Shameful UK riots

“It looks like a war zone. I am just thinking of the anarchy and it is really scary,” Murray told Newsday. “Nobody is really safe. Everybody is stunned. Everything is a mess.” Making the point that the unrest was not just something that affected other people, Murray said the building where she was staying had been burnt down by rioters and she had lost belongings to the tune of $300,000.

Damage to property so far in London (including Lewisham, Hackney, Croydon and Peckham) alone has been estimated at $1 billion.

Other assessments would be made for damage done in other areas hit by rioting such as Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Nottingham.

But our greatest sympathies are with the three men in Birmingham, killed by a speeding car while protecting their community from looters.

We wish the British authorities all power in restoring law and order, as we also welcome the display of citizen power by the army of volunteers who took up brooms not just to clean up the mess, but reaffirm their commitment to basic civility.

Hundreds of looters have been arrested and one expects hundreds more to be charged, tracked down by the British police using CCTV footage and the recordings of cellphone conversations and Blackberry messages which rioters had used to coordinate their actions.

Some analysts are speculating as to the “reason(s)” or “cause(s)” for such intense and widespread rioting — such as unemployment, social marginalisation or poor policing — and we await the findings of any commission of inquiry into the unrest.

However, we cannot see any justification for the acts of mugging, vandalism and looting, that are sure to tarnish the image of the UK, even as it prepares to host the 2012 Olympics. What noble political ideal, we ask, motivated the 12-year-old boy pictured on page 3 of yesterday’s Newsday running out of a looted liquor store with a bottle of wine? Clearly, as so often happens, what had begun as a genuine and peaceful protest in Tottenham against the police shooting of a citizen, has been hijacked by naked opportunists. It is likely that their agenda, at best is an extremist form of political anarchism, and at worst plain thuggery and theft.

The unrest will be a blow to the one-year-old coalition government of UK Prime Minister David Cameron. In addition, it comes at a time when the UK is trying to position itself as an oasis of stability compared to the troubled financial systems of both the Eurozone and the USA. Newsday’s front-page photo of a woman jumping from a blazing building in Croydon, is a powerful icon that is sure to dent the UK’s image as it is flashed around the world.

These are not the first riots the UK has seen as we recall the anti-poll tax riots of 1990, and race riots of the 80s.

While we expect some analysis to be done to see if there were any grievances or factors that contributed to the riots, our view is that the naked burning and looting of cars and buildings in any community will cast a shadow over that area for years to come. We recall the physical destruction and moreso the damage to the nation’s psyche done by those persons who burnt and looted areas of TT’s capital, Port-of-Spain, during the 1990 attempted coup.

So we urge any TT nationals in the UK to keep themselves safe as we wish the British all speed in returning their country to a state of calm and normalcy.