• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

London riots spreading through UK

Status
Not open for further replies.
Z

zomgbbqftw

Banned
The Incarnation said:
The same immigrants that respect their own community values, and actually protect where they live? I know who I would feel safer around.

Good job they haven't assimilated, they'd either be looting themselves or have their house on fire.
Click to expand...

Exactly, we have a citizen militia ready to go for our street if they come for us. 4 Sikhs, 2 Indians, 8 Greeks, 7 Blacks and 3 White from Africa.

None of the local white people said yes, but it's their fucking homes we would be protecting.
 
J

jakonovski

Member
Gonna drop this here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...ring-costs-ndash-but-so-do-riots-2333991.html

Camila Batmanghelidjh: Caring costs – but so do riots

These rioters feel they don't actually belong to the community. For years, they’ve felt cut adrift from society

Tuesday, 9 August 2011

Shops looted, cars and buildings burnt out, young adults in hoods on the rampage.

London has woken up to street violence, and the usual narratives have emerged – punish those responsible for the violence because they are "opportunist criminals" and "disgusting thieves". The slightly more intellectually curious might blame the trouble on poor police relations or lack of policing.

My own view is that the police in this country do an impressive job and unjustly carry the consequences of a much wider social dysfunction. Before you take a breath of sarcasm thinking "here she goes, excusing the criminals with some sob story", I want to begin by stating two things. First, violence and looting can never be justified. Second, for those of us working at street level, we're not surprised by these events.

Twitter and Facebook have kept the perverse momentum going, transmitting invitations such as: "Bare shops are gonna get smashed up. So come, get some (free stuff!!!!) F... the feds we will send them back with OUR riot! Dead the ends and colour war for now. So If you see a brother... SALUTE! If you see a fed... SHOOT!"

If this is a war, the enemy, on the face of it, are the "lawless", the defenders are the law-abiding. An absence of morality can easily be found in the rioters and looters. How, we ask, could they attack their own community with such disregard? But the young people would reply "easily", because they feel they don't actually belong to the community. Community, they would say, has nothing to offer them. Instead, for years they have experienced themselves cut adrift from civil society's legitimate structures. Society relies on collaborative behaviour; individuals are held accountable because belonging brings personal benefit. Fear or shame of being alienated keeps most of us pro-social.

Working at street level in London, over a number of years, many of us have been concerned about large groups of young adults creating their own parallel antisocial communities with different rules. The individual is responsible for their own survival because the established community is perceived to provide nothing. Acquisition of goods through violence is justified in neighbourhoods where the notion of dog eat dog pervades and the top dog survives the best. The drug economy facilitates a parallel subculture with the drug dealer producing more fiscally efficient solutions than the social care agencies who are too under-resourced to compete.

The insidious flourishing of anti-establishment attitudes is paradoxically helped by the establishment. It grows when a child is dragged by their mother to social services screaming for help and security guards remove both; or in the shiny academies which, quietly, rid themselves of the most disturbed kids. Walk into the mental hospitals and there is nothing for the patients to do except peel the wallpaper. Go to the youth centre and you will find the staff have locked themselves up in the office because disturbed young men are dominating the space with their violent dogs. Walk on the estate stairwells with your baby in a buggy manoeuvring past the condoms, the needles, into the lift where the best outcome is that you will survive the urine stench and the worst is that you will be raped. The border police arrive at the neighbour's door to grab an "over-stayer" and his kids are screaming. British children with no legal papers have mothers surviving through prostitution and still there's not enough food on the table.

It's not one occasional attack on dignity, it's a repeated humiliation, being continuously dispossessed in a society rich with possession. Young, intelligent citizens of the ghetto seek an explanation for why they are at the receiving end of bleak Britain, condemned to a darkness where their humanity is not even valued enough to be helped. Savagery is a possibility within us all. Some of us have been lucky enough not to have to call upon it for survival; others, exhausted from failure, can justify resorting to it.

Our leaders still speak about how protecting the community is vital. The trouble is, the deal has gone sour. The community has selected who is worthy of help and who is not. In this false moral economy where the poor are described as dysfunctional, the community fails. One dimension of this failure is being acted out in the riots; the lawlessness is, suddenly, there for all to see. Less visible is the perverse insidious violence delivered through legitimate societal structures. Check out the price of failing to care.

I got a call yesterday morning. The kids gave me a run-down of what had happened in Brixton. A street party had been invaded by a group of young men out to grab. A few years ago, the kids who called me would have joined in, because they had nothing to lose. One had been permanently excluded from six schools. When he first arrived at Kids Company he cared so little that he would smash his head into a pane of glass and bite his own flesh off with rage. He'd think nothing of hurting others. After intensive social care and support he walked away when the riots began because he held more value in his membership of a community that has embraced him than a community that demanded his dark side.

It costs money to care. But it also costs money to clear up riots, savagery and antisocial behaviour. I leave it to you to do the financial and moral sums.

Camila Batmanghelidjh is founder of the charities The Place To Be and Kids Company
Click to expand...
 
L

LordAlu

Member
A friend of mine in Huddersfield has apparently seen groups heading around town and can see a local shop on fire in the distance, no actual confirmation anywhere yet though.
 
S

Sennorin

Banned
Teh Hamburglar said:
I can hardly believe this is actually happening in a country like the UK
Click to expand...

I still don´t understand it. If a group of little fucks tried something like this here in Germany, I´m pretty sure people wouldn´t let them to their chaotic shit. Though maybe I´m naive. Still, unimaginable how this could happen in England.
 
R

Rocked

Member
Manchester police look so badass.

article-2023874-0D5EB07500000578-938_470x674.jpg
 
B

Biggzy

Member
Mastadon said:
Yeah me too, thankfully live quite a distance from the City Centre
Click to expand...

I live in Highfields which is a 20 mins walk from the city center, but there seems to be a heavyish police presence round here along with a police helicopter that was flying above about 2 hrs ago.
 
M

mblitek

Member
The Incarnation said:
The same immigrants that respect their own community values, and actually protect where they live? I know who I would feel safer around.

Good job they haven't assimilated, they'd either be looting themselves or have their house on fire.
Click to expand...

I agree but my post was written in haste and I didn't want to write a novel. Just overall shame.
 
J

jakonovski

Member
Sennorin said:
I still don´t understand it. If a group of little fucks tried something like this here in Germany, I´m pretty sure people wouldn´t let them to their chaotic shit. Though maybe I´m naive. Still, unimaginable how this could happen in England.
Click to expand...

Class divides run very deep in the UK. Like Ossis vs. Wessis hatred left festering for decades.
 
Z

zomgbbqftw

Banned
Sipowicz said:
hahahaha EDL

racist cunts. i expect they wanted a change from beating up 14 year old pakistani kids
Click to expand...

At least they are doing something to protect their town. What would you prefer, 200 looters turn up, then 45 mins later 10 police who get bricks thrown at them?
 
K

kaizoku

I'm not as deluded as I make myself out to be
I was in Piccadilly earlier on the way home and I was there just as it all turned nasty. It was very tense and felt very volatile. Lots of police around which is good but there's so many small groups that its impossible to prevent all damage. I hope they're stopping the immense levels of unchecked destruction that was found in London but there are reports of yobs carrying loot, TVs and the like so we're not unscathed. But hopefully there's no significant long term damage where livelihoods are affected long term. I don't think there'll be any of the feeling that the Greater Manchester Police let us down as there is in London, but we'll see how it develops overnight.

There was one moment where I knew I had to get out of there asap. I was at the bus stop waiting for a bus with some others but none were coming and groups started appearing on the corners, running past away or towards trouble. One group walked down our street until they saw cops at the other end and ran the other way. So I headed to the taxi rank. Other people headed to the bus stop just outside the city centre in the hope that buses would be rerouted that way.

As I was walking to taxi rank I hear a loud bang and groups of bystanders sprinting past me, I react by turning around to check any incoming threat and I see a police car screeching in a 360 and head towards a bunch of hoodies running off to my left, the car's windscreen was cracked and the wheels were smoking. People running in all directions. That's when I knew shit was real.

There were no taxis at the rank and most cabs were occupied or not taking business. kept seeing groups of hoodies as I was desperately seeking a free cab. I was dying to get home in case any trouble had happened outside my family's newsagents. Went to the next taxi rank which was also empty. On cab did arrive and I let a family take it ahead of me and waited there for another taxi to come. Luckily one came, I'm not sure many came after that one as things were really starting to get bad.

On the way out of town I passed a bus stop and spotted the people I was stood with earlier. I felt so sorry for them. The buses stopped out of the blue with no notice and people stranded after a days work in a town that was descending into utter chaos.

Most depressing thing I saw? Groups arriving looking to join in the fun and groups of girls who were dolled up sat on a bench hoping to attract some thugs eyes and get some free loot. Country is fucked. You don't just fix this kind of unhappiness.
 
M

Mastadon

Banned
Biggzy said:
I live in Highfields which is a 20 mins walk from the city center, but there seems to be a heavyish police presence round here along with a police helicopter that was flying above about 2 hrs ago.
Click to expand...

Hearing that it's being contained already. Apparently a few shops on Granby street were hit. I work in the council buildings in town, might have tomorrow off :lol
 
jufonuk

jufonuk

not tag worthy
put it this way, football fans from one of the roughest clubs in london are drinking in a pub, and holding off the top and bottom of eltham branching out into kidbrooke way and if the looters come up it will be a bunch of kids versus, guys who have been drinking all day pissed off and up for a fight, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
 
N

Noaloha

Member
NottinghamGAF, trouble brewing.

From the 'nottspolice' twitterfeed,

Canning Circus Police Station fire bombed by a group of 30-40 males. No reports of injuries at this stage. A number of men arrested. Fire service at scene.

EDIT: kinda dismayed at myself that I just considered walking out there for a nosey.
 
T

tehbible

Member
is it just me, or are British Police just not intimidating at all, especially with the lack of a firearm/semi-automatic rifle.
 
Ponti

Ponti

Member
Phonomezer said:
But there is nothing protecting his willy!
Click to expand...
His giant balls of steel are doing that.

tehbible said:
is it just me, or are British Police just not intimidating at all, especially with the lack of a firearm/semi-automatic rifle.
Click to expand...
Our regular police aren't intended to look intimidating. In fact they try to give the opposite impression.
 
T

Temrer

Neo Member
tehbible said:
is it just me, or are British Police just not intimidating at all, especially with the lack of a firearm/semi-automatic rifle.
Click to expand...


It's cos The Bill isn't on telly anymore.
 
cyberheater

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Just on the BBC news. All London police cells are full.
 
D

Dark Machine

Member
Temrer said:
This seems to be all that's really happened in Liverpool so far, unless anyone has other news? (Twitter is half football, half retweeting last night).:
JCB vs Post Office = stalemate
http://yfrog.com/h36oprqj
Click to expand...

No news mate. Police are everywhere in Liverpool though, especially around Lodge Lane and Smithdown Road, tons of them sitting in vans and cars on street corners all over the city. Was rumour something was going off in Southport, but untrue apparently.

That'd be the most likely place IMO, it's like the Wild West up there.
 
X

X26

Banned
these assholes just want an excuse to break shit and loot, 99.99% couldn't give a shit about social issues of any sort
 
S

Sipowicz

Banned
zomgbbqftw said:
At least they are doing something to protect their town. What would you prefer, 200 looters turn up, then 45 mins later 10 police who get bricks thrown at them?
Click to expand...

racist cunts who live to beat up asian children and looters/thieves

whoever wins we lose
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Prolific swatter (17 yr old from CA) arrested in conjunction with hundreds of swatting offences
49
5K
DavidGzz replied
[UK] Nicola Bulley, missing woman in strange circumstances (Up: Body found, positive ID)
2
69
8K
Jezbollah replied
Remember Halo 3's launch 17 years ago?
21
2K
Heimdall_Xtreme replied
[WSJ] Company Documents Show Meta’s Flagship Metaverse Falling Short
News Business
38
3K
StreetsofBeige replied
Ron Johnson resigns at Riot Games following social media post about George Floyd
2 3 4 5 6
252
19K
Neil Young replied
Top Bottom