It all went down with London nearly burning to the ground!

On Saturday the 6th of August, it has been proven that an unarmed man was shot in Tottenham, London. Mark Duggan, a 29 year old with four children from two different women, a suspected drug dealer, a ring leader of the area even. Still, whatever his characteristics, his dealings, his misgivings, no one deserves to be shot in cold blood! And this had major ramifications for the next couple of nights, ones no one could have predicted, but was this tension always brewing? On the following evenings, several of London suburbs and boroughs were attacked: Clapham, Hackney, Croydon, Peckham, Brixton, was probably the worst hit. But even Camden and Chalk Farm were descended on by criminals, angry people, generally from London's housing estates. These thugs were people looking for a 'free lunch' by taking advantage of the mayhem. The first night in Tottenham was generally about protesting, protesting about a horrid act by the police, after that, it was mainly opportunists 'taking the piss'.


The rioting and looting had major adverse affects for London and its communities, shops were burnt down and totally smashed and looted; people were injured some were even killed in the crossfire due to the madness of everything that occurred. It was electrical stores and sport shops that were targeted for their flat-screen TVs and their trainers. Even 'off licenses', basically 24 hour convenient stores, had bottles of wine taken. This is not a political protest; this is greedy people taking what they can. Birmingham and Manchester had the same problems after the corresponding nights of the London riots, but it was simply the spreading of more looting, not people especially fighting for values of freedom or a democratic process.


As opposed to what had been happening in the Middle East, as this was not political, just silly rebellious youths with nothing better to do! In the Middle East it is people striving for democracy! The difference is when you live in a country with laws and most specifically civil rights and humanitarian rules, the police can only do so much. As opposed to the dictators of the Middle East who use strong military action against freedom fighters. The riot police here in London have to be politically correct, and had their hands' tied so to spoke, as they are only allowed to defend themselves with riot gear and shields, as opposed to taking part in offensive action. It made it more difficult for themselves to police the streets, with also not enough numbers of police at the scene of most crimes, it meant, at times, London was literally burning and some streets were well destroyed.


Nevertheless, if the Metropolitan forces were to police with a strong iron fist, London may have turned into a proper war zone with many more casualties. Now with the post-mortem and analysis, police are making arrests by tracking stolen items that are being sold on EBay; assessing Facebook posts and Blackberry messages; while CCTV has recorded much footage of the lootings. So arrests are being made and heavy sentences are being handed out to much of the ‘scum’ of England, the ones who have never worked, who don’t want to contribute to society but rather just exist off what they are given.


It is the middle class who are most affected, small business owners had their shops destroyed, while it is 'our' tax dollars which will be used to pay for funding the reparations. Nonetheless, some really small business owners have been helped, whereby money was raised for some by local communities to get these businesses back up on their feet; and even these same local communities literally cleaned up the streets as well. Adversity brings people together, and this is what happened here.


I witnessed some of the action on the Monday, as at the end of the night, my local Subway Store had a sign on their window: “No money kept in-store”: they were riot ready alright! I had seen youths walk down the main road of my street with rocks, the eldest could not have been older than 18, and there were kids who seemed to be even possibly pre-teens along for the ride. A shop on the main road had been smashed. It was obvious who the perpetrators were.

My evening of being a witness started when I was checking out a room in a housing estate close to one of the areas where the action was taking place. You could feel the adrenaline pumping in the air, while local non-participating residents were the spectators of the madness that was ensuing. The action went as follows: Along Walworth road, an elderly middle-aged angry man who looked about 50 came marching down to the police head on, screaming - he wanted justice. His qualms were that police had not dealt well enough with the situation and more offensive action should be taken. He was irate he was going mad; he was shouting pointing the finger. The police had to restrain him. This nearly 'kicked off' a brawl, with rioters coming down the road to see what exactly was going on. It didn't in the end, but it was ironic a man who had been antagonized by the rioters and wanted them dealt with more severely, were in fact saved by those same people he detested so much, as it was the rioters who were going to come to his rescue.


After this event, a young man on a bike, who wore all black and had his face covered by a scarf (like a robber from the wild west) - rode straight up to the police, without saying a word. He was a rioter of Walworth road. He was baiting them. He wanted them to do something silly as he rode around circling their immediate vicinity. But the police couldn’t do anything, since they were legally not allowed to lay a hand on anyone, and they didn't, but there would have been major problems if they did so. It was obvious he was taking much satisfaction in doing this, but it was more than just that. This guy had nothing to lose, or he had some rather big fucking balls, staring down a riot squad in the eyes - coming face to face with them just metres away. His balls couldn't be that big! There was hatred in his eyes, hatred for the authority, the government that had failed him. Perhaps he was one of the lost young ones from the lower classes that has actually been wronged: with cuts on social services, university fees rising by three times, a failing economy (due to financial mismanagement of rich banker CEO’s), a lack of jobs for young inexperienced people - maybe he did have a reason for rebelling after all. Maybe the right leaning PM from the 'Elite' top 1% of English society David Cameron, was not looking after these abandoned people. I could only see his eyes, but it was a melancholic sad hatred, one of desperation, he may be part of that lost generation. And unfortunately the headlines in the media only speak about the thugs, the vicious attention seekers, not the actual disheartened youth. Maybe the riots actually started from some real political misgivings from a generation that may have been let down after all by those senior statesmen in power. Perhaps. But like all situations such as this, things turned ugly and it was the worst of the worse who came to the fore and did what they did for greed, rather than a cause with how it was all originally started – the ones with nothing fighting for something and making themselves heard.