Over the past two days, there has been rioting in London. Most of the areas hit have been in the North of the city, most notably Tottenham, Enfield and Islingston, with Brixton in the South and Oxford Circus in the West also hit. So what has led to this?
On August 4 in Tottenham, Mark Duggan 29, was shot dead by police. It occured during the middle of a police operation which included specialist firearms officers from Operation Trident-The body within the Metropolitan Police that deals with violent crime within the Afro-Caribbean Community of which Mr Duggan was a member.
In Britain, there has always been tension between minorities and the police. Therefore when word got out about Mr Duggan's ethnic origin, naturally people had a right to think there was an element of rascism involved with the decision to shoot. Would a white man have been given the same treatment? An illegal firearm was recovered from the scene as well as a bullet lodged within a police radio.
Two days later in the early evening of August 6, 300 people held a peaceful protest in the area demanding Justice for Mr Duggan and his family. However a few hours later, violence erupted when people started throwing bottles at patrol cars. Since then, there have been a number of clashes within the city all claiming to be in support of Mr Duggan, whose family incidentally have publicly condemned the violence.
One has to wonder how the continuing violence can be justified, considering it has now spread to areas which are no where near the original area of Tottenham, most notably Brixton in South London and Oxford Circus in the West. Mr Duggan's shooting has been used as an excuse to cause havoc.
There have been claims that this is a 'cry of rage' from the 16-25 age group who face the highest levels of unemployment in the UK. The fact that the rioters were also inner-city dwellers makes this doubly worse as living conditions are not always the best for this socio-economic group.
However, rioting is not going to make a difference. In fact, it will make the government and public more apathetic to the needs of this group. To use the killing of one individual as an excuse to destroy other peoples livelihoods and steal is inexcusable. If you want to improve your standard of living, go out and do it. Do not destroy the lives of law abiding citizens whose only aim in life is to have a peaceful existence.
Government help cannot be relied on always, especially in a time where they are cutting back in order to balance their budget. This means there will be less money flowing around to help the deprived youth of not just London, but the UK as a whole. A hard fact to accept for some, but that is the reality.
Therefore isn't it time, people started taking responsibility for themselves, since the powers that be are not only reluctant to take that responsibility, but out of money to?
Damn right!
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