A three day voyage of obscure looting in London goes beyond its superficial lurch. Not only the sudden death of Mark Duggan turned into an opportunistic endeavour to slice off illegal plasma TVs and technical gadgets from the best brands, it somehow reveals incoherent patterns of the time bomb London is turning into.
To start with, the media with stupendous influx from social network media, like facebook, twitter and real time feeds, literally went to a black-out loop. The riots were ‘exaggerated’.
Last night, someone tweeted to be fully aware before confusing the violence in Brixton and Hackney with Egyptian uprising as few viral videos which were being circulated were deceptive. Anxious judgements, loud words, conversations, hash tags- London now had something to talk about. What exactly, no one knows in detail about. Shops closing down, brands being looted, police being deployed, etc, made the stories. And it was enough to cause ‘fear’.
‘Humane Spirit’
Secondly, after the much broadcasted hulabaloo, one must applaud the ‘humane spirit’ of Londoners.
Today, hundreds of Londonders had gathered at Clapham Junction (one of the affected areas) to clean the roads, help the shop owners, collect the broken pieces and move on. The festive spirit with music thumping in the background takes off the pressure. The smashed glasses of famous brands like Carphone Warehouse, McDonalds, Marks and Spencers, Boots, etc, seem distant.
Starbucks even had their staff giving free coffee and water to the volunteers. This spirit of rejuvenating the essence of the city was infectious. Few volunteers who had come to the clean-up did not even stay in this location but they did that for goodwill.
‘The missing link’
Thirdly, one needs to speculate and find the missing link in between the regular riots that are breaking in the capital. Be it the angry students protesting against tuition fees, the elderly criticising the pension and NSS cuts, the loss of jobs-every thing leads to one basic fact.
This definitely is London is getting more and more divided into the abyss of have and have-nots. A dark, needy and claustrophobic side of the capital is emerging, irrespective of how much the politicians try to ignore it.
‘Whom to blame’
So, whom to blame? How can the police officers be blamed for not controlling the violence when they themselves are literally languishing in job cuts? Why will the young youth feel that their government cares for them when all they hear is about education cuts and policy changes that do not support them?
One of the popular tweets stated ‘The youth in Egypt fought for democracy and independence. While, the youth in London fights for Plasma TVs.’ This is not true. The western countries have their own bitter share of credit crunch, market collapse and inequality of wealth that is being showcased by the youth in this manner.
No doubt, the capitalism will fail or just become another brick in the wall. For example, the entire loss of these riots have come up to £100m which would be paid by the reserves of the Metropolitan Police. This reserve mostly is made up by the money of the tax payers. The government is not even facing the brunt, in sheer practise.
Well, 16000 more police officers will be deployed in London tonight. Whether this entire ‘riot’ is futile or not, depends on the manner in which it is broadcasted, believed and blamed.
shubhdachaudhary 