Cross-posted at …fly over me, evil angel….
I don’t normally write about politics or current events because, honestly, I sometimes don’t keep up with my news feeds for days at a time and there are many other people on the Internetz who cover that role far better than I ever could. Why duplicate what you can’t either replicate or improve on?
But the first thing I checked this morning was the Guardian’s live news feed of riot coverage and I was checking last night’s live feed until a few minutes before I went to bed last night and what the fuck, people.
The parallel that comes to mind for me, inevitably, is Ireland and Northern Ireland in particular (because I spent about 10 years studying the IRA and three years writing a master’s thesis about nationalism and Bobby Sands). All I could think every time I read a news story coming out of England on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning was, “Now London knows what it feels like to be Belfast.” And that’s just awful.
Did we not see this happen in Belfast in the ’70s often enough that we needed to rerun it for kicks in London in the ’10s? David Cameron’s statement from this morning is, like so much of what comes out of his mouth, Margaret Thatcher redux: We will put more police on the streets. We will arrest lots of people. We will speed up the criminal courts. We will protect the law-abiding. We will restore order.
Would you like to know how bad it can get while order is being restored? It can get pretty fucking bad. It can turn into a major fucking nightmare. If you’d like to know how bad it can get, google “Diplock courts” (non-jury courts with a single judge) and try reading some Tim Pat Coogan or Padraig O’Malley or Kevin J. Kelley on Ireland of the ’60s and ’70s (Coogan is probably the most readable but also the most biased of the three). If you’d prefer first person narratives, try Richard O’Rawe’s Blanketmen. Young men and women were arrested, detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure, and binned up sometimes for years at a time for nothing more meaningful than being on the wrong street at the wrong time. Or being in a group. Or being out at a pub. Or — and this is my favorite — having the wrong last name. That’s a good one, isn’t it?
Do we really need to do this all again to prove that it was a bad idea the first time? Let me say it the short way: Demonising People Is A Bad Idea. (It doesn’t make a catchy acronym but you can’t have everything.) All it does is make them demonise you right back. There are at least 225+ years of Irish history to make this point and lots and lots and lots of dead people along the way.
Violence meets violence and gets more violent. At the minute, it’s smash and burn looting and, yes, that’s awful; yes, it should stop; yes, anyone hurting someone else should be punished. But if you drop 16,000 police officers on the streets instead of 10,000, how will that help? More uniforms to resent, to be scared of, to hate, to be angry at because the young people in these communities — and plenty of the older people, I imagine — don’t see them as protectors. They’re the bad guys, the ones who come and break up your party, or take away your friends, or stop you on the street because you’re the wrong color or wearing the wrong jacket or the wrong shoes or in the wrong place.
A whole generation of Irish young men — no longer young now — could explain precisely how this dance goes. It doesn’t end with a pleasantly stolen midnight kiss. It ends with dead people and resentment being built into the next generation of historical narratives that define “us” against “them” and set the stage for the next go-round whenever the provocation occurs.
The terminology of battle is already being used in the reporting and the Tweeting and liveblogging coming out of the injured areas; the phrase “war zone” is being tossed around. Businesses are boarding up, shutting down, closing “for the day.” Some terrible language is being tossed around about the rioters.
I don’t think that this one set of events will turn London into a divided city or a city armed against itself (it already is that), but it could lead to some very, very nasty things. Using precedent as a guide, we could look at the “peace wall” in Belfast or the tradition of having a bowl of water and a towel in your front hall for anyone — literally, anyone — who had been tear-gassed by the armed forces (police or Army) and might need first aid.
The Met is to be commended for not having asked for more serious gear in the wake of must be three nightmarish nights; their admission that plastic bullets may be used tonight is not a confidence-inducing one. Plastic bullets kill people and more uniforms on the streets won’t fix the problem; yes, it might sit on its head and squash it out of existence for the time being, long enough for Cameron to take the credit for having “restored order” and get out of office — but it will only pop up again and again and again.
This is Thatcherism coming home to roost. This is 20+ years of willful blindness on the part of successive administrations to the real, live, angry problems out there.
There’s a great short piece from Tariq Ali on the London Review blog this morning that makes all the points I want to make except better and in more measured English:
Why is it that the same areas always erupt first, whatever the cause? Pure accident? Might it have something to do with race and class and institutionalised poverty and the sheer grimness of everyday life? The coalition politicians (including new New Labour, who might well sign up to a national government if the recession continues apace) with their petrified ideologies can’t say that because all three parties are equally responsible for the crisis. They made the mess.
They privilege the wealthy. They let it be known that judges and magistrates should set an example by giving punitive sentences to protesters found with peashooters. They never seriously question why no policeman is ever prosecuted for the 1000-plus deaths in custody since 1990.
One of my friends referred to this blog post as being about my “disappointment.” Surprisingly, I am disappointed. I am distressed and unhappy and I wish there was something more concrete I could do than sit here and write a blog post making elaborate historical parallels. So I’m going to take a lesson from Stephen Fry here; in response to the awfulness in England yesterday, he tweeted 10 charities in need of donations; here’s the link to the #riotcleanup tag in Twitter and the Facebook group and a Wiki.
I agree with your point about this being Thatcherism coming home to roost.
But your comparisons to Belfast? Sorry, but that’s stretching. Really stretching. I grew up in Belfast. I now live in Brixton. I used to live in Tottenham. These riots share only a love of fire. Nothing else.
Belfast rioted over homes, security, civil rights, personal safety, protecting their turf and because there were lots of stupid boyos trying to be the big fish in their small pond. Protestants and Catholics rioted and they were both as bad as each other. Neither side was romantic freedom fighters like your tone suggests. They were bastards who brought a province and a population to its knees, no matter age they were. Not once as a child did we get through a summer with plumes of smoke and armoured cars on the roads. And while the police and the Army were no angels (no siree) ultimately those who ran a paramilitary state were responsible for stopping too.
We had diplock courts because the IRA blew people up for even considering sitting on jury duty. They burned ordinary people out of their houses and exiled them for life. We had unimaginable brutality and cowardice on both sides from the Shankill Butchers to the Remberance Day bombing. Everything in Northern Ireland is performed to a backdrop of intimidation, racketeering and personal pressure. And even now the paramilitaries hold court. No one crosses a parade. Everyone pays their flag money. No one in a Republican area deals drugs. No one squeals on either side. Or complain about the murals or the kerbstones. You pay your taxi fare even if it’s twice what you expected. And you do shit by their rules…
You would never get Belfast rioters burning independent shops in areas they don’t live or looting stores for trainers and bags of rice. They wouldn’t need to fear the police, they’d be in line for a beating or a kneecapping instead. There’s a discipline back home. Even when it’s about parades, you keep it local, you keep it focused, you don’t just smash and burn for shits and giggles like London kids are doing right now. This feels nothing like Belfast. Nothing. London’s not organised, it’s not directed. They’re pissed at the state with a small s, not the State. Even though gangs are involved, there isn’t the structure here of Belfast. And the big difference is that Londoners are not being cowed.
There is no equivalent of #riotcleanup in Belfast, not even in the nice middle class areas. No one goes out and cleans up after a riot there because even in a big group is to mark you out and put you in danger. You’d find your house broken into shortly after. Or people calling round asking for a contribution and eyes on you for ever more and a suggestion that you’d like to sell up. That’s not happening in London. People are tweeting details, defending their property, surging the Met’s Flickr account and planning Reclaim the Nights. They’re asking why this is happening, they’re recognising the potent powderkeg of problems and they aren’t splitting into camps of pro and anti police. They aren’t shielding looters and putting out their bowl of water and banging binlids. They are banding together and asking questions of our police and polticians and not giving them an easy time like they did in 1969 when Northern Ireland starting lighting up.
Apart from having my summer fucked up as per by civil disobedience, I recognise nothing of Belfast in London. It may be socially mixed and have different economic classes cheek by jowl, but the no go thing only affects a small cross section of kids in London and it doesn’t reach across school, church, work and public transport the same way. It isn’t engrained like Belfast and it isn’t in the blood. It’s unusual here. But it is life in Belfast. And that petty small minded stuff is why the minute I could leave, I got the hell out of Belfast. I didn’t like either side involved and I still don’t like seeing either held up as some kind of ideal. They did not and never will speak for the average Northern Irish person and it’s not helpful when people hold them up as mouthpieces in some cases 30 or 40 years after their heyday. If you want to hear about Belfast past and present, log onto the Belfast Telegraph or the Irish News sites and read what people are saying straight from the horse’s mouth. Work up to a few books if you’re really interested, but be aware of the background of those books. There’s a strong bias in the selection above. We Northern Irish are bigoted enough without others joining in…
This feels nothing like Belfast. Nothing. London’s not organised, it’s not directed. They’re pissed at the state with a small s, not the State. Even though gangs are involved, there isn’t the structure here of Belfast. And the big difference is that Londoners are not being cowed.
@gherkinfiend, BeckySharper mentioned that you’re going to write a guest post about your experience of the riots and I’m really looking forward to seeing it.
The way I read JediCrow’s analogy, it seems less direct than you read it … I don’t think she would argue that London = Belfast, but rather that London over time could become Belfast-like. And by “over time” I mean generations. Even when situations are not exactly analogous, we can hopefully learn from them and not replicate past mistakes. Though perhaps that is the wishful thinking of an historian…
@gherkinfiend: I disagree with you, but that’s what makes for a horse race. I, too, will look forward to your post.
I’m sure the storeowners will be comforted by the assurance that these kids are bound to get tuckered out at some point.
I agree with Gherkinfiend. London is not Belfast.
The rioting is not even directly political. The rioters have no demands except for destruction. It is a wake-up call, yes – to the fact that neglecting the youth, restricting their life chances, and making it so that they have nothing to lose can eventually come home to roost; to problems of social exclusion based on race and income; and to problems relating to policing.
But the rioters themselves are not political, they are shameful opportunists who are hurting innocent people.
JediCrow
You also forget that the place most affected by IRA violence outside Belfast was London. It put up with years of bomb scares, coded warnings and actual explosions. I’m still apologising for why there are no litter bins in the city.
And Londoners are still pissed about what they went through because of the Troubles. They still aren’t overly fond of the Northern Irish and they’d be horrified to go down any line similar to them.
London responds to tragedy from the Blitz to 7/7 bombings with an open steeliness. It doesn’t sit and brood like Belfast. Partly because it’s made of stern stuff and partly because it has people from all round the world who see the bigger picture and know where a little riot can lead…
@gherkinfiend:
Upon further reflection, a close re-reading of your comment, and discussion with several friends, I would like to rejoin the conversation to add a final thought.
While I agree with much of what is in your original (and second!) comment, given that it is unarguably historically correct from a particular point of view, I deeply resent your insinuations about my personal political agenda and knowledge of Irish history. I believe you used my piece as a jumping-off point to air your own political convictions and (undoubtedly painful) personal history and then as an excuse to attempt to browbeat me for not adhering to your own particular philosophy or bringing up the points you feel to be germane to the argument.
I particularly resent your implications in the final paragraph of your comment. If you wish to recommend reading or authors additional to the ones I have in my post, I (and I imagine other Harpy readers) would welcome the suggestions. Since you have no personal knowledge of me, my academic or my political background, I feel your final paragraph is unwarranted and, in fact, verges on the “ad hominem.” Since one of my friends read your comment and was completely dumbfounded, saying to me, “That’s not the Hanna I know,” I feel fairly secure in thinking that you neither read my post closely nor attempted to respond to the more general points I raised there.
I read your post of this morning with interest and I’m sure you will get plenty of good conversation there.