peace ?

The English uprising appears to be over - for now.


Although it might be a good time to check ebay for plasma TVs and trainers.

We now have news bulletins full of politicians and social commenters giving their views as to what went wrong and what can be done. If you read my last post then you know my opinions on some of the root causes. A friend of mine who is a psychologist actually wrote a really interesting piece about mob mentality and the mindset behind that.

Not that it was ever really any kind of uprising, or even really a riot. It began as a protest over a shooting and escalated into mindless vandalism and a spot of late night shopping.

Uprisings require organising and that takes more brains then most of those involved could ever dream of having, although on several news reports shown of looting youths there were older men directing the youngsters on the rampage.
Telling them which shop windows to put bricks through that is.
Worrying.

I'm inclined to agree with the idea that once it got started there was co-ordination involved. How did it kick off in several big cities all over the country at about the same time on the Sunday night ?
There is talk in the media of blame on social networking for that, but we've had organised protests in this country before we had so much technology - remember the good old fashioned phone. And how the 'word' was spread is not the real issue here, more concerning is where that came from and the mindset of those who decided to act upon it.
It was announced on the news that all police leave was cancelled and that they were being brought into London from elsewhere in the country, I reckon elsewhere in the country decided to take advantage of that situation.

Wish I'd thought of that, I'm off on holiday next week I could do with some new summer clothes.

My fear about all this was that it would be used by the racist scum to add fuel to their pathetic arguments. Even though in every film of what happened that I've seen there were just as many white as black kids involved, probably more white kids in fact and the older men directing them were white, a lot of the media and public focus seemed to fall on the black kids.
And as always happens there have been the usual bout of text jokes doing the rounds and most of them play to the racist tone.

I'm not saying they didn't make me laugh. But I felt suitably ashamed of myself afterwards.
Honestly.

I did see an item on the news about the EDL (big bunch of nazi racists claiming to be patriots) saying they were going to step in and sort out the riots. These losers have done nothing but stir up hate towards moslems and wherever they go the police tend to follow because just their presence is enough to cause problems. No doubt they thought this was their chance to show the public that they are the good guys.
Yeah right.
I wouldn't be surprised if they had something to do with stirring the situation up in the first place.

And as for those that started this chain of events after one young man was shot and killed, they have gained nothing. The death of their friend would probably have remained high on the news agenda, except that now it has been swamped by stories about the riots, court appearances by those involved and political opinions. Questions have been asked in parliament about police funding cuts, nobody is questioning the fact that they shot and killed someone.
If and when the name of that young man gets mentioned in the future it will always be synonymous with the riots. Is that a fitting eulogy for anyone ?

The worst story from all this is of two brothers and a friend who were run down by a speeding car. All three are dead, apparently they and a few other friends were trying to protect their area from looters and from what I can gather it's believed that the car that hit them was being driven by youths that they had earlier chased away.
There was CCTV footage of what preceded and the driver has been arrested.

How appalling that three more young men died as a direct result of what began as a protest about the death of another.
Where is the justice in that.

The father of the two brothers has been on TV appealing for calm and asking that there are no retribution attacks for what happened to his sons and their friend, this was a situation that had potential to escalate into something far worse then looting a few shops. This man, despite the pain and grief he is going through, appears to be becoming the voice of reason for all that has happened and in his own quiet way something of a spokesman for peace.
This man is a Moslem.

I hope that those who have spent the last few years trying to tell the world that Islam is full of terrorists who want nothing but war are watching.

Anyway it appears we don't need suicide bombers to destroy our cities.
Just send in the chavs.



Getting back to the jokes that have been doing the rounds...

One of my friends tried to tell me a joke about looters and water cannons, she began it by saying "Cameron has agreed the police can use water pistols . . . "
I didn't hear the rest of the joke because I was too busy laughing at the picture in my head of police with these. . . . .

Yup ! That'll scare them off.