhabitants urges the government to bring the army to suppress the riot. Well, if they agree then how this situation will be different from what's happenning in Syria?

Let's see how many people are gonna suffer from the British army (if it's ever used). Those sick bastards in Syria have already killed over 2,000 civilians. Which were way more peaceful, by the way. Which didn't burn cars or crash stores.

Who told you they're more peaceful? They shoot back!

Things would have been more interesting if UK gun laws were the same as in USA

Originally Posted by nulle

Things would have been more interesting if UK gun laws were the same as in USA

Try running such riots in Texas, for instance, and see what happens. If the police assume a gangster is carrying a gun, they'll deal with him pretty shortly. And his life won't be the priority at all.

@Nulle - I guess you are glad that the USSR did not have such gun laws when the Latvians wanted to have their say!
@Eric - No, they may not have riots in the USA, but they have gang crime, more murders per head than any country in Europe and much more drugs crime. But I know that you think the USA is right no matter what they do, so I suppose you are glad that all that is now happening in Russia too.
The UK prefers to keep the police unarmed so that criminals will not arm themselves as a counter measure. For the most part it's working quite well. It's extremely unusual for British policemen to be killed. Criminals are not walking around with arms. The worst problem in the UK is teenage hooligans who carry knives.