Civil War

The first time I visited a council estate was to go to one of my friends houses when I was in secondary school, I'd grown up in what I less than affectionally referred to as suburban hell but the identikit houses gave me pause. She was a bright, laid back girl but with ambition; she wanted to be a police officer so much. She was self assured enough to buy alcohol whilst underaged at a gig without giving it a second thought, when I asked her why it was that important she gave me the strangest look and said that it was just what she did to relax.

It took me years to put words around that subtle pressure I could see working on her, the feeling that she'd never really leave, that there was no point in trying, that to do so would look like she thought she was better than her family, that what she wanted was a nice dream but she'd only end up in a dead end job making minimum wage. If you lived on the estate, not that you were given any choice, you had another world to navigate from those little houses marching back into the distance that said little about you and less about anyone else other than things like 'practical' and 'unwanted' and 'lazy'.

We say estate when we mean ghetto and we could argue back and forth about the welfare state and whether people deserve free housing wherever they want it when some of us have to earn what we get or if they deserve to be given the dignity to make their own decisions and not be penalized for the crime of poverty or illness.

We could hear yelling from the house next door through the walls of her bedroom. Broken bottles. She had to take care of her mother who wasn't very well and couldn't be left on her own, her brothers had only moved as far away as the next town. She got good A Level results, she never went to university, the last time I spoke to her she was working in a shop. She still lives on the estate.

Chavpikeydolescum.

What I am trying to say in my own inarticulate fashion is that London is bleeding, one protest starts a riot which goes on and on and on. It looks like photos of burning buildings, like frantic messages about doors smashed in, like a sudden U Turn on the part of many people I know towards national service for teenagers, like demanding the army be deployed, like knots of people and tense phone conversations and fragments like “they say that the so called bullet was fired from a police gun” and “all the windows were smashed in” and “bus on fire just a few minutes from where I live” and “family” and “destroyed” and “shooting's too good for them” and “riot” and “riot”.

I love this city so much, it's agonizing to sit here and watch it tearing itself to pieces and know the only thing I can do is field phone calls from the police when they come to make sure that any of my staff who live in this evenings danger zones are sent home early. It looks like shock, we are all a little more withdrawn today, we all look hurt but some uncontrollable force and say things like “it has to be over soon” and “they should just let the police do their jobs” and “scum”.

“I just don't understand”.

But I do understand, I know exactly why people who have never had any real expectation that they can or should be worth more who are chavpikeydolescum will take what they can get whether that be status or free TVs. Power corrupts. When you feel powerless and worthless and you learn that you can, in fact, take whatever you want and the police can't stop you it will only escalate. It is so complicated, this perfect storm, this little hell brewing in our home made of charcoal and sirens and that feeling that you get in your chest when you see a group of teenagers. Just children really, but you never can tell. Nothing that they are doing is even remotely defensible but oh I can see why they would and it is killing us all.

“So what can we do about it?”

Anyone who gives you an easy answer is lying. My only answer is that I don't know, that I'm terrified both of the riots and what the response to them will be and all I have to offer is my personal civil war of call and response.

People don't riot if they believe have something to lose, people are losing everything because of these riots.