Who Do You Blame For Last Summer’s Rioting? (Videos)

Mark Duggan Murdered By Metropolitan Police. Click to enlarge.

In the summer of 2011, Britain’s cities exploded into violence as a direct result of the police murder of Mark Duggan in Tottenham, North London. The Killing of this unarmed man was the trigger for the trouble, but the root cause goes much deeper.

Condemned by the government and the right-wing press as wanton and mindless rioting the unrest spread across the country. It led to 5-deaths, thousands of arrests and 100s of millions of pounds of damage.

Following the initial police brutality and murder there was a peaceful, if noisy demonstration. The police went into overdrive in an attempt to cover up their crime, and at the same time intimidated the demonstrators by facing up to them in riot gear. They are the only people to go dressed for a riot, weapons and all.

They claimed Duggan shot a police officer, but this proved to be a lie. Both shots, including the one that hit a cop, came from a police weapon. They failed to inform relatives of the death. They withheld the truth from the public and issued a completely false version of events to the press. When the demonstrators realised the thugs in uniform were attempting to misinform, a few turned violent out of vexation.

The police murdered Mark Duggan

This violence soon spread and socially and economically deprived youth flooded onto the streets, smashing property, burning vehicles and taking property from broken shops. The evidence against the rioters seems overwhelming, but accepting it as just wanton destruction and stealing is missing the point and an opportunity. The point is explained next – the opportunity is to make British society fairer.

The people involved in the rioting are mostly from deprived areas where jobs are scarce, and opportunities for advancement even scarcer. They don’t live in luxury apartments or in leafy lanes. They exist in damp council flats where the only viable opportunity for them is dealing drugs. Not that all youth in these situations deal drugs, to presume that itself would be unjust. But that’s what the cops do, and the result is to engage in stop and search that disproportionately targets ethnic minorities and the poor.

Yet, these same disadvantaged minorities, witness the elite class and more privileged people seemingly having everything. Our politicians, many of them millionaires, were caught with their fingers in the till. Most of them got away with it. Corrupt newspaper bosses and bent coppers have been caught in mutually dishonest deals exchanging money for confidential information. Most have got away with and to my knowledge not one cop has been charged with accepting bribes.

Those other supposed beacons of society, the clergy, have for decades abused their position and molested children in their charge. How many of those perverts have been charged with rape and paedophilia? How many have ended up with long prison sentences? Not many.

So next time you feel like pointing the finger at young people who turn, in frustration, to violence and destruction, remember, their leaders set the example.