Pre-amble: This letter is not inkeeping with the usual content intended for this blog. However I feel in this particular circumstance that I air my quite personal opinions without too much editing.
Dear Citizens of England,
Last week saw some of the worst rioting that our country has seen in a long, long time. I wish to write to all, all sections of society variously, to express my personal concerns for each and every one of you.
First of all, to the rioters themselves. Let me be clear first that I cannot condone your actions. The loss of human life, and the violence perpertrated against innocent individuals is utterly abhorrent, no matter your grievance. I wont patronise you by suggesting that somehow you didn't know this already, but I'm reinforcing it to be clear on the terms of what I am about to say.
Having said this much, I can sympathise with your position. I'm from a single parent working class family that struggled by on benefits after my father left when I was 10. I understand the difficulty of cultural isolation that ensues from being different from the mainstream, albeit my differences and yours are very much removed from one another. I was homeless at 16. I struggled to put myself through college to find that it wasn't enough to get into a decent degree course. Long term mental health problems, including depression, have kept me from achieving my potential for a good chunk of my life. I wasn't out rioting, but I sure as hell understand why you'd want to. Hell if I'd been 17 and had an opportunity to give the middle finger to the establishment I'd've probably taken it. Nick Clegg sure as hell did, as did the Bullingon boys I don't doubt.
There will be those out there in the world describing you as feral, uncouth and yobbish. All I can say is lead your life in fashion that proves those bastards wrong, because that's the only real way that you can defeat them. It's an uphill struggle, and that is unfair. We should all get a fair crack, and the fact is most of you haven't had. I can say from personal experience, however, that when you have dragged yourself out, and everything you own, no matter how meagre, is yours, earned and accepted, you will feel a greater sense of accomplishment, and you'll be sticking it to those that thought you couldn't do it.
Secondly, to the front line police. I'm proud to have police services such as yours. There is no political gain to be made from saying this, but for the largest part, you did a bloody good job with next to no support from your higher ups.
Contrary to the howls of right wingers and those who have no respect for humanity, you restrained the force available to you, using a show of numbers as opposed to the blunt instruments of rubber munitions and water cannons. Once that happened, the war was basically over. The cost-benefit balance of criminality shifted back to it's former position and by sheer force of will, you prevented any serious incidents above what you'd expect to see during an average week in August from Tuesday onwards, in London at least.
However, this is not to say there are not lessons to be learned from this. The disconnect of certain sections of communities from the concept not just of the police, but the whole of jurisprudence, is at least partially an issue of policing. You are the agents of our society's justice in the first instance; identifying and apprehending criminals. The powers provided to you in the various Terrorism Acts amongst others have made a temptation of using racial profiling to identify potential risks and this is resented by the communities it effects.
Moreover, whilst many officers are quite rightly to be hailed as heroes for their tireless dedication to the mainenance of our society, not all of them are thus. The phone hacking scandal, alongside several miscarriages of justice which though now far removed, still live large in the public memory, have undermined confidence in the concept of community policing. This clearly has to be the highest long term priority for the police, re-engaging with the disenfranchised and demonstrating that jurisprudence exists to protect them as much as punish them.
Thirdly to the politicians and our so called leaders. I am ashamed to call you leaders. We are engulfed in some of the worst communal violence since the war, if not prior, and all you can do is bicker about petty grievances and score cheap points from the suffering of your citizens. I strongly suggest you take a long hard look at the Norwegians, because right now, compared you are but schoolchildren bickering about who broke a window whilst they are proving how real politicians behave. With dignity, in defence of the democracy they love and without scoring cheap points on the suffering of others.
Frankly, start leading. I haven't heard a single politician accept one iota of responsibility for what has happened, and do not think for a moment that the situation is so simple that it can be blamed on "pure criminality." Those who are driven to steal by pure greed do not burn police cars and buildings. They take what they want and run. They do it all the time - shoplifting is probably one of the most common crimes, and also one least likely to be prosecuted. This was as much about anger as greed, and you would do well to pay heed to the message they are sending you about the society you have helped create.
Leadership is about taking responsibility not just for your actions, but your inaction. Justifying the things you didn't do to those it affects is just as important. Frankly, good sirs and madams of the political establishment, grow a fucking pair.
Fourthly, to my fellow citizens. Your outrage is understandable. Lives and livelihoods have been lost, as has a sense of our own innocence about the nature of the society we live in. I watched as rioters burned cars dangerously close to the most vulnerable members of my community. I watched them roar with delight as they destroyed that which was not theirs to destroy. They have left my elderly neighbours shaken and scared for their safety, especially at night. I must confess I think twice about travelling after dark now. My local town is decimated much as many other towns have been. Businesses damaged, some perhaps beyond repair.
We didn't even get a mention on the BBC of the looting or damage, just the shocking mugging of a Malaysian student; clearly Barking is too poor to be worthy of note for what it has lost, just as Clapham, Tottenham, Hackney and Ealing have.
I say this so you understand that I am as scared as you are, but I must urge you that you cannot push our legislators towards heavy-handed, draconian measures, no matter how righteous our desire for retribution may be. This is because when power is given, it cannot easily be taken back. Laws are easily made but it often takes years of painstaking campaigning and reports to have something struck from the laws of the land. We may come to regret giving the police the power to disperse any group thought to be capable of violence when we participate in a peaceful rally only to be told to disperse because we "might" become violent and therefore the police can do as they please.
Civil liberties don't just protect criminals from the police and the Government, they protect us all from those powers. As stated above, we know they are not above corruption from expenses and phone hacking, so do not willingly hand over your own rights because you are angry now. In time, that anger will fade, but the legislation will not.
I am not suggesting for one moment you don't have the right to be angry, but I'm suggesting that you should take great care over making affirmative pressure on the establishment to become even more draconian than they already are. Take a week, or a month, to mull over any decision about what you think should happen. Don't just read your usual paper, pick up all the broadsheets and read all their commentators. Or just look them up online. When it comes to the future of our country, we cannot be too careful. We often vaunt "Keep Calm and Carry On" like some sort of second national motto. Let's live up to it. Let's keep calm and carry on living our lives, while we consider what has happened here.
Finally, some personal thoughts on the commentary I've seen. Thus far, it's a case of everyone appears to be half right, and everyone half wrong. I see these riots like an earthquake. A massive release of pressure from the fault-lines of our society. Hundreds, possibly thousands of faults rubbing up against one another in certain places, for long periods, suddenly exploding with little warning.
We may never truly understand in full the causes of the riots, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. What it does mean is that we may legislate in haste and repent at our leisure. Nothing about these riots is simple. I can only urge the reader to dig beyond the rhetoric to find some deeper truth about how this all came to be. How hundreds or thousands of precipitating factors created this violence that has so deeply shocked us all.
The fact is we all have our part to play in this. We all need to accept responsibility for our failings, and we all need to look towards creating a future where such riots are unthinkable not because they would be met with deadly force or martial law, but simply because it would be utterly unnecessary.
Perhaps, at this point before I sign my name, I should name my failings in this. I didn't do enough to contribute to my community, I certainly haven't done anything to prevent the alienation of the young, and for all my intellectual capability, I have failed to set a better example for young working class kids. Perhaps we could all do well to contemplate what we did, or didn't do. We sure as hell don't have much left to lose.
Yours, with deepest sympathies,
Warren O'Keefe
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