quote:There has been serious disorder in a number of towns and cities across England, including Manchester, Salford, Birmingham, and Gloucester. A police station in Nottingham was firebombed as violence also hit Liverpool, Leicester, Bristol, Wolverhampton and West Bromwich. Garry Shewan, assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said: "This has been senseless on a scale I have never witnessed before in my career."
quote:Martin Wainwright and Riazat Butt are in Birmingham, talking to people there about the killing of three men who were run over as they tried to protect property last night:
Feelings are running very high in Winson Green where residents of the largely British Asian area are out on the streets discussing the tragedy in shocked and angry groups.
...
One of the group of men said: "There will be race riots if the police don't sort this out quickly".
He accused largely African-Caribbean looting gangs of targeting Asian-owned businesses, partly because they were perceived as easier targets compared with the city centre which was full of police.
quote:Several cars then drove past the group which was guarding local stores, Shakiel said, and the occupants shouted abuse before one vehicle returned and mounted the pavement at "tremendous speed" and hit the men, throwing them into the air.
By "Asian," they mean what we would normally refer to as South Asians here. Reminds me of the dynamic that arose with Koreans in the LA riots, or with Chinese businesses in many places in the world during unrest.
quote:In Egypt, where burning buildings and running street battles between police and civilians have become a familiar sight this year, reaction to the violence in Britain has been sharply divided.
On social media sites Egyptians started intense debates over the underlying causes of events in London and asked whether any links could be drawn between the unrest in England and their own dramatic political upheaval. ... Mosa'ab Elshamy, tweeted in frustration at those likening the British riots to the Arab Spring. "Egyptians and Tunisians took revenge for [police brutality victim] Khaled Said and [Tunisian street vendor Mohamed] Bouazizi by peacefully toppling their murdering regimes, not stealing DVD players."
But others hit back, arguing that police brutality and social depravation were universal and that looters should not be instantly condemned.
As happened during the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February, the role of state television came under scrutiny. One commentator, Mostafa Hussein, wrote: "[The] BBC is making it sound like young people have a single aim & that's to loot and vandalise. Nothing or very little on why they are doing so."
quote:Hanna agreed, adding that the actions of looters in London compared unfavourably to the way Egyptians behaved when police were beaten off the streets. "On 28 January [when Mubarak's security forces had to withdraw from the streets] there were no police anywhere and yet there was still less looting than we've seen now in Britain. If the police were completely withdrawn on any given day in the UK the country would probably implode. That raises tough questions … the issue isn't just economical, it's societal."
quote:The young man who was the victim of an awful mugging in Barking last night has been named as Mohd Asyraf Raziq Rosli, a 20-year-old Malaysian student.
He was apparently out early to buy food to break his Ramadan fast when he was set upon. The Malaysian Star newspaper reports he was treated in hospital for a broken jaw and disjointed teeth.
quote:When social media helped protesters organize and overthrow corrupt regimes in the Arab world earlier this year, while also providing citizen journalism when the mainstream media was shut out, it was lauded as a tool of democracy.
However, when the same methods are used in a scenario like Britain, they are seen as disturbing, says Megan Boler, a media studies professor in Toronto.
"Here it's not about a dictator. Here the issue is the corporation as a representative symbol. These things always spiral off into hitting the mom and pop stores, which is unfortunate," says Boler, who teaches at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
An interesting point especially next to the three deaths above.
quote:A writer named Kami makes the same point with this post on Facebook.
"Cuz [sic] people who protest in the western countries are rioters, looters, and violent enemies of the good state, so social media is the "catalyst." In Egypt and elsewhere, social media was the tool that made revolution against evil dictators possible. Look for facebook [sic] and others to either have a major overhaul, be a tool for arrests/disappearances, or be named an enemy of the state when massive uprisings happen in the US."
I don't know who Kami is, but I wouldn't put money against the last bit given how fast Amazon/Visa/Mastercard/etc. folded during the WikiLeaks incident.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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To any actual British posters on Hatrack, what the heck is going on over there?
Seems like these riots are a combination of wanton looting and perhaps some below-the-surface rage about recent government actions. Is this all about austerity measures and healthcare reform? Or is it just an excuse to steal stuff? I can't imagine it's all about police brutality, unless London has more of a history of it than I'm aware of. It made sense in LA and other places, where the racists policies of police departments created such a charged divide only waiting for a spark. Is London that bad?
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