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.

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…

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.

@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…

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…