Reading the Riots
Scarlett MccGwire argues we need to think carefully about the riots of 2011 to avoid a repeat.
8 Feb 2012, 10:30
Tottenham High Street
For her illuminating play, The Riots, Gillian Slovo interviewed a wide range of people involved in the August mayhem – policemen, community activists, victimsand ‘experts’. Actors then voiced their testimony which was woven together to provide a narration of what happened in Tottenham, followed by reflections on the causes and outcome. Early in the second half of the play, Education Secretary Michael Gove told us that his wife believed the riots were like a Rorsach test, where people see pictures and meaning in ink blots. Everybody viewed them with their prejudices and drew conclusions based on preconceptions.
With silent irony, a series of ‘experts’, mostly community leaders and politicians, then trotted out their versionsof the riots’ causes.
Sadly, this has not been confined to the play or, indeed, the immediate aftermath of the riots. For many politicians, not only coalition ministers, no explanation is called for, just condemnation.
Under Mrs Thatcher, no bleeding heart liberal, not only was Lord Scarman asked to set up an enquiry after the 1981 Brixton riots, but his findings were taken seriously by the government. Thatcher had no hesitation in condemning the rioters as wicked, yet her government took notice when he spoke of a ‘spontaneous outburst of built-up resentment’ and ‘disproportionate and discriminate’ stop and search.
In the absence of a government enquiry, others looked into the causes. Labour MPs Harriet Harman from Peckham and David Lammy from Tottenham, writing about the riots on their patches, mentioned hostility to the police and deprivation. The Guardian and the LSE in their report, Reading the Riots, which interviewed hundreds of participants, said anger with the police fuelled the unrest.
Home Secretary Theresa May and much of the media dismissed the research, saying the rioters were just looking for excuses. Ms May said it was ‘thieving, pure and simple'.
Today the report of the Citizens Inquiry into the Tottenham Riots has been launched by North London Citizens. Without excusing the rioters, it points to high youth unemployment and toxic relations with the local police in the area.
Only last week I was told of a Tottenham man, who was arrested and handcuffed at 7:30am, thrown into a cell and held incommunicado for 10 hours, before being able to call a solicitor and establish it was a case of mistaken identity. He is now suing the police. His alleged crime was fraud, not violence, and his partner had given the police his mobile phone number when they had called earlier.
It appears that no lessons have been learnt.
In 1981, a Conservative government understood that, however appalling the consequent behaviour, riots had uncomfortable origins: relations with the police and nihilism stemming from deprivation. Condemnation and exceptional jail sentences are not a deterrent. If we do not want to see a repeat this summer, we need to look at the conclusions and take action.
The author
Scarlett MccGwire
Scarlett MccGwire is a media trainer and communications consultant.
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Comments (2)
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Yes. We need to think carefully about the lawless who will riot for trainers, flat-screen TVs and iPhones because a drug dealer was shot. 'Cos like, it's the five-oh innit?' As opposed to Toxteth and Brixton - where deprivation and decay really was a genuine factor. 30 years ago.
That was then, this is now. We need to think carefully about police who can police. We need to think about water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas. We need to think about riot control. We need to think about reminding our police that they are there to uphold and enforce the law; not act as as a paralysed extension of social services. We need to think about reintroducing literacy, numeracy and employability in our education system.
Mark Twain said that history never repeats, it rhymes. And the summer 2011 riots managed to rhyme - while simultaneously and laughingly taking the piss.
08/02/2012 20:39The police seem to have an odd and unfortunate combination of excessive heavy-handed treatment of individuals when there's no excuse for it, like the unfortunate man in Tottenham wrongly suspected of a non-violent crime, while they stand idly by as violent thugs destroy the community the police supposedly exist to protect. Where were their tasers, rubber bullets, water cannons during the riots?
I'm quite sure a large factor in the spread was that opportunists saw the first offenders getting away with it and making a fortune for themselves while the police turned a blind eye. If the initial footage had shown large scale arrests, a drenched mob shivering in the cold and the instigators lying on the ground twitching, would even half as many have turned up later on to make it worse?
08/02/2012 20:40