The London Riots
They are garnering attention around the world as everyone asks why. They started after the shooting of a young father in a police operation. When the police failed to give a statement at a peaceful protest organised by his family the peaceful protest turned into a riot. Things have spread far and wide since then not just London but also significant incidents in Birmingham and other sites in the Midlands.
This has sparked a lot of discussions over the cause, as in the underlying causes and not the shooting that initially sparked the first riot. Some argue that cuts in social spending are to blame, more point to the disenfranchisement of young people in inner London. Others use the tired old phrase (in my opinion) of it is all down to feral youths. Still others blame social networking.
I don’t have any solutions to offer other than concentrating on protecting people’s houses and property in terms of police numbers. I have heard some positive stories in the aftermath of the riot though, things like a group of local men banding together to protect their neighbourhood from the riots and of course the twitter led campaign for volunteers to come and help clean up London.
So I guess what I want to say is even though this stuff is terrible perhaps something good might come of it, which is all kinds of cheesy I know but still worth saying. On the other hand it might just give the government more excuses to cut back on our civil liberties. Stop and search, detention orders heck we even have on the horizon cameras to read our body language to see if we’re potential terrorists. When you took a step back and look at things you wonder how we got this out of control.
I just hope tonight proves to be the beginning of the end.
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