London Riots

I posted this to LJ last night but I think it should go here as well.

Mob mentality makes people do stupid things. When we get down to brass tacks that is why this is happening.

 Let's break this down.

1: Last Thursday a Tottenham local Mark Duggan was killed during a Police operation. There is a chance he may have been shot by police. The Internal Police Complaints Commision are now investingating what happened.

2: On Saturday night a group of people marched to Tottenham Police Staion in order to protest over the shooting of Mark Duggan. This was a peacefull protest.

3: All hell broke loose.

Somehow the peaceful protest turned into a riot. No one knows how and no one knows why but it did. Shops were set alight and looting occured. Turning on the news on Sunday morning I was shocked and appalled. There didn't seem to be any point to it. What good does trashing your neighbourhood do?

And now. Now we're into the third night of rioting which has spread across a large section of London. There are now riots and spots of violence in Croydon, Lewisham, Peckham, Tottenham, Haringey, Islington, Oxford Circus, Hackeny, Southwark, Clapham, East Ham and Ealing. Buildings are alight and the Looters are out and about once again.  


It seems as if the politicians have finally got their act together with the the Home Secretary back in the country and the Mayor of London and the Prime Minister returning from their holidays. In fact since I wrote this last night, Cameron has returned to London and chaired a meeting of COBRA.

But the question is. What is the point of all this?

As usually this is being blamed on disenfranchiesd youth (the Daily Mail will have a field day) and quite frankly I would like to grab the ring leaders by the neck, shake them very hard and ask them what they think they are doing.

My friend sea_thoughts has this to say, "Lack of housing + lack of jobs = lack of mobility = tinder waiting for a spark" which I suppose makes sense in a way. Times have been very hard in the last few months with unemployment on the rise and the goverment cuts hitting people hard. But how exactly does going out and trashing your local Curries while setting fire to buses get you a job. How does it improve the global finacial situation? How does it create jobs? The answer is it doesn't.

To quote the MP Diana Abbot, "These people are trashing their own community. Who would invest here, who would create jobs?"  The answer is of course no one. No company in their right mind is going to come and set up in shop in an area where this type of thing can happen. They will go far far away quite possible to other countries.

If people really want to create jobs then they need to work together to show that their communities are friendly welcoming places which any buisness would be happy to start up and create a branch. They need to show that they are proud of their community.

Somepeople will compare this to the Student Protests and the riots that followed them that occured earlier in the year. But to quote phantomreviewer, ""this is nothing like the Student Protests, this is pure and unjustifiable anarchy" The Student Protests had an aim. They wanted to convince the goverment not to raise university fees. Then they got hijacked by morons. The protests on Saturday in Tottenham had a point. Then they got hijacked by morons.

This. This has no point. This is just anarchy .

To quote Mike Fisher, the head of Croyden Council "This is just mindless thugs who probably have never even heard of Mark Duggan." To quote phantomreviewer again "This is absurd."

Acting like this isn't doing anybody good. All it is doing is harming people.

It's harming London.