It all reminds me of that Clash Song from the 80's:
London's burning!
London's burning!
All across the town,London's burning!
all across the night
Everybody's driving with full headlights
Black or white turn it on,
face the new religion
Everybody's sitting 'round watching television!
London's burning with boredom now
London's burning dial 99999
I can hear police sirens as I type this. When I switch on the telly I am confronted by images of hooded youths on bikes throwing missiles at police, burning bins, and buildings raging with fire - all not far from where I live. Am I in a warzone in Afghanistan? Is this Iraq? No, this is London. London is under siege my friends. Under siege by jobless hooded youths - who are either, not at school / college because of the summer breaks, or are jobless because the economy is so fucked. Is there a cause or is this just the will-full mindless violence of a generation brought up on violent computer games - starving for some real world excitement?
Who to blame?
The cosy politicians with their austerity cuts? Cuts to education. Cuts to welfare spending. Cuts to the public sector. Cuts to the health service. Cuts to community services. Extra tuition fees. Fewer university places. Fewer jobs. Less of everything - but more things you want to buy. More things to buy! The types of shops that were looted tells you something about what these people want: the latest fucking trainers and big wide screen TV's so they can watch themselves on the telly attacking and looting. Their ugly mugs stapled all over the TV news - in High Definition! Morons.
My mind is awash with thoughts. That is why this blog entry is not coherent. It is rambling, I am rambling, my brain is under siege with conflicting ideas and theories and thoughts all vying for attention. I am angry. I am angry with the mindless opportunistic violence. I am angry with the politicians for creating a whole generation of lost youth. Yes they are lost. With no qualifications and no prospects - what will they do?
But there is something else that is eating at me. It is this: we live in a city and a world (at least in the West) where society functions. Criminals are caught and prosecuted. Violent acts are prevented. But this is only because these criminal activities happen sporadically and are spaced out in time. The police can deal with them because they don't require a concentration of force. But when they happen all at once - in different locations - when there is communication between the no-gooders that allows them to logisticise their activities - when the thugs have numbers on their sides - when the trouble makers use Blackberry Messaging services such as BBM to organise - then we have trouble. Then the police are stretched. And this is what we are seeing in London. A thin blue line of police that can't cope.
Get a group of people organised - and you'll get trouble. That is why in the old days of revolutions - gatherings of more then 3 people in town squares were forbidden.
But there is something else also I wish to discuss. Something more morbid and dark. Something that is gnawing away at my brain. Eating away at my skull. It is this: We think we live in a stable world where things work - but that skin of stability is very thin indeed. Tenuous. It doesn't take much to pierce it you know. And when it pierces the seething, malevolent, selfish, bad, violent, greedy side of humanity surfaces. A side that is normally kept in check by social order processes - police, the army, threat of prosecution, courts etc. But when that breaks down - when the police can't cope - civilization crumbles - cities burn - people get hurt.
We are a fucked up race. Humanity! What a joke! We rape and pillage this planet. We cause endless suffering to countless creatures. We are genocidal, suicidal, megalomaniacal, infanticidal, racial, profligate, lecherous, and greedy beyond measure. And outside I can hear police cars. I can hear a police helicopter buzzing above my head and on the news, London burns. London is burning. Black smoke is bellowing and belching. Shops are being raided. Livelihoods are being destroyed. Hackney is burning to the ground. The world is watching as we kill ourselves. This world is fucked. Where all gonna die. Let the cockroaches take-over! - Yeah!
Wasim. Blog Reporter. Live from a Warzone in Hackney. Over and Out.
