London Riots
- August 9th, 2011
- Posted by EUEditor
The rioting in Tottenham, North London, spread after three days, to boroughs in the East and South of the city – and to other parts of Britain.
It started with a community protest, after a confrontation in which police shot dead a man who produced a gun.
The police say the violent activity which followed has been taken over by “criminals, thuggery and burglary”, with wholesale looting, much of it coordinated through use of mobile phones.
They have made over 200 arrests and suffered themselves 35 casualties.
Complaining about spectators getting into danger, they’ve appealed to people to stay indoors, and so far, although using horses and occasional baton charges, have not brought out the tear gas, water canon, or troopers firing rubber bullets.
Political leaders, those not off on Summer holidays, have been askance at the extent of the rampage involving hundreds of youths, several from known street gangs.
While the initial protest clearly involved many of the Afro-Caribbean community, they are saying “all ethnicities†have got themselves represented in the rioting.
Centres of trouble were listed as Hackney in East London and Peckham in the South-east, Birmingham and Leeds.
The disturbances reflect the social tensions of the Brixton rioting, and arson, in the early 1980s; and in more recent times across the Channel, from 2005 onward, with the youth riots in immigrant areas in the outer suburbs of cities in France.
Standard identified causes: persistent and hard conditions on the labour markets, no jobs for young people; and in the United Kingdom this year, anxiety over the cuts in government services, getting into full swing.
Picture roarmag