Tottenham Riots:- “The Language of the Unheard”

The riot which broke out on Tottenham High Street on Saturday night was not the “spontaneous and opportunistic actions of a criminal minority” but the boiling over of a community which, after decades of police oppression and violence, has had enough.

Around 5pm a demonstration of over 300 had gathered outside Tottenham police station to demand the truth about the death of local resident Mark Duggan who had been shot dead on Thursday by Met marksmen stationed inside.  Despite its entirely peaceful nature the demonstrations request was met with a wall of silence and police batons.  The frustration and anger of a community who had yet again been at the receiving end of police brutality would end in a full scale riot lasting into the small hours.

Politicians like David Lammy have been quick to condemn the “unjustified acts of criminality and violence” of people who loot food, clothes and TVs.  However they have been deafeningly silent about the fact that it now appears that the trouble only began after a 16 year old woman was beaten around the head by several officers after trying to reason with them outside the police station.

Those very same media outlets who jumped to the conclusion only hours after the shooting said that the victim was a “well known gangster” failed to report an eyewitness report that Mark Duggan, a 29 year old father of four, and a companion were held down by 4 officers and shot in the head.

Unfortunately the death of Mark Duggan is not an isolated case. Since the commissioning of the Macpherson report only 12 years ago 334 people (a disproportionate number of which happen to be black youths) have died in police custody. Not one police officer has been convicted of any wrongdoing.

In 2008 another black male Sean Rigg was arrested for “breach of the peace” in Brixton. Within two hours he was dead. Leaked post-mortem results revealed that it was several blows to the head and face which led to his death. CCTV footage from within the police car and custody suite used to incarcerate Sean mysteriously vanished. Sean’s sister Samantha, who has since became a tireless campaigner against police violence has since accused the IPCC of collusion to cover-up his death by failing to administer even the most basic investigatory techniques such as interviewing the officers involved. The simple fact is that we cannot rely on an organisation consisting entirely of present or retired police officers to investigate the actions of the police.

Tottenham, like most urban areas in Britain, is also a community which has had its heart torn out by a cabinet of millionaires. In the last 12 months 10 youth centres have been closed in the Northumberland Park area alone forcing some of the poorest teenagers in North London to join the gangs which provide better protection than the Met police who deem them to be the enemy.

Youth unemployment in North London is at an all time high with almost 40% of Black 18-25 year olds out of work. Those who manage to struggle through a high school education system in which they are doubly disadvantaged by their colour as well as their class (with the scrapping of the EMA) are priced out of higher education by the most expensive state university education in the world.

The 55% cut in housing benefit, due to come into effect next month, is also set to affect the vast majority of Tottenham’s residents who rely on it to keep a roof over their head. This is part of what people like Boris Johnson see to be the necessary class cleansing of London.

The burning of police cars and the looting of ALDI was not violence and neither was the destruction of Millbank tower for that matter. The only violence committed on these days was by the Met officers who made Mark Duggan their 334th victim in 12 years or who fractured Alfie Meadow’s skull.

What happened last night was not the mindless opportunism of thieves and anarchists but the genuine class anger of a community disenfranchised by institutionalised racism and poverty.  The murder in cold blood of Mark Duggan was merely the spark to a fire in Tottenham, which will continue and spread for as long as these attacks on our class continue.  As one young protester Jamal put it yesterday “this is just the beginning, this is war, and this is what you get – fire.”