“Mindless violence”, “thugs”, “criminality of the worst kind” – these are the words used over and over again by police, politicians and the majority of the media to describe the riots we have seen in London and some of Britain’s biggest cities over the last few days. To a certain extent, there is no denying this logic. This is no peaceful read-in at a Vodafone store, nor a carefully organised, meticulously planned and highly creative action like the UK Uncut action in Fortnum & Mason. It isn’t even a largely peaceful political protest parts of which got out of hand. These riots are markedly different: there are no political demands, no slogans or chants – just destruction, theft and violence. So is it right to dismiss them as nothing more than the actions of violent thugs?
The first thing to note here is that at this stage, we know very little about the people involved. We have seen images of mostly young men, some of them from black or minority ethnic backgrounds but also many white faces, we have been told that in many cases it’s even very young kids – 10, 11, 12 years old – getting involved, and young women. Making generalisations is difficult – and so it should be.
The government obviously has a vested interest in representing the riots as mindless, criminal violence, rather than politically motivated action. Anything else would mean that at least some of the blame for what is happening would fall on the shoulders of our overlords – and that’s not something they can afford. Sometimes, however, there is not a clear line between criminality and political acts, and I believe what we are witnessing right now falls into that area of shades of grey in between.
Some of the soundbites journalists have managed to get from rioters and looters are particularly telling. In this one, young girls drunk on looted wine talk about what they’re doing and why. There’s a vague attempt to blame the government there, somewhat undermined by one of them saying “Yeah… Conservatives… I don’t know who it is!” When questioned why they are attacking businesses in their local community, the girls answer, “It’s the rich people, the people that have got businesses, and that’s why all of this has happened. So we’re just showing the rich people we can do what we want.”
Another item on the Today Programme this morning featured a young male rioter talking about his perception of the consequences of his actions. His expectation was that he would never get caught as police were overstretched, and even if he did, the consequences would be minor – prisons are already overcrowded so the worst he would get, he thought, was an ASBO – not something he considered a big deal.
On the surface, it is easy to interpret these remarks as willful criminality and mindless thuggery. Yet they betray a staggering level of alienation from society. What these young people are saying is essentially “Your system, your social structures, your reward and punishment mechanisms don’t apply to us.” The people some of our leaders call Alarm Clock Britain – small business owners who are struggling in the current economic climate – are viewed by the rioters as “rich people”, with no distinction between them and, say, investment bankers.
It is a commonly used tactic of the privileged to dismiss the arguments of the oppressed unless they are phrased and presented on their terms. You’ve probably heard such dismissals: just think “You’re just being over-emotional”. What I think is happening in the discourse on the riots is much the same thing: the privileged political classes refusing to recognise as political expression anything other than the kind of well-organised, targeted protest that predominantly white trade unionists and middle classes tend to engage in. Yet just because these young people’s feelings and experiences aren’t expressed in a sanctioned way, just because they feel they have no constructive way (or for that matter reason or incentive) to engage with the rest of society, doesn’t make their alienation any less valid, their acts any less political.
Do I support rioting and looting as a means of political expression? No. Do we live in a world where “society” is only for the privileged, and we quite literally have no common language with the truly alienated and oppressed? Probably. The biggest challenge once the riots are over will be to find a common language, to give these kids a reason to believe that there is a place for them in our society and that it is worth their time and effort to take that place.