RACE.That ugly word is out...on the streets in Britain,or more accurately England and the genie cannot be stuffed back into the bottle. The British urban underclass,comprised mainly of the Black community,who have seen their lot slide further even after two terms of a so-called Socialist Labour govt. have exploded with fury.All the pent up frustration and anger against the establishment,specifically seen in the uniforms of the "fuzz" were waiting to explode fro quite some time.The drastic budget cuts by the new Conservative dispensation lit the fuse ,which was looking for the right opportunity to devastate the country.The spread of the riots all over England shows that the underclass all over the country feel that they have nothing to lose then exprssing their rage and acquiring as many freebies through looting and scooting.
As a regular visitor to the UK for 3 decades now,and akeen observer of the British way of life and fortunes of the nation,it has been sad to watch the decline of the fortunes of the middle class and the steeper plunge of the working class by the year.Just a few months ago,I was in N.London,the epicentre of the current chaos,visiting a close doctor friend at the clinic where my friend works.I was struck by the patients who were almost all from the immigrant communities,mostly black and appeared to be very poor.It was clear that they could not afford a swanky private hospital and depended upon the services of such clinics,which received some support from the NH but not totally,for their medical needs.The collapsing social security net of the state in the UK has been a major factor for such pent up resentment to explode in the manner in which it has done.Yes,opportunistic youth are enjoying their easy pickings as the police seem incapable of handling the situ using traditional tactics,but the malaise is far deeper.The annual summer "Proms",Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and the Royal Wedding,enjoyed by "Mittle Englanders", do not touch the lives of the underclass who have revelled in a completely different kind of entertainment.You won't see them at the last day of the "Proms" singing "Land of Hope and Glory"!
One very interesting question.Why has there been little or no rioting from the large combined community of the Indian subcontinent? Is there a cultural angle to this too,apart from the fact that in comparison with the Blacks of Afro-Caribbean origin,the hard working members of our part of the world are better off and less likely to behave like lawbreakers.
Here are two links to how the French stopped/handled their riots,"strikingly similar", by better policing and the factorof Race in the UK today.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 35064.html
The French precedent: Restraint and a curfew were key to restoring order in the banlieues
By John Lichfield in Paris
The French violence began with the deaths of two teenage boys of Arab origin. Their deaths, after running into an electricity sub-station, were blamed by their friends on the police (rightly, it emerged later). The incident sparked riots in Montfermeil and Clichy-sous-Bois, suburbs north-east of Paris. Long-simmering ill-feeling between the police and local youths caused the violence to spread to other poor suburbs of Paris and, within days, to almost every town and city in France.
The internet and mobile phones were used by the rioters to outwit the authorities. Although called "riots", there were few large mobs and set-piece battles. Over 9,000 cars and 300 public buildings were set alight in the space of 20 days, mostly in hit-and-run attacks.
An official report by the security services later concluded that the violence was inspired by hatred of the police, unemployment, hopelessness and a copy-cat desire to have the same fun as the next town or housing estate.
The French riots began to abate after 7 November 2005 when the government declared a state of emergency and a curfew, which strengthened the hand not just of police but also, crucially, of parents and community leaders. All but the hard-core of rioters – mostly aged between 14 and 19 – were gradually persuaded to stay at home.
The second thing the British authorities could learn from the French is the relative restraint displayed by their riot police. Those calling in Britain for the deployment of soldiers – comparatively untrained in street control – should perhaps think again.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 34813.html
Christina Patterson: We can't deny that race plays a part.
Too many black men have been killed by the police. This is not the cause of these riots, but it's in the mix
This is what happens in a war. Wars start for a million different reasons, and the time to understand those reasons is not while the war is going on. They can start – even world wars can start – with a single gunshot. This one did. This one started with an old, old story, of a black man killed by police. It started when a woman wanted to know why four children would never see their father again. And when the police said nothing. And frustration turned, as it often does, and particularly in communities where there's a lot of frustration, to anger, and anger turned, as it often does, and particularly in communities where there are a lot of teenagers with not very much to do, to violence.
And it spread. Do we know if the boys, and young men, smashing windows, and trashing shops, and burning cars, and buses, and buildings, in Hackney, and Croydon, and Brixton, and telling passers-by that what they were doing was "fun", and that they were "trying to get their taxes back", knew about the shooting of the black man, or even cared? Do we know if they knew about the black teenager in Hackney who was stopped and searched by the police, and found to have nothing illegal on him?
Race didn't cause these riots, but it played a part. Why else do you get three black men talking about them on Newsnight, when you almost never see a black man talking about anything on Newsnight? And asked questions about "the black community", as if the people who had had their livelihoods destroyed would have the same views on anything as the 12-year-olds waving iron bars? And why else do you get people talking, as they are on newspaper websites, and radio phone-ins, about "thieving black scum"?
PS:Last year in the UK, I experienced two incidents of racial aggro from two members of the Black community,once in a dept. store and the other when returning at Heathrow despite having a Bus. class tkt. I put both instances down to a sense of deep inferiority as an very elegantly attired "Indian",topi et al, brought out the bile in the two ladies,both middle-aged Black women.As the saying goes,"a beggar never envies a rich man ,only another beggar",no secret which immigrant community envies the other for doing better.The quote below "where all the black workers were in the canteens...",underscores my experience.
There are 169 gangs in London. There are 22 in Hackney alone. These are people, often people who have grown up on estates where almost nobody works, often without fathers, and often without any qualifications, skills, or ambitions, who feel that the world has let them down. The guns and knives they carry make them feel that there's a tiny corner of the world they can control. And because of these boys – no more than 2,000 of them – who carry guns and knives, and because it takes more than reports on "institutional racism" to get rid of "institutional racism", you can hardly walk down a street, if you're black, without being stopped and searched.
Too many black men have been killed by the police. Too many black men and women have been treated like criminals when they're not. This is not the cause of these riots, but it's there in the mix, a mix where the key ingredient is feeling powerless. Cuts won't help. Growing unemployment won't help. Some investment, in youth services, and better schools, and mentoring schemes, might, but money alone isn't the answer.
It wasn't these children who created the culture that told them that what mattered was the brand of their trainers, or the glitter of their bling. It wasn't these children who created the culture that told them that their one hope of escape was hip hop, or fame. It wasn't these children who created the institutions of a country where all the black workers were in the canteens. We have, as a society, created this monster and, as a society, and like those people heading into the trouble spots with dustpans and brushes, we must pick up the pieces.