Clip round the ear

During the August riots we were fed by media about the widespread looting and how youngsters had lost all common sense. Cameron called the rioters for scum and by that managed to dehumanise the youngsters. He made a big number of trying to make us believe that the rioters were criminals rather than angry young people resisting his politics if austerity.
Cameron also wanted swift handling of the rioters and called for water guns and harsh punishments.

In the heat of the riot it can be hard to see what is actually going on and the dust from the battle is still hovering around the court houses where draconian punishments has been handed out. The sentencing frenzy has left the prison services unable to cope with the sudden and drastic increase of prisoners within such a short period of time.

I thought that punishment in UK was based on the particular circumstances of each crime and that all of us are equal before the law. But clearly not, there has been some pre-judgement going on in the media and the emotional fury in Cameron’s statements.

When the hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans we also got these media report of looting, violence and rape committed by young black men. But actually these reports were far from the truth. In reality, it was the police that went berserk and killed African Americans at sight. (See link below)

I have a feeling that in some years from now the real truth about what went on during the August riots will come out and it will change the public opinion of the rioters, when the dust have settled, just as it done in New Orleans.

In the aftermath of the riots there has been suggestions to use the practice of ‘clip round the ear’ as a way for the police to deal with the young poor people in UK, or the ‘pockets of our society that are broken’ as Cameron calls it.

Is it not better to mend what’s broken rather than release a racist police force to clamp down on so called thugs with a clip round the ear? Surely that is not the solution?

Clearly we can’t trust the Metropolitan Police Force to deal with the public in a just and fair manner. What we do see instead is blatant racism and a police force that kill black men on our streets. Men like Mark Duggan, Demetre Fraser and others.

Clip round the ear is not a solution because violence breeds violence.

What we need is a society where all have a fair chance to take part in society on equal terms - a society that includes all.

Katrina verdicts, full article

Human rights, democracy and equality

I firmly believe in equal rights for all and therefore also a fair legal system where we are treated the same before the law. Each case should be judged on its own circumstances and the punishment should be fair for all.

It is obvious to me that David Cameron has a different view on human rights, democracy and equality. Despite his talk about how ‘we are in this together’ and his big society the riots has made him reveal his true view on humans. It becomes clear that he view some people as scum and vermin that should be punished by the full force of the law. He says that ‘there are pockets of our society that are broken’ with a collapse of moral values. But when he say this he is not referring to the bankers that looted the global economy or the millionaires steeling from the public with their tax reduction or the MPs’ looting of the taxpayers with their allowances claims.

Instead, his society is populated by worthy people (the rich) and unworthy (the poor) and it scares me to think of what his plans are for the unworthy people. Has his treatment of the rioters set the bar?

In the heat of the riots Cameron came out with his contempt for the unworthy people and now we see how his view has trickled down to the courts and the punishments for the rioters are 25% harsher than usual causing the prison service to struggle to deal with the 700 people that the courts sent to prison. We also hear that parents of rioters are being evicted from council flats, which is also a suggestion of Cameron’s. Since when could you be punished for actions of other people? There is no affordable housing around and young people are forced to stay at home for longer, can these parents really be responsible for these young adults’ actions?

I would like to see Cameron deal with the policemen that killed Mark Duggan just as firmly as he treats the rioters. The police officers in question actually killed a man, it was murder! As far as I know they are still at large in our society, free to do it again. But maybe the Government think it is okay to just kill off the ‘scum’ in this way?

The August riots might have been stopped but the fire is still burning. Cameron has lost touch with the reality some people faces in UK today. More than 50% of the children in Lambeth lives in poverty, black boys are more frequently expelled from school than their white peers, every winter people freeze to death in their flats because they can’t afford their heating costs. The list can go on forever.

Cameron is completely oblivious how it is to live without a trust fund like most of has to do. He should try to live in poverty on a concil estate with no prospect to get a job or an education and then he might change his views.

Riots - London Burning

Thirty years ago the Brixton riots started because of police harassment of black young men by the ‘sus’ laws. Thirty years later new riots are triggered because the police shot a black man dead on the streets of Tottenham. Mark Duggan is not the first casualty of police brutality towards young black men. We have also seen the killing of Smiley Culture during a police raid, Ricky Bishop was killed by police during the Operation Clean Sweep, Demetre Fraser from Peckham died in Police custody in Birmingham and so did Kingsley Burrell. The list can go on forever. No person has been charged for these young men’s deaths!
The shooting of Mark Duggan was not an isolated event.
Black men are still stopped and searched by police and killed in cold blood on our streets. This has to stop!

Over the last few days we have seen the riots spread across England and young men take to the streets to show their anger and frustration. The last time we saw London Burning like this was during Thatcher’s Tory Government. It’s not a coincident that it’s happening again under a Tory Government.
Since Cameron came to power he has put into place a politics of austerity and a moral war against the poor. The unemployment among young people is proportionally higher than in the rest of society, education costs are increased and affordable housing is impossible to find. So yes, young people are angry, particularly the young and poor that are completely excluded from society. (The white middle class youngsters are probably away on nice holidays at the moment.)

I said it before and I say it again; if you don’t share your stability and wealth with the poor then the poor will share their poverty and instability with you. The riots are a spill-over effect of poverty.

The reactions to the riots has been scary, people talk about bringing in the army and mow down the ‘thugs and scum’. Vigilantes have been taking to the streets to ‘defend’ themselves. Some vigilantes were even armed with cricket bats! What were they going to do to a ten year old rioter? Kill him? It’s getting harder to see who is the good guy and who is the baddie in the battle of the streets.

Cameron then break his nice holiday and uses the riots for his own purpose by dehumanizes the angry rioters and talk about bringing in more police armed with baton rounds and water cannons. He also suggested that the Human Right Act will not be seen as a hinder for publishing pictures of suspects! This could seriously harm innocent people and put suspects in danger of vigilante attacks. Cameron needs to stand up and take his responsibility for the crisis his politics of austerity has created.

The middle classes need to wake up to Cameron’s agenda, to bring the poor people down by making people see them as moral deviants and monsters.

The violence is scary and some individual victims have suffered severely but it’s not completely irrational, it does not happen in a vacuum. There is anger in the poor areas and this anger might spread to other parts of society as Cameron’s cut backs are started to affect more people.

Cameron need to sit up and see that we are in this together and that he has the main responsibility for  looking after all people of the country not only his millionaire friends!