Regular readers will know that extensive coverage of last summer's riots was provided on this blog as events unfolded, and the intervening months have done little, if anything, to change my opinion that they represented an outburst of opportunistic criminality. Although the motivations of each individual rioter may have differed to some degree, the decision to engage in violent disorder was embedded in a fundamental disconnection from the rest of society, an impulse nurtured by the knowledge that sections of the diversity-compliant mass media would look upon the rioters with indulgence. Who, after all, would be so callous as to view these poor benighted creatures, these 'victims' of a cruel capitalist system and social exclusion, and pronounce guilt upon them?
Those who attacked the police, who set light to properties, destroyed businesses and livelihoods certainly do deserve our attention, and our understanding; they deserve to be recognised as adults imbued with free will; to be recognised as arsonists, life-threatening criminals, thieves and agents of general destruction. What is to be gained, after all, from burning down your own neighbourhood? We are lucky that the rain intervened and brought the riots to an end, for without this, rather sterner measures may have been required to bring the situation under control. The police had an unenviable task.
A great contributory factor to the riots, as mentioned above, was a sense of disconnection from the rest of society. From whence did this spring? Yesterday's census statistics provide a clue, for we now possess a large, rootless resident population that originates from outside of our country, indeed, from outside of our continent, which thus literally possesses no bonds with the rest of society, for it belongs elsewhere and cares not for our welfare. Not all involved in the riots were of such alien extraction and descent of course, but the latter were greatly overrepresented amongst the body of the rioters, which is why the likes of the BBC, The Guardian and the LSE were happy to collaborate on a cri de coeur on behalf of the rioters: The Riots: in their own Words, the first part of which was to be screened tonight. The broadcasting of this programme however, states The Daily Telegraph, has been prevented by a court order.
In a way, it is a pity that this two-part documentary has been cancelled, for although it would have provided an apologist version of events from the criminal perspective, it would have highlighted the exceptional bias in the BBC's editorial position. Given the identities of the collaborating parties in this enterprise, it can be guaranteed that these programmes would have been larded with allegations of 'racism', that naturally would have been deployed to intensify the 'victim' status of the criminals. The documentary is said to be based upon interviews with 270 people involved in the riots, few of whom, presumably with the exception of a few police, were in the eyes of the BBC guilty of anything. For some strange reason, there seems to be something in the BBC's DNA that predisposes it towards sympathy not so much for the underdog, but, metaphorically speaking,for the Devil.
Those who attacked the police, who set light to properties, destroyed businesses and livelihoods certainly do deserve our attention, and our understanding; they deserve to be recognised as adults imbued with free will; to be recognised as arsonists, life-threatening criminals, thieves and agents of general destruction. What is to be gained, after all, from burning down your own neighbourhood? We are lucky that the rain intervened and brought the riots to an end, for without this, rather sterner measures may have been required to bring the situation under control. The police had an unenviable task.
A great contributory factor to the riots, as mentioned above, was a sense of disconnection from the rest of society. From whence did this spring? Yesterday's census statistics provide a clue, for we now possess a large, rootless resident population that originates from outside of our country, indeed, from outside of our continent, which thus literally possesses no bonds with the rest of society, for it belongs elsewhere and cares not for our welfare. Not all involved in the riots were of such alien extraction and descent of course, but the latter were greatly overrepresented amongst the body of the rioters, which is why the likes of the BBC, The Guardian and the LSE were happy to collaborate on a cri de coeur on behalf of the rioters: The Riots: in their own Words, the first part of which was to be screened tonight. The broadcasting of this programme however, states The Daily Telegraph, has been prevented by a court order.
In a way, it is a pity that this two-part documentary has been cancelled, for although it would have provided an apologist version of events from the criminal perspective, it would have highlighted the exceptional bias in the BBC's editorial position. Given the identities of the collaborating parties in this enterprise, it can be guaranteed that these programmes would have been larded with allegations of 'racism', that naturally would have been deployed to intensify the 'victim' status of the criminals. The documentary is said to be based upon interviews with 270 people involved in the riots, few of whom, presumably with the exception of a few police, were in the eyes of the BBC guilty of anything. For some strange reason, there seems to be something in the BBC's DNA that predisposes it towards sympathy not so much for the underdog, but, metaphorically speaking,for the Devil.
Whilst the racial profile of the rioters will show overwhelmingly that they are of non -British descent , I would argue that that those who were of British descent have, infact, become disconnected from their native British identity. Evidence of this can be seen in the adoption of black gangsta culture and its values by the 'white' rioters- a phenomenon which has arisen as a consequence of the 'do or die' reality of the predominance of multi-ethnic 'urban culture' as it is, almost euphemistically, known ,and also of the institutional devaluing of native British identity. As you suggest, the politically compromised policing policies allowed for opportunists to take advantage of the situation, and I'm sure that this was the case in Salford. Interestingly, a local BBC News report of the disturbances here focused on the comments of one particular rioter who blamed mass immigration and the subsequent lack of job prospects as justification for looting. I would think that the BBC took this as an opportunity to balance out the 'minority ethnic' profile of the looters elsewhere by showing that 'racists' should be blamed also. Indeed, the strongly anti-British Manchester Evening News ran a totally unsubstatiated story that in Salford the "far- right" had sparked the rioting. However, I understand that evidence exists of social networking of 'gangsta' identifying white British youths having been 'sparked' by 'shouts' from black gangs and anarchists from outside of Salford.
ReplyDeleteSalford Nationalist
There does seem to be a fair amount of cultural overlap SN, as David Starkey pointed out last year. As ever, he attracted rather a lot of flak for doing so. With respect to the "far-right" comment by the Manchester Evening News, that is quite frankly bizarre.
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