A bonfire of the oppressed: riots in the UK

By way of an introduction...

As Britain burns, commentators left, right and centre have tripped over each other in their rush to condemn the riots and the rioters. Many have learnt a new word, 'feral', and applied it with the kind of vigour and repetitiveness displayed by a dog chasing its tail. Yet few have attempted a sober analysis of the situation, and those that have, have been shouted down and vilified. (See, e.g., Darcus Howe's interview with BBC News, and this Newsnight discussion - unfortunately the beginning of this debate, where the young guy in the cap, Yohanes Scarlett, points out that the BBC has deliberately cut and edited an interview with a rioter, thus distorting and misrepresenting his views, is missing.) In short, there has been a concerted attempt to de-politicise the situation.

The strategy of downplaying the political element of riots is neither new - the 1981 and 1985 riots were also dismissed as the work of 'mindless thugs' - nor without political intent. Instead, it is a carefully calculated piece of politicking that enables the government to ignore the possibility of remedying this situation through political dialogue and redress, whilst also helping to absolve the government (and police service) from any responsibly for these events. It is an approach that gifts the government a free hand to construct an accompanying narrative, which in turn allows it to frame the debate in the manner that is least damaging to its credibility; whilst also enabling it to put forward a range of authoritarian solutions under the pretence of acting out the wishes of the 'moral majority'. A carnival of the oppressed has been swiftly transformed into an orgy of reaction.

After the initial riots in Tottenham on Saturday night, the media, and in particular the BBC, were sharply rebuked by Conservative Party figures who once again saw the value of John Major's maxim on crime: 'condemn more, understand less'. The BBC's malfeasance was apparently to ask the local Caribbean population why it was that they were so angry. However after a swift slap on the wrists, the Beeb (as is shown in the two examples cited above) and other media outlets quickly fell into line. The rioters were cast as unintelligent, apolitical and anti-social youths, devoid of any moral compass and intent on causing chaos and destruction. Individuals whose actions took place in a vacuum independent of wider socio-economic and socio-political influences. This was the 'explanation', and woe betide anyone who diverged from it.

As an ISG article by Daniel Foley on the "BBC’s Disgraceful Coverage of the UK Riots" has noted, the 'facts' and 'context' of the matter took a back seat, despite the Beeb's editorial guidelines, and instead 'the focus has been heavily skewed towards the “crime”.' Foley continues by noting that: 'The only voices who have been given any real time to talk about the riots in relation to government cuts have been, on the whole, members of the Shadow Cabinet who want to go no further than discussing police cuts. This, of course, answers no questions about what caused the rioting in the first place.' Interviewers first asked pundits for their opinions as to why what has happened happened, before then demanding they offer their condemnation in place of the explanation they have just been asked to give. This most inane of interviewing techniques does little to promote serious, considered discussion.

Foley and I disagree over what has fundamentally driven the biases of the BBC's coverage - he sees it primarily as the result of commercial pressures, I see it as mainly coming from political pressure. Whereas Darcus Howe takes another view altogether (from about the 27 min mark), considering it to be the result of a media who can only ever deal with what has happened, and not what is likely to happen - which he describes as a kind of 'speculative truth'. The media are, therefore, constantly taken by surprise by unexpected, spontaneous events that come at them like 'a thief in the night'. Nevertheless the point we are all making is, more or less, the same: there has been a deliberate attempt by media commentators to portray the rioting as mindless activity completely devoid of any kind of wider context; with any form of explanation purposefully misconstrued as justification.

At the same time, the more serious attempts at locating the underlying causes - generally coming from the print media and not the visual - have been hamstrung by a rather jejune focus on a magic bullet, so to speak. One single factor that will explain all, with the factor that is offered up typically a rather vague and simplistic ideological gambit from an aspiring politico or journalistic hack, devoid of substance and often reactionary to the core. A toxic mixture of sanctimonious posturing and pseudo-psychological pontification which makes for, to paraphrase an old classic, the sociology of fools. (For a brief summary of the competing arguments, from gangsta rap to missing fathers, welfare dependence to consumerism, see this article from the BBC.) And even amongst these more 'refined' commentators the naive and circular tautology that the cause of criminal behaviour is criminal behaviour is never far from the surface.

In place of serious investigative reporting, small shop-owners, the victimised petty-bourgeois, have been held aloft and lionised as the heroes of the moment and the voice of the community. The most heinous (and to some extent unrepresentative) acts were given undue focus. And against the backdrop of a constant barrage of media reporting about apolitical, 'mindless violence', i.e. the irrationalising of the rational, a wave of public hysteria has been fermented from the depths of middle class reaction. A wave that the government is able to ride the crest of in order to put forward a 'law and order' agenda which promises 'robust' measures: from water canons to rubber bullets, and from lengthy prison sentences to making those involved and their families homeless. Indeed even the clean-up operations have had a cynical, distinctly middle class undertone, as Dr. Sofia Himmelblau has noted in the kind of rhetorical style and panache that makes this writer very envious.

The attempt, however, to view these events solely through the lens of individual guilt, ignoring the underlying social causes, is nothing more than an ideological gimmick on the part of the government. A callous attempt to disassociate themselves from blame by a degenerate political elite. There is, after all, something distinctly hypocritical about old Etonians - i.e. former members of the Bullingdon Club - lecturing us about a moral malaise. Of complaints about 'looting' from the very same people that have looted public purses and foreign nations. Yet it was the rioters that the Prime Minister, Mr. Cameron, identified as 'sick', not the decrepit social order that has produced them. And while on the one hand the right berates those that suggest these events can be 'explained', arguing that they are making political capital out of human tragedy; on the other, they use this as an opportunity to advance their own political interests, typically consisting of pleas for a restoration of moral order and the sanctity of the married family, alongside further attacks on the underlying principles of the welfare state.

What is therefore needed to counteract the increasingly reactionary narrative that has sprung up around these events, is thus a sober appreciation of the facts. At the same time, however, it is important to avoid abstract, teleological talk, and to remember that in and of itself correlation is not proof of causation.

A bit of background.

What began as a peaceful protest in Tottenham on Saturday night against the police's killing of Mark Duggan, has been transformed into a massive breakdown of social order. The catalyst for the initial rioting on Saturday appears to have been a vicious assault by riot police on a sixteen year old girl who was attending the protest. (Footage of this assault apparently exists, but it is surprisingly hard to track down: this is the best quality video I have found, although it still doesn't show much; and for an eyewitness account of the beating.) It would, however, be a mistake to view this outbreak of public anger in isolation, as if it had not be developing over a prolonged period of time.

Police violence and aggression is a constant thorn in the side of many of those who live in deprived inner city areas, yet there is little done about it. For example, of the 333 deaths in police custody since 1998, no officers have been convicted. Protests after the death of rapper Smiley Culture in strange circumstances - he apparently died from a self inflicted stab wound whilst police were in the process of searching his home - went by largely ignored. Anti-terrorism laws are routinely abused by police in order justify stop and searches, with a disproportionate focus on young black men - they are, in fact, around thirty times more likely to be stopped and searched. Joint Enterprise laws are used to criminalise the innocent acquaintances of people involved in illicit actives. And Operations Trident and Razorback have come to been almost universally reviled by the communities it impacts upon - with official reports even acknowledging that the former is a 'racist' approach to policing. Yet nothing is done to alleviate these communities grievances against heavy handed policing. Furthermore, if people sometimes wonder why black communities do not welcome the police into their midst despite high levels of violent crime, then they should take the time to consider the above.

Instead, an increasingly militarised police force is deployed in roles that would often better suit social workers. Money is spent on repression rather than jobs, houses and welfare. Protests meet with deaf ears, gentrification brings with it further social segregation, and quite frankly if riots hadn't erupted across London over this past week, these issues would have remained under the radar. This is because while these areas are beset by a host of social and economic problems, their residents lack any kind of serious political representation. The mainstream political parties and media pander to the whims of the urban middle, and at the same time they have long denigrated and ignored the poorest sections. Groups that are held in such low esteem that they are routinely dismissed as an expendable 'underclass'.

In short, to talk about a singular and uniform 'community' in these areas is a misleading falsehood. These areas are severely divided along lines of both race and class, with the bottom sections left to drown so that there is room in the lifeboat for the wealthier elements. Moreover, there is an additional generational divide whereby the poor youth of these areas increasingly face two distinct career paths: unemployment or crime. And as the old African proverb put it: if the young are not initiated into the village, they will burn it down just to feel its warmth.

The nature of the riots and the social composition of the rioters.

Against this backdrop of police violence, social alienation and economic deprivation, alongside the aforementioned triggers for the initial rioting in Tottenham, public disorder spread across London, and then in the following days, to other parts of the UK. In the search for an explanation of this escalation, commentators have reached desperately for a one-size-fits-all solution. The issue, however, is far too complex for such a simplistic answer.

Firstly, on the subject of the nature of the riots, it is important to state that there was not one riot with a single unifying logic. What we instead saw were a multifaceted series of events that unfolded over the course of a few nights and took rather different forms. In some areas - primarily Tottenham, Brixton and Hackney - the focus seemed to be, in the main, on confrontation with the police. Rioting in the 'traditional' sense, with looting a secondary consequence of the breakdown of order. In other areas, such as Ealing and Clapham Junction, there was mass looting, minor public disorder, and little out and out rioting. And in a few select places, acts of arson. The breakdown of order thus provoked differing reactions, with the so-called 'copycat' activities - i.e. opportunistic looting - that occurred in the areas where the police presence was minimal or non-existent, distracting attention away from the more pronounced confrontations with the police that occurred elsewhere. Furthermore, there is thus little sense in trying to look for a singular theme in all of this; and it goes without saying that in the absence of law and order, certain elements will seize the opportunity and commit abominable acts. This is the very eclectic nature of a riot, but to focus one's attention solely on these secondary consequences is a serious error of judgement.

Secondly, in terms of the social composition of the rioters, the news emanating from the court proceedings of the last few days suggests that those involved are something of a diverse cross section of demographic, social and racial groups. In other words, they are not all the 'feral [black] youth' that the media has been quick to blame. We have a school teacher, a trainee social worker, a millionaires daughter, an eleven year old boy, and so on. They are not all young, and they are not all of one ethnicity. Indeed even some Orthodox Jews seem to have got in on the act. Yet at the same time, whilst there may be no unifying demographic or racial narrative, most of those in court do appear to share a common class position: they are, broadly speaking and with a few exceptions, comprised from the working and non-working poor. The 'chavvy' underclass that has for years been depicted in the most cruel of fashions by the media, and who have thus acted in the framework of the image created for them.

As for the motivations of those involved, there was certainly a degree of opportunism, which has been quite cleverly described by one commentator as the result of an 'information cascade' that has all the hallmarks of a run on the stock-markets - i.e. 'when people base their behaviour not upon their private information, but rather upon what others are doing.' There have also been criminal gangs that have used the cover of public disorder in order to pursue their own agendas. Indeed it has been frequently reported that the postcode gangs called a truce, yet to view this disorder as a whole as the work of these gangs is a real mistake. After all, what self-respecting gang member would loot a Primark store? More to the point, criminal elements usually choose to pursue their activities out of public sight, not in front of watching television cameras. And while there were no doubt others who fit the description of men who just wish to see the world burn, alongside others motivated by a desire to get hold of the latest consumer goody, the majority appear to have been motivated by a ferocious anger coupled with an acute sense of how society sees them.

In the main, big businesses and not small shops were looted; and moreover, whilst the talk was of small groups causing trouble, the mass of spectators that gathered provided ample cover for these groups. The police were, 'by their own admission, overwhelmed by the numbers of people involved'. Presumably, if they were that scared by the unfolding events these crowds would have remained indoors; and that they didn't, suggests pretty substantial support for and participation in the actions of a supposed minority of just a few hundred narcissistic and sociopathic 'bad apples'. Thus if a singular message could be got from those rioting, it was a quite simple one: 'Fuck the Feds!' With the rich coming a close second.

In the absence of law and order, society's underclass turned on its social betters, although not with all that a discerning of an eye, and lacking an overt sense of political-organisational direction. To reverse a dictum of Marx's, and to at the same time repeat a point made in many letters pages this week about rioters acting as bankers, we saw the lumpen proletariat, in its mode of acquisition as well as in its pleasures, as nothing but the rebirth of the finance aristocracy on the depths of bourgeois society.

The police response.

The police's response to a situation of their own creating was also reasonably simple. Without a numerical majority, and facing an incredibly hostile crowd on their own terrain, they cowered and refused to engage. Preferring instead to viciously shoulder barge innocent bystanders with their hands in their pockets and also clubbing a small group of kids on bikes. They also chose to protect the richer parts of London, and left poorer areas without any police at all; while the deployment of a significant number of the Greater Manchester Police force in London meant that when the disorder first spread to Manchester and Salford, a limited police presence was unable to contain it.

The rapper Reveal, in the Newsnight discussion cited in the introduction, pointed out that in the 70s and 80s inner city youth lost their respect for the police, but over the last few years they had also lost their fear. As has been noted elsewhere: 'Part of the reason for the spread [of disorder] is probably that the aura of invincibility on the part of UK riot police has been seriously damaged by these riots.' The police were shown to be the proverbial 'paper tiger' as the marginalised and disaffected reclaimed, for a few fleeting moments, their communities for themselves.

Moreover, there appears to have been a clear political intention to the police's lackadaisical response. In the first place, it has served to create a furore about police cuts; and in the second, has enabled police officials and their public apologists to hue and cry about the restrictive measures that have been applied to them since the G20 protests, where their heavy handed actions resulted in the death of another innocent bystander. Whatever limited improvements in police tactics have since been implemented, and from an operational perspective anyone who has since faced the MET on a protest would be very dubious that any changes have in fact been put in place, are now likely to be reversed amidst calls for more rugged policing. With such odious individuals as the hawkish Peter Hitchens - who have likely never felt the force of a police baton or been subjected to police harassment - now suggesting, as in fact he did on the Radio Four programme "Any Questions" (12.08.2011), that the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984), a concession won by the 81 riots, be scrapped.

The moral of the story? Police incompetence, as ever, will be rewarded.

The rise of the far right vigilante.

After a few nights of rioting, a far more serious development took place. Some small ethnic groups had taken it upon themselves to defend their properties. A groups of Sikh men stood outside their temple, complete with their ceremonial swords, and some Turkish shopkeepers and their employees banded together to force looters off their street. There was nothing wrong in this, and in the absence of police protection and in light of further disorder, lots of other communities who were left feeling threatened took similar action to prevent damage to their homes and businesses.

However the media started to make a big deal of these activities, for once reporting positively on the actions of some of Britain's ethnic minority groups. Politicians gave them their nodding approval, and rather quickly legitimate community defence turned into something far more sinister: roaming groups of far right vigilantes, armed to the teeth with baseball bats and other objects, and in customary fashion, drunk as skunks. In Enfield scenes emerged of groups 'chasing blacks', in Eltham mobs roamed the streets chanting 'EDL, EDL', with Richard Seymour (of Lenin's Tomb) offering up a rather cautious first hand account of some of this activity.

The far right had capitalised on the rhetoric of community defence, and overt racism became the order of the day. The political elite and the media have, of course, remained more or less completely silent on this development. Turkish and Kurdish community activists from Dalston, however, did not, quickly issuing their condemnation of this development alongside the media's spinning of the initial actions in their community. Needless to say, this was by far the most worrying evolution in this whole affair, and it sets an ominous precedent for the future whereby political demonstrations by the left are liable to see counter-demonstrations from far right forces under the guise of 'defending order' or some such twaddle.

The failure of the organised left.

The political elite is of course doing its utmost to sweep the aforementioned grievances back under the carpet, and to give them their due, they seem to have done a pretty good clean-up job. The narrative has been set on a course that drifts further rightward with each passing day, with racist gangs now patrolling the streets and cyber-mobs now proposing the most vile and uncivilised of possible punishments. (Conservative MEP Roger Helmer has even 'tweeted' in favour of using live ammunition against 'looters and arsonists'.) All of this has been aided by a left, or at least a significant majority of it, acting in the most craven of manners, seeking refuge behind the very same 'law and order' agenda that is being promoted by the most reactionary segments of society. With the biggest culprit being, as is usual, the British Labour Party. (If only the courageous Bernie Grant had still been the MP for Tottenham, and not the obsequious David Lammy.)

At the same time, those on the left who have tried to outline the root causes have to some extent fallen into the trap of ultra-left posturing. So much so that James Manwaring's verdict that '[the] finger pointing towards specific policy thrusts or political justification bears no trace of reality' is not without grounds: correlation is not, in and of itself, proof of causation. The analysis from some has been rather sloppy, devoid of nuance; so much so that some commentators have begun to suggest that there is little difference between the vague formulations put forward by those on the left and those on the right. This is not a good sign. (Peter Oborne has managed to hit a few harmonious notes, but that is not all that surprising on account of the tone and content of some of his previous work - e.g. on global warming, the nature of the political class and political lying, and also the vilification of the Muslim community.)

Instead, the left should argue strongly in favour of political dialogue and redress, demanding that mass meetings take place in which the affected communities are able to air the grievances. (In this context, today's unity march from Dalston to Tottenham is a positive sign.) It should continually put the spotlight on the police's role in this, but should also point out that the police are a symptom, not the cause: i.e. they are the symptom of a ruling class that directs its investment disproportionately towards the repressive machinery of the state at the expense of programmes aimed at improving the lives of the worst off sections of society. As I said earlier, an increasingly militarised police force is being used to fulfil the role of a social worker, and with dire consequences.

Most of all, however, the left should take a firm line against the idea of disproportionate punishment for those involved. The bulk of the crimes committed were non-violent acts of looting, which should not carry a custodial sentence, and only violent acts against other humans, alongside the very dangerous acts of arson, should even be considered for jail-time - with the exception, of course, of violent acts towards the police, for which the rioters should get the same immunity from prosecution that is afforded to Her Majesty's Constabulary. Moreover, it should be argued that those convicted should be deployed in rebuilding their communities, rather than languishing in jail at the expense of the tax payer. It is possible to both condemn the worst excesses of this disorder, the wanton acts of violence and arson, whilst also placing the blame firmly at the door of the ruling elite and its baton-wielding footsoldiers.

None of these points are so radical as to risk alienating a large portion of the population, especially if they are framed in the correct terms. And more to the point, they avoid ceding the terrain of the debate to the right, which is chomping at the bit at the prospect of using this matter to put forward all manner of authoritarian solutions. Furthermore, they will go some way to addressing the left's most significant failing in regard this whole affair: that we have not been able to connect with these angry, disaffected layers of society and offer them something more constructive. These riots occurred because we failed the rioters, and the least we can do now is to pluck up the courage to defend these people from one hell of a reactionary backlash - even if this causes us to lose a few friends along the way.

In conclusion.

The blogger 'potlatch', in response to these riots, has reminded us of Hegel's distinction between something 'in itself' and something 'for itself'. S/he notes that:

Quote:

In themselves, these riots may indeed be about inequality: the concentration of wealth and power may simply have become too unwieldy, regardless of what the rioters think is going on. But for themselves, they are about power, hedonism, consumption and sovereignty of the ego. Anyone who disagrees with that is simply not crediting the participants with being able to make sense of what they're doing.

There may be an element of truth in this, and the use of Hegel's distinction is certainly worth pondering. It is just a shame that this individual pursues his own personal agenda - which seems to be railing against 'criminal yoof' - rather than applying the analytical tools that they themselves have identified. In particular, the view of those involved is so blinkered and one-dimensional that it cannot possibly hope to be correct. Moreover, it is downright misleading, whilst also being phrased in the glib and vacuous language of abstract post-modern moralising.

To quickly recap. These riots were borne of social alienation and disaffection. There can be no dispute on this point. Poverty is passed down through the generations in these areas, from mother to daughter, father to son. An inheritance that no one wants, and that has served to created much public antipathy towards the ruling elites in the affected areas. That, however, this anger lacked political and organisational direction, is as much a failure of the left as it is of anyone else. Yet at the same time, as hopefully has been demonstrated above, there was a quite clear political element to this disorder. It was not all mindless violence on the part of a thuggish youth, and nor was it an orgy of egoistic hedonism. One only needs to listen to what those involved have said to realise that this political dimension 'for itself' exists.

This is not to say that this disorder has not been without its contradictions, its opportunistic and decadent elements, alongside blatant criminality and repulsive violence. However this is not the whole story, nor even the main story. Those on the left must realise this, and as the dust settles and the public anger at the rioters recedes, it must rediscover some of the courage of yesteryear and drag the accompanying narrative down less reactionary paths.

To finish with another quote, this one from an article by Kevin Ovenden:

Quote:

Riots by their very nature involve inchoate violence as well as more consciously directed acts... There is nothing more cowardly in those circumstances for the left to concede that ground, or self-satisfiedly to proclaim that they would sympathise with those who are lashing out if only they did so in a more organised fashion, more constructively, with more regard to building a majority social force against the government, more… more like what we would do. But we haven’t done so effectively. And this is one consequence.

If the left cedes the ground to the right here, it will simply compound an already severe failure. It will transform a benign tumour into a malignant one, and consign these communities and people who live in them to further, terminal decline. Moreover, if an authoritarian, 'law and order' response to these events is not met with strong resistance, then we can expect the right to protest to be even further undermined; and this will come at a time when that right is most strongly needed, as we face the prospect of further recession and savage attacks on our wages and living standards.

Through unity, comes strength.

The ICC has put out a very good article on this, which outlines the historical dimension as much as it does the contributing factors of the last couple of years: "Riots in Britain - The Fruit of Forty Years of Capitalist Crisis."