I know that I am a little late writing about the rioting that has been happening in London the past few days following the death of a young black man in one of the poorest neighbourhoods. I find that there is a lot that needs to be examined if we are to truly understand why this happened and what was the real cause, we can also ask ourselves if rioting is really a political act. I find that since the rioting has started and continued, maybe we have lost sight of many factors. I find that the media has spun this into a story of looting and the meaninglessness of these actions, which I can see, but do not find, is entirely true. I also believe that this is a sign of things to come, more and more the poor and disenfranchised will rise up against an unjust and totalitarian regime that is oppressing them. If there are no real changes in these systems that protect the interests of the rich and marginalize the poor, we will live more and more events like this. Let’s start at the beginning of these riots and try to make sense of all of this.
Since the coalition has come to power there has been dozens of protests happening in London; multiple student protests, occupations of dozens of universities, several strikes, a half-a-million-strong trade union march and now unrest on the streets of the capital. Each of these events was sparked by a different cause, yet all take place against a backdrop of brutal cuts and enforced austerity measures. The policies of the past year may have clarified the division between the entitled and the dispossessed in extreme terms, but the context for social unrest cuts much deeper. The fatal shooting of Mark Duggan last Thursday, where it appears, contrary to initial accounts, that only police bullets were fired, is another tragic event in a longer history of the Metropolitan police’s treatment of ordinary Londoners, especially those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, and the singling out of specific areas and individuals for monitoring, stop and search and daily harassment. A black or Asian youth is 7 times more likely to be searched by police in the London area, the stop and search has created great discontent among minorities, and rightfully so.
Combine understandable suspicion of and resentment towards the police based on experience and memory with high poverty and large unemployment and the reasons why people are taking to the streets become clear. Those condemning the events of the past couple of nights in north London and elsewhere would do well to take a step back and consider the bigger picture: a country in which the richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest, where consumerism predicated on personal debt has been pushed for years as the solution to a faltering economy, and where, according to the OECD, social mobility is worse than any other developed country. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett stated that in countries where there is less of a gap between the rich and the poor, a country that is not so unequal, there is less crime, ill-health, imprisonment rates, and mental illness. We can maybe agree to a certain degree that the system in England is broken (just like the US and Canada of course, I am not saying that we are better off) and we have to unsure that real change happens if we are to solve these problems, of course, capitalism is a great part of the problem also.
But, can rioting be revolutionary? I saw in an Adbusters article a good point on the debate that occurred between Michel Foucault and French Maoists in 1971 about the difference between the Maoists wish for a “people’s court” to judge the police in contrast to Foucault’s position of unconstrained brutal “popular justice”. Foucault, the history buff that he is, brings the example of the French Revolution and the September Massacres of 1792 where a thousand people were murdered by revolutionaries. For Foucault, this is what “popular justice” looks like and even the “moral ideology” that finds these illegal outbursts repellant “must be submitted to the scrutiny of the most rigorous criticism”. The Maoists believe that the people’s outrage and fury should be channeled into appropriate party structures. This debate does show how we imagine revolutionary change to take place. Will the revolution be an uncontrollable insurrection, like the examples of looting in London, or will we fear the mob and work on the side of power and the status quo?
So when does a riot become a revolution? Do the youth have to wear Black Block wear and shout Anarchists slogans? Must they be well-read, to be able to explain their ideas on the same level as Alain Badiou, Giorgi Agamben, and Antonio Negri? Is this the only way for people to recognize the flashmobs as the highest form of networked insurrection? Micah White believes that when the revolution comes, the ones that have been waiting too long will be the ones that miss it. They are too accustomed to looking in the wrong direction, waiting for the wrong words, the wrong actors, or the wrong kinds of political deeds. This is a revolutionary moment, it may happen in ways that the left may not like. There is a strong possibility of violence, even though we want nonviolence, and there will most definitely be pillaging, although we prefer a peaceful transfer of wealth. We are quick to condemn the looting and riots, are we to set up an approved structure of dissent? Why are we denying riots as a political act? Foucault stated “It is from the point of view of property that there are thieves and stealing”, we view looting as theft and don’t even consider it to be a political act. This is an outburst of “popular justice” against a corrupt and corrupting capitalist system, instead we listen to the views of the system that we are trying to overthrow.
The London riots are not as picturesque as maybe how we imagined the revolution to be, but the left as always said: “Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly, we like it or not, what an insurrection might look like if the forces of capitalism do not peacefully, voluntarily relinquish their stranglehold.”
I find that we must take some time to really look at what is happening, this is not a black and white issue. Also, a last thought to why maybe the looting could make sense, this is just a quick remark and don’t claim to be on official source on this. Wouldn’t it make sense that the poor and marginalized, who have lived a life of never being able to afford the stuff they are told to buy by the capitalist system, would take this as a good opportunity to finally accumulate the goods they have been denied for so long… I also do not think that cutting access to Twitter and Blackberry messenger will do much good (the people will still organize), if anything, it will demonstrate how our governments try to control all aspects of our lives. Let’s also not forget the West’s condemnation of Egypt and others when they blocked social medias to the masses that were taking to the streets. Also, this is not an isolated event, also when the people are clearly out-numbering the police, we know that this will not just go away. I find that this is what happens when youth are bored and filled with inexplicable anger towards a system that oppresses and denies any opportunities in life (most of these people will never be able to buy a home, to find a secure form of income, etc.), riots are an option for change when someone has nothing to lose…
