Theft, Arson, Bodily Harm and Riot

Are these the names of the modern day  Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?  I doubt it.  The mayhem in parts of London are the actions of a few people.  The looting, damage and rioting is purely opportunistic and has nothing to do with deep-seated causes of unemployment, poverty and racial tension as the Establishment intelligentsia (?) would have it.  The earnest reporting of the BBC and The Guardian in particular, together the the hand-wringing of a few politicians claiming almost that racial tension, poverty and unemployment are the causes of the rioting is pathetic to behold. Click here for an example of the genre.

Of course there are issues to be tackled, but it has to be done through legitimate political processes, not by damaging the property and livelihoods of individuals.  It is all a matter of discipline.  I don't recall reading that the Jarrow marchers went on the rampage.  It has become almost the expectation that mass marches will attract a few people hell-bent on riot and criminal damage.  It happened most recently during the student protests and I have no doubt my avid reader can think of other instances.

It is not my intention to minimise the fact that there are problems with youth unemployment, poverty and racial tension but it is patently not the way to gain support for change by cocking two fingers at the law-abiding population, although I suspect the gormless idiots in Tottenham,. Enfield, Lewisham, Brixton et al do not give a damn so long as they can steal.

On the BBC news it was mentioned that millions have been spent in Tottenham to improve the area. Some of the expenditure will have been on community development, community engagement, ethnic minority support and the like. No doubt some good has come from these endeavours, but as I have argued on this blog, there have to be doubts as to efficacy of much of this work.  Communities have to be self-policing, or to put it another way there has to be community spirit.   My concern is that the way it has been done doesn't work. the London riots may be the wake-up call not for more of the same, but for a radically different approach to community work.

The following article may be interest in the context of the final paragraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/8689010/The-real-community-must-be-protected.html