Few described the inclination to riot as superbly as H. L. Mencken. He wrote that "[E]very normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and start slitting throats." Somewhat thankfully, even when riots break out, few often spit on their hands; slitting throats though...
The past few days have shown both the benefits and pitfalls of direct political action. Whatever your views on climate change, I defy anyone not to admire the chutzpah of those that succeeded in breaching Stansted airport security and shutting down the runway for three hours by barricading themselves together, then phoning the media. It's often difficult to know where to draw the line with such disruptive protests, knowing that you're always going to piss some people off regardless. The question is whether you piss off those that would otherwise be receptive to your cause, and while making the odd individual potentially miss a funeral or leaving foreign teenagers stranded without any idea how they're going to get home is not necessarily going to help matters, the occasional action where the only real downside is some having their holidays delayed by a few hours is probably worth it. Again, whatever you think about Fathers 4 Justice and their immature headline-grabbing stunts, there's no doubting that they drastically increased the perception of fathers being failed by a system which was biased in favour of the mother. Blocking a road by lying down in it and chaining yourself to others just annoys; blocking a runway, even while middle class, potentially inspires others.
Likewise in Greece, it's hard not to admire the results which at least the initial rioting, since turned into apparent looting and trashing which is far less appealing, brought from an recalcitrant government. The shooting of a 15-year-old boy by a police officer after rocks were thrown at a patrol quickly resulted after an uprising in the officer in question being charged with murder, his companion as accompany to it and the interior minister resigning, but not before saying that "exemplary punishment" would be sought against those responsible. It's all rather different to our own slow-turning cogs of justice: three years after an innocent man had 7 bullets pumped into his head and 3 into his shoulder after he was sadly mistaken for a suicide bomber, the coroner at the inquest decides that it would inappropriate for the jury to be able to consider a verdict of "unlawful killing", despite the previous conviction of the Metropolitan police for breaching health and safety law, the undisputed confusion and chaos which was going in the control room, the complete failure to accurately identify the Jean Charles de Menezes as Hussain Osman, partially due to the police not even having a complete photograph of him, and finally the apparent lies told by the firearms team themselves that they shouted armed police when they entered the tube carriage. That their version of events is at odds with that of the members of the public that witnessed the shooting, is, according to the corner, not necessarily lying in the strictest sense, as the jury should bear "in mind people tell lies for a variety of reasons, not necessarily to put their own part."
While the Jean Charles de Menezes case is an extreme example, when failed suicide bombers were after all on the loose and police officers potentially found themselves in a situation where they may well have thought that they and the others around them were going to die if they didn't act, perhaps the family of de Menezes shouldn't have expected any better if they had considered the case of Harry Stanley, shot dead, allegedly in the back (although the IPCC report decided it was likely he was facing towards the officers when shot), after someone reported that there was an "Irishman with a gun wrapped in a bag" on the loose. The "gun" was a chair leg. Like with the de Menezes case, at the initial inquest the coroner ruled that the jury could not return a verdict of unlawful killing, only for his widow to gain a judicial review which ordered a second inquest, which did return a verdict of unlawful killing. Rather than the people themselves rising up in outrage over an innocent man being shot dead, the firearms officers did instead in favour of their comrades. Subsequently, the officers' suspension was lifted, the verdict of unlawful killing was overturned, and a subsequent IPCC investigation decided the officers should face no further disciplinary action.
The riots in Greece are as much, it seems, about general discontent with the government and life in general as they are about the death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, capitalised on additionally by anarchist elements which have long been strong in the country. His death though was the straw that broke the camel's back, just as the 2005 and 2007 riots in France, both after the deaths of individuals attempting to escape from the police were the catalyst for violence which reflected anger over dislocation from society as much as that over police brutality. It's impossible to tell whether the reaction to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes might have been different if he hadn't been a Brazilian, initially reported, erroneously, to have overstayed his visa, and instead a British citizen, but it seems doubtful. Despite the riots in 2001, there have been few signs that there's a potentially similar conflagration building in this country: whether this is down to docility; a less corrupt police force; higher living standards helped by the unprecedented boom between 1994 and last summer, even though few of the benefits of that have been seen by the poorest; despite the scaremongering, less racism and better integration; or the fact that it seems to really take a lot for us to get into the spirit of Mencken, having not even taken any large role in the protests of 68 which rocked continental Europe, is unclear and absurdly difficult to know for certain.
It is however hard not to be struck by the increasing disconnect between parliament and the more boisterous, radical elements of society. As one of the Plane Stupid protesters said, she was of the Iraq generation, which had learned that a million or two taking to the streets could not stop a war we had absolutely no need whatsoever to take part in. Instead we had a government that with opposition support has still offered no formal inquiry into how we came to be taken to war, other than whitewashes which have either avoided looking at it in full or have obfuscated in their conclusions. Up until this year, and the revolt over 42 days, much the same could be said of the government's approach to civil liberties, and the casual way in which they have been diluted, surveillance has become the norm and we are no longer surprised by local councils that think that spying on newsagents employing paperboys is a good use of their time and resources. Again, perhaps some of this is down to individuals deciding that these things aren't go to apply or affect them; who after all cares if terrorists determined to kill us are locked away indefinitely, or subject to control orders, or held without charge for 90 days? Whatever you think of David Davis, he surely deserves some of the credit for changing perceptions at least over 42 days with his stand, whether the bill was doomed in the Lords or not.
The point is that we shouldn't have to rely on archaic institutions like the Lords to preserve our rights and freedoms. It could not be more ridiculous that such inanities and beyond fuckwitted measures as banning the display of cigarettes in stores, lest anyone be seduced by the shiny packets, messages of doom and now diseased organs which adorn them and decide that taking up smoking is a good idea are proposed and introduced so easily when issues involving censorship, such as the IWF, not to mention the keeping of the fingerprints and DNA profiles of the innocent go undiscussed in the supposed mother of all parliaments. Even when it talks about itself, as it did on Monday over the Damian Green affair, our current government thinks that it's appropriate and necessary to introduce three-line-whips to ensure that it or the police aren't embarrassed by the findings into a raid which was carried out without a warrant. For a government that often preaches the mantra of if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear, it was a performance of the most shabby variety. They probably thought they could get away it because no one out in the real world apparent from political geeks cares about a Tory MP being arrested, and they're probably right. That Labour backbenchers should agree with that though is just as shocking.
Also on Monday we had the sight of Jack Straw going cap in hand to the Daily Mail, agreeing with the view that the act that he saw the introduction of was right to been seen as a "terrorists' and villains' charter", the same convention which the previous Friday the Mail had been praising after the European Court found that the retention of DNA profiles from the innocent was illegal. We know from Paul Dacre's own speech that the real reason the Mail hates the Human Rights Act is because it potentially threatens the tabloids' business model of exposing sex scandals, not because of how it protects everyone else, but half the reason why we are in the mess we are is because the gutter press has been allowed to get away with the idea that rights are something which only criminals, scroungers and foreigners have and that they're the only ones who benefit. Instead of challenging this, the justice secretary either agrees of partially does. The Conservatives meanwhile, the supposed upholders of our civil rights, disgracefully denigrate the HRA and the ECHR as foreign when we ourselves were the major drafters, instead proposing to introduce a "British" bill of rights, as though the ECHR or HRA are not. Kenneth Clarke denounced this as "xenophobic nonsense", but the same people who spoke up for civil liberties keep this ignorant charade alive. Only Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats seem willing to defend the HRA.
The riots in Greece and France occurred not because of police brutality, but because of the desperation of those who saw what had happened and imagined that it could have been them instead. Abandoned by those in power, denied a voice, and only able to articulate themselves through carnage which targeted those in the same boat, our own parliament and politicians are surely in danger of repeating the same mistakes, of not listening and living in their own bubble. Whether it will result in violence in this country is uncertain, but the apathy and cynicism which we already have in spades is only likely to increase until our own sources of injustice and discontent are drained.Labels: civil liberties, democratic deficit, direct action, Greek riots, Harry Stanley, Jean Charles de Menezes, Plane Stupid, politics, protests, rioting
