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Tynamite's thoughts on the 2011 UK Riots « Tynamite's blog (this blog has moved)
You don't need a national inquiry to find out why the youth rioted nationwide. It's common sense!
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My thoughts on the UK Riots (August 2011)
Posted 7 Years Ago
This post is in three parts. There's three reasons why these riots happened, and I will get into them all in this post. It's not black and white.
Part 1: Mark Duggan
I was at my Mum's yesterday, as I was for the past 4 days. I was in the kitchen and she told me about how Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, refuses to go down to Tottenham point blank, where the riots are in London, when asked live on the news if he would. The riots had been going on for 3 days now, this was the 3rd day. Tottenham is a deprived area of London where there are little opportunities for people, especially black people.
The riots started because an innocent black man was killed by a policeman due to racism. A 19 year old man called Mark Duggan was killed by a policeman while he sat in the back of a taxi.
I said that most people who vote in the elections aren't poor, and that the purpose of a politician is to stay in power, hence why Boris Johnson didn't want to visit Tottenham. Have you ever wondered why the people in the good areas have binmen that take black bags out their dustbins, or why youth centres close in poor areas, and people in good areas get special treatment? It's because those people from the good areas are the exact people who vote. Most people who vote in the UK are aged 60+. That's why they have free bus passes, because Labour wanted to stay in power. Most young people don't vote. If more young people voted, we would have more opportunties for young people, and there would be more resources for young people like youth clubs and jobs. By young people not voting, they are shooting themselves in the foot by not giving themselves the opportunities, that would otherwise go to the well off middle class people who do vote. This is why voting is important.
This is when my Mum asked me to share that information on Facebook to inspire young people to vote. I refused. I told her that I'm just one person, and that I can't influence voting behaviour. I wish I could but I can't. I told her that most people on my Facebook voted, so my words would be worthless. I then said this.
There's also a different one for the council elections every 4 years.
Remember that advert that comes on tv before every election period that reminds voters that if they don't vote, they have no say in how the country is run? There will always be people in this world, who will never do anything to contribute to the system no matter what you do. There's a certain set of people who will never get a job, never get educated, and never vote in the elections. Whether the reason is self inflicted because their parents and family entice them into a life of drugs and crime, or whether the situation is forced upon them, as many schools in poor areas are shit to be honest, and the children leave school not being able to read or write, or do basic maths. Do you know those people who believe in communism and that everyone should be equal? Do you know what they really mean. What they really mean is that they want to be able to do nothing with their life and get a free house, a job given to them, free healthcare, and have everything handed to them on a plate. This is why I cannot encourage people to vote, because many people nowadays see past opportunites that are in front of them.
[pictures: Sky News]
Moving back onto the topic, a 19 year old man called Mark Duggan was killed in the back of a taxi no reason other than him being black, making it a hate crime. The police tried to spin it to say that there was a shootout, and that he fired at them, but because of the protest, the police were forced to retract their statement and honestly say that there was no shootout. To make things worse, the forensics are finding inconsistencies with the evidence found, and the policeman's statement. They find that the bullet found in the policeman's radio (walkie talkie), does not match the bullet that Mark was supposed to have. It's been found that Mark did not have a gun on him whilst he was in the taxi. A check on his background shows that he is not involved in drugs, and that he doesn't immerse himself in gang culture. What's worse is that the Metropolian Police and the Independant Police Complaints Comission refused to tell the family that Mark Duggan had died. Only now there are riots, they are apologising.
Looking at the riots in a bird's eye view, it can be hard to comprehend or even impossible, to understand how such events can lead to a riot. Even more so because what should have stayed in Tottenham, London; spread to Birmingham, Manchester Newcastle, Leeds, Bristol. Such things aren't so easily explained, when a mass of teenagers are looting shops clean with goodies with a smile on their face.
I can see why the protests got violent. Policemen who kill black people walk away scot free. If you ask me, a peaceful protest wasn't going to cut it. Was justice ever served for Smiley Culture and that other person who was killed in Birmingham last month after a peaceful protest? [I'll update this later on my blog] That's what I thought. If I was a black person living in a deprived area where I was stopped and searched nearly every day, I would join the protest.
There's people in London selling laptops they stole from Currys, Coment and PC World for £20, because they want to get rid of it really quick. Police are raiding people's houses in Tottenham.
Part 2: Muslim Extremism
I expect to be called racist and xenophobic for this post. It's a well known fact that the UK is the best country in the world for immigrants. I know illegal immigrants who were granted their legal stay here, and the council gave them a free house to live in which they claim free of Housing Benefit.
Before
After
If there's one thing people in the UK hate, it's immigrants. We're a small enough country as it is, and we don't need any more immigrants here, overloading our services. The schools are overcrowded, and the NHS is overstretched. In 2003 I was 11 and I finished my time at my Catholic primary school, that had 23 people in the class. Back in 2009, that class had 35 people in it. I'm not being racist, but how come as soon as immigrants start getting in the school, there happens to be asian people in the school? People only have to look at the schools, to understand how overcrowded the UK is. And the councils building housing on patches of grassland isn't going to solve any problems.
After
I know the reason why the government doesn't want immigrants in, and it's not because resources are overcrowded. If you ask any newspaper journalist who does poltics, they will agree with me. I will not explain the real reason for why in this post, as it's irrelevant. That's for another post.
There is a group in country called Islam4UK and they aim to bring Sharia law into the UK. If that was to happen, you would have your hand chopped off for theft. Women in Sharia law have no rights, but let's not get into that. I'm not going to be the one to brandish a religion as wrong, as that's insensitive to religious people. If you want to research Sharia Law, you can look it up. I've looked it up and it's not something people in general would recommend, given the choice.
There's another group in the UK called Muslims Against Crusades. They're also a bunch of extremists who are agains the way the Western world is run. Their article of Amy Winehouse's death is appaling; as it uses her death to explain why Western society is bad, and why Sharia law is good. Let's not forget, Islam4UK and MAC are the same people who believe that democracy is wrong, and all people who insult Mohammed should burn in hell. In my opinion, these people haven't moved their mindsets into the 21st century. The Bible has stories of stonings in it, but it's just that we have become civilised to know not to do that. Cue the people calling me racist. I'm not calling Muslims animals. If I was, I wouldn't be friends with any of them.
I believe that Islam4UK and the MAC are cults because they spread propaganda, and the definition of a cult is an organisation that operates in different laws than the one of their residing government. Even that place I forgot what it's called, which refuses to follow government laws, accept their healthcare or school facilities or anything, who live off the farm and don't pay tax; even those people are a part of a cult. I think it's called Peacetopia. Cults don't have to be good or bad, they just have to qualify for being a cult.
There's also a group called the English Defence League which wants to defend the UK from Muslim rule and extremism. EDL leader Tommy Robinson was on BBC Newsnight talking about his plight, and the presenter, Jeremy Paxman was mocking him, telling him that there was no imminent threat from them. I disagree. Nowadays in the UK, there are no more Christmas lights in town. They've all been replaced by Happy Holidays lights. The reason for this is because Muslims complained to the councils about those lights wanting them being taken down, citing feeling left out of cultural celebrations as a reason for wanting that. I think that these [extremist] Muslims are disguising Western intolerance with political extremism. For that reason, I can see why the burka was banned in France.
Not just the city centre, other places too.
Shops here are getting raided.
I don't believe that the EDL are racist. I just believe that the minority of racist EDL membera are tarnishing their image. I've also seen evidence of racist UAF members attacking white people for not being Muslim. The wrongs spread both ways. Hypothetically, let's say that the EDL are racist. I would rather be a part of a racist group against Muslim extremism and protecting British laws, than be a part of an openly extremist group which seeks to spread Sharia law.
Did you know that there's a council in London that is run by extremist Muslims? No joke. The Tower House of Hamlets is run by extremist Muslims. You can look it up if you want, and research what people think of the council. Here's a video of a Christian graveyard being knocked down and there being a mosque being built on top of it. How racist can you get?
There's also the United Against Fascism which fights against racism and the BNP (racist poltical party) and EDL. The UAF is run by extremist Muslims who do not condemn whatever Muslims do. There's also the Socialist Party which tries to make everything fair for the working class like the Labour Party; but unlike Labour, they have some of the most unrealistic goals on their manifesto such as taxing the super rich and fighting for the right to asylum and saying no to racist immigration laws. The rich people pay much more tax than the poor. The rich may be rich, but there's not enough money for tax just to tax the rich alone. Just because asian people claim asylum so that's just what you hear about on the news, doesn't mean that immigration laws are racist because they target asians. Did you know that if you're from the European Union, and want to move to the UK, that you have to wait 5-10 years before you're legally allowed to move there and get a job? Is the UK being racist to white European people too?
So how are the riots involved in all of this? What happened in Birmingham, is that the EDL and the Socialist Party kicked off, and that the EDL were shouting racist remarks at Muslims. EDL members are known to of stripped Muslim boys on the bus yesterday and beat them up. No joke.
I had a conversation on Twitter about how I agreed that multicultralism had failed.
The two girls didn't agree with me at first, but I know that everyone else who saw my tweets did. I lost no followers. Some people just don't understand. I can see why the EDL are rioting in town, as the threat of extremism and Britain losing its cultural integrity is very real. It's happening now, whether you like it or not.
David Cameron ran a speech about how multicultralism in Britain had failed. Some people said he was being racist.
Here's the top rated comment on the video.
Before
After
Part 3: The Conservatives
The Conservatives are a poltical party which do not care about the working class. They only care about the middle class. If you're earning £28,000+ a year, you're middle class, according to David Cameron, the current Prime Minister, of the currently elected Conservative Party. They were only elected in 2009, and it's coming up to 2 years. In a space of 2 years, so much deprecation to society has happened because of them.
The day after.
On Twitter a group was started called #riotscleanup. About 100 local people who are outraged with the rioting came together to help clean up the mess caused by the rioters. We went down armed with brush, gloves, dust pan and binbags to lend a hand. However, because SOSC(Scene of crimes officers) had taped off the worst hit shops for forensic work, there wasn't anything for us to do. Local councillors came down along with tv crews to show their support.
The Conservatives believe that the rich should stay rich, and that the poor should stay poor. They make changes to decrease social mobility and increase the rich and poor divide. Labour were previously elected, and they believe in the exact opposite. They weren't voted into power in 2009 because the NewsCorp tory supporting newspapers blamed Labour for the credit crunch, job losses and education failures, which really weren't their fault. Whichever political party The Sun and The Daily Mail support, typically end up getting elected.
I can understand McDonalds, but people also attacked Wimpy.
Wimpy! Of all places. About!
The Conservatives raising VAT from 17.5% to 20% is very clever. To the rich, this change won't mean anything. For small businesses, this is the difference of staying afloat or going bankrupt. For poor people, their minimum wage isn't going up to accomodate for the increase. Grocery shopping just got harder.
Their reasoning for this is because Labour left the country in debt, so that they need to do cuts to pay back the debt. That is illogical.
Public Sector Cuts
The first thing they did when they got into power is do an emergency budget. They decided to make cuts to all public services. Policemen, firemen, cleaners and other such people had their jobs cut. Their budget also cut the council funding. The Birmingham City Council can't afford to employ anyone for the next 4 years. That's where I live. Some councils have been forced to merge together so that they can share resources. Why people voted for the Conservatives is amazingly shocking. This is Margaret Thatcher Part II. The last time the Conservatives were elected, they raised VAT from 15% to 17.5%. They also introduced a new tax called Poll Tax in the 80s which caused mass riots. That remains here to this day in the form of council tax. Before that never existed. They've dropped Business Link, a place where small businesses and entrepenuers get business advice.
Privatisation
So what other disgusting things have the Conservatives done so far since being elected since 2009? They plan on privatising some NHS hospitals and schools, meaning that education and healthcare will be less free. They plan on privatising (selling) the Royal Mail (to the private sector). I sent my novel to someone in Canada in an envelope for £1.15 thanks to the Royal Mail. The cheapest alternative costs £20 from DHL. When BT and Severn Trent Water got privatised, it wasn't good for us. They should have stayed nationalised in the public sector.
Welfare
They've made the biggest changes to welfare in 60 years. They're going to replace all benefits with a Universal Credit. Already they have cut people's pensions. They've also stopped Income Support for people who have children aged 9 and over. What this means is that if you're a single mother in a Catch 22 because you can't get a job because you have a child and can't afford childcare, tough luck, your money is being stopped when your child is 9. This forces people on Income Support to take jobs in order to keep their benefits, and Jobseekers Allowance is less money than Income Support; as they won't be able to claim that anymore.
They've also cut Housing Benefit, so poor people who would have a free house to live in are being evicted from their homes. I can predict more slums and gypsies as people pitch tents and caravans to live in. If you're overoccupying you're house, having more rooms than people in your house, your house will be downgraded. 50% of people on Housing Benefit are disabled. The 2nd highest are on Income Support. Those scroungers that the Conservatives speak of exploting the benefit system do not exist. They're sprouting propaganda and they're scaremongering.
What's even more evil is that they've cut Disability Living Allowance. If you have learning diffulcities, cystic fibrosis, or any other disability that stops you from working, your money is being cut. They've done something which is truly evil. They have raised the minimum wage for disabled people to match the minimum wage of normal people. If you're disabled and looking for a job now, you might as well give up. Why would someone employ you, if they can employ someone of the same rate who is disabled? That is evil at its finest. And the Conservatives do not care. They do care about the rich however. They've cut Corporation Tax by 3%. Nice!
Education
They tripled the university fees which caused the student protests last year. That deserves its own blog post, especially as the police were violent in a peaceful protest. They cut student grant so I'm getting £1000 less money per term. Because of these cuts, everyone I know can't get jobs. Before they were elected, nearly everyone in university had a job. Now these jobs don't exist. They also cut EMA which was £30 a week kids from poor families got for doing further education in college or sixth form (not university). Labour made it up to keep poor people out of dead end jobs and get them educated. The Conservatives scrapped it. They also scrapped Connexions which was a place people aged 16-19 in England could go to get career advice. All schools in England had a Connexions adviser who helped every student.
There were many of these protests last year all over the country.
Healthcare
The Conservatives plan on reforming the NHS. What that means is making it worse. They scrapped the things that made it good. They also plan on privatising it, selling the NHS to the highest bidder. I wonder how that would work?
Part 4: Conclusion
What is funny and fascinating, is that only when the Conservatives are in power, do we have a protest? This year we had teachers protesting about their pensions being cut, public sector workers about their pay being cut, and now we have these riots.
Racism aside, if you're living under a government that clearly doesn't represent you or people like you, and you're given the opportunity to make your voice heard on a grand scale, you're going to protest. No questions asked, when people feel that the system they're living in is against them, they're going to rise up and riot. There will always be the people thinking that these riots are about stealing 42" Plasma screen tvs and smartphones, but the picture is not black and white. Surely stealing is wrong, but isn't the corruption we're subjected to wrong as well?
Normal everyday people are fighting back against the system in the only way they can, and if I was David Cameron, I would be very careful about what I announce next in Parlimament. The government knows that these riots are making a stance against them. They know that the education cuts, the youth job crisis, and the lootings are all related.
I can see why these people are rioting, and I condone what they're doing, what I don't agree with however, is burning people's houses and cars. That is just uncalled for.
Those images were from Tottenham, London. Nowhere else is having people losing their homes and small businesses.
There are a lot of issues going on in the UK today, and only until people let go of their one track minds, and open their minds to the bigger picture, can we move forward in this society and start to progress things rather than fight a game of tug of war. We've got the Olympics coming up next year, and if things don't sort themselves out soon, the government will be ashamed once the games are commencing. Rather than brush social issues under the carpet and brandish these young people as opportunist theives who don't care about what's going on around them, we should instead ask them about what they think about things, and bring their issues into account.
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool and Bristol - all in a space of three days.
The government must have been laughing to themselves when the student protests were on tv last year. That was the time when a peaceful protest ended dispicably, as the police violently kettled peaceful protesters and used their batons and horses on them. Now Mark Duggan is killed, this is the final straw, and we've reached the tipping point. The police will now get rubber bullets, but that's not going to discourage anyone from fighting for their cause.
When young people feel that the government elected doesn't represent them, they are going to revolt. After all, there are more of them, then there are of the middle class grammar school students. The government is operating in the wrong way, the system is flawed; and the government need to rise up and see that it needs to change.
And finally...
A big shoutout goes out to the man dem who roll in with chainsaws to do stuff like this
A big shoutout goes out to this bredda on road
The Facebook fan page has 33,925 members.
Wow!
The bull picture is fake. Primark never got burnt. The Childrens hospital never got burnt, that was a rumour.
I wonder how they're going to film Eastenders now. I bet they're going to have an EXPLOSIVE storyline!
Seriously though, big up the asian mans on Soho Road bringing down their mans to guard their shops.
Further reading:
listed in order of importance
A few words
Do not listen to BBC News. Their reporting is slow and they're spreading propaganda, just like they did with the Student Protests.
Update:
In a space of 5 hours since starting to write this post (it took ages), the riot has now spread to Wolverhampton.
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol, and now Wolverhampton.
Sources:
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2007/02/totalitarian_th.html
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2006/02/has_any_tory_sp.html
http://www.demotix.com/news/603354/muslims-shariah-law-protest-libyan-embassy-london
http://www.marcvallee.co.uk/blog/tag/muslim/
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/647
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/457
London Riots in Tottenham
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tantan85/6017792420/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44639544@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/akwamarin/6021003371/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markus-jalmerot/6025799610/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardlartey/6019056304/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/merciacoventry/6018538692/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/merciacoventry/6018542570/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mosaiclawns/6025751106/
Birmingham Riots
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pjb2332/6024939575/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iambirmingham/sets/72157627263811187/with/6022909553/
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Comments
Posted 7 Years Ago
Wow! Very thorough accounting here of the riots. This was very informative. It's spreading like a wild fire these riots.
I loved all of the information, lots of pictures and video footage.
Fabulous blog posting!
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