London

The United Kingdom has experienced its worst few days of violence, rioting and looting for decades. I’m sure by now you know how it started in Tottenham on Saturday night. Since then it has spread across London to places such as Hackney, Peckham, Croydon, Enfield, Camden and many others with varying degrees of seriousness. The rioting has not been confined to the capital with scenes of moronic and selfish violence playing out in Birmingham and Liverpool as well as other small towns up and down the country.

There are many people trying to understand why and how this has happened. Some feel it is to do with the economic depravity in certain areas and within certain racial groups. Others feel the reason may be to do with racial issues involving the police and their stop and search policies. There are some people who still think this is a protest about Mark Duggan and the lack of information surrounding his killing. The most popular opinion is that these are simply copycat crimes being committed because the police have no power to stop it.

As well as people trying to understand why these events are occurring there are many armchair police commissioners sharing their “ideas” for how best to control the rioting. Some call for water cannons to be used. This is totally unsuitable for this situation as they are best deployed in situations where there are a big number of people in one small space. As in London for the last few nights the rioters have been spread out and trying to use this tactic would be completely useless not to even mention the fact that no one is trained to use them. Another popular and equally moronic idea is to use rubber bullets or “baton bullets” to control the crowds. These bullets were used in Northern Ireland during the 70s and 80s and were responsible for the death of a 12 year old girl Carol Ann Kelly. Not only could firing these bullets on crowds be counterproductive but deadly.

The most ridiculous idea being thrown around is the idea of involving the army. Some people are actually suggesting implementing Martial Law, something that is usually only ever seen during dramatic moments of a terrorist attack in an episode of 24 rather than being used to disrupt small groups of British youths. Having Army patrolling the streets would be a complete disaster and certainly fuel the flames of tension and not to mention set a scary and irreversible precedent.

I have been watching the news for nearly 24hours straight trying to get to grips with what’s going on where I live. The news has been a helpful tool for me to find out the latest news about what is happening across London and the rest of the UK. However it has also made several mistakes and been guilty of shoddy irresponsible broadcasting at certain times during these riots.

My attention has been focused on the BBC as I can’t bring myself to watch a Rupert Murdoch news broadcast. On several occasions the BBC News channel has repeated things that in my opinion could be stirring up tension and encouraging people to commit these crimes. My favourite irresponsible piece of information that is being said at the moment is that all the police cells in London are full. Now call me crazy but telling violent youths that if they go on to the streets and loot businesses and torch cars, there is a good chance they won’t be arrested as there is no room in London jails for them, is a fucking ridiculous thing to say on live television! I am a fan of the BBC and I feel it’s a vital service that should be protected at all costs but during live broadcasts there are very bad decisions made.

During the last 24 hours I have noticed time after time news reports saying this sentence “what does this mean for the capital economically and the Olympics in 2012”. This is a textbook example of the government and the broadcast media turning people into numbers and transforming a human issue into and economic one. What everyone seems to be missing so far is that these are people hurting other people. They are not just businesses affected by this, there are families being made homeless and peoples futures being taken away from them by violent selfish criminals.

I am now waiting for inevitable suggestion that either violent computer games, music videos or scary films are somehow to blame for the violence that has been seen across the country. This usually comes in the form of a conservative female MP suggesting that young people can’t separate reality and fiction like they are somehow hypnotised by these “evil” games and music and encouraged to go out and cause destruction.