LOOTERS not SCUM

I find myself really needing to compose before I write the words that come, because I am angry. This word “scum”, that is being used so often to describe those who looted London and the UK in the recent riots, is the cause of my distress.

Violence and destructive behaviour is not condonable – but we all know this. What happened in London was far from perfect, and rose out of circumstances that could have been easily avoided, had those people been given any positive attention before the first petrol bomb was thrown.

Those people caused millions of pounds worth of damage to the streets they rampaged, and some killed. These individuals need to be dealt with within the full parameters of the law, and measures need to be taken to prevent further events escalating. Common sense.

But is the use of rubber bullets, threatening to evict single mothers and using water canons preventative? Or is it, in fact, a clear sign from those who govern our country that they have not got a clue what their people are thinking of let alone need, so just to be on the safe side, have legislated new ways of repressing and threatening them by force?

It’s not the government (at least not just them) that I am angered with; it is the general opinion of those who, other than turning on a TV set, had no connection with the riots at all. Referring to a group of looters as scum has a lot more to do with creating more social division than it has to do with kids nicking tellies and starting fires. And everybody is at it, some people have spoken out against the looters as if they were natural criminals from birth, that the lack of jobs, destruction of benefit/health systems, closure of schools and denial of further education and lack of better housing is a mere coincidence to their lives.  

Some of us our lucky, really lucky, and some of us are not. This is not an excuse to tare shops apart, of course it isn’t, but it’s reason for the frustration that develops into the anger that results in riots.

Zygmunt Bauman summed this up perfectly in his article London riots – Consumerism coming home to roost, when he said: “ All varieties of social inequality derive from the division between the haves and the have-nots, as Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra noted already half a millennium ago. But in different times having or not having of different objects is, respectively, the states most passionately desired and most passionately resented. The objects of desire, whose absence is most violently resented, are nowadays many and varied – and their numbers, as well as the temptation to have them, grow by the day. And so grows the wrath, humiliation, spite and grudge aroused by not having them – as well as the urge to destroy what have you can’t. Looting shops and setting them on fire derive from the same impulsion and gratify the same longing.”

Does this not make such perfect sense? We are all consumers now, far more consumers than compassionate human beings. Supermarkets, as George Ritzer famously put it, are our temples.  In this context, those kids weren’t just taking televisions and trainers from our shops; they were taking artifacts from our holy places of worship and burning churches of consumer power.

 “It is the level of our shopping activity and the ease with which we dispose of one object of consumption in order to replace it with a “new and improved” one which serves us as the prime measure of our social standing and the score in the life-success competition. To all problems we encounter on the road away from trouble and towards satisfaction we seek solutions in shops.”

How dare they steal our solutions! Scum! Why don’t they just get a job and buy stuff like the rest of us! This is the opinion that I have come across (in not so many words) most frequently from those who were not directly affected by the riots in their own communities. What is it they say, you always fear what you don’t understand?

The fullness of our lives is equated with how we consume, where we shop, what we wear, what we can afford is far more important than how we can sacrifice, how we can compromise (ideas, opinions and judgments especially) or how we can give in this society to those who need. It is either world peace, or your piece of the world – which is more important to you?

My heart was warmed by the efforts by those who had their homes, livelihoods and families destroyed by the violence, it was beautiful how those communities pulled together, and naturally understandable why they were angry.

But if you review the scenes, those people were most angered at not being protected against such a violent explosion. Where was their government? (On holiday) Where were the police, whom they pay with such a high percentage of their Council Tax? Where is the justice, when those socially repressed by their government take out their frustrations on those who are trying to make their community a better place for everyone?

It is easy to have compassion for these people. Can we show compassion when it is not so easy? Seemingly not…

I was moved to tears to see the father of those boys slain in Birmingham calling for peace after there death. I think that beautiful man was setting an example that we all should follow; we need to have compassion for all if we are ever going to grow up as a species.

He had more reason than any other to let slip the dogs of war, but he behaved with such courage and dignity that he simply shamed the mudslingers out there that are simply adding to the problem by calling the looters scum.

 I have been deeply saddened by the general unwillingness shown by many to attempt to understand the repercussions of having such an enormous social inequality in our country. Some still refuse to face there is inequality. Far easier to call someone scum than try to walk one step in their shoes.

I have been shot down for my opinions. Many people have opposed my blogs on this issue. This is how much I care. We need to grow up, stop blaming, and start taking responsibility for the welfare of every individual in this country as priority, or else, they will be knocking down schools to build prisons.

And I’ve heard the argument from many people, saying that these kids have no deterrent – prison is like a holiday camp for them. Think about this, how bad would your life have to be in order for prison to be a better option? What does that say about the freedom of this land for all?

The fault lies in us all when we consider ourselves separate from each other. We are not. We are all connected. We belong to the same species, and we are pulling each other apart because we, time after time, fail to recognise the fundamental similarities and instead, pick on the acute differences. The time for them and us must end soon, or peace in our streets, cities and world will remain a myth.