Thoughts on The Disturbances

As everyone seems to have written about the recent London disturbances, I thought I might as well. I seem to remember from the dim and distant past that the authorities are always loathe to call such events 'riots' because when so described, the Metropolitan Police were required to pay for all the damage caused. I bet it's not like that now though.

My first thoughts have to be connected to my own experience of university and students. Yes I am indeed part of the generation that not only enjoyed a 'free' four years at Uni, but was also supported by a maintenance grant paid by the county's ratepayers. I went as a mature student and remember being struck as to what a left-wing bolshy lot most were. A demo or petition would be rustled up in no time on a whole range of social issues and as a group we complained about everything. I graduated, the years rolled by and I became increasingly aware of a deafening silence from the incumbents at our seats of learning.

As we would have said on my radical Social Work course, they were basically silenced by the establishment. They were indoctrinated and seduced into becoming acquiescent capitalist lackeys for the State whilst learning the discipline and responsibility that comes with mounting debt. In the last few years I can't remember students getting seriously vexed about any issue since possibly the poll tax. It's a sad fact of life, but we're all possibly just selfish and only really concerned about something that affects us directly. The inevitable changes in university funding certainly does affect all students and they are reacting.

I think I've always been aware that just beneath the surface there have always been elements within society waiting to take advantage of any possible trouble and hijack it for their own anarchic ends. I was struck by the comment recently from a former miner left on another site that during the Miners Strike in the early 80's, groups of men in balaclavas would turn up on the pickets and nobody knew who they were or where they came from. That sounds reminiscent of the disturbances recently. I'm prepared to believe that most of the serious trouble causers are not students at all but have an extreme anti-state agenda instead, hence the attack on the Supreme Court.

As a probation officer I'm always fascinated to know why people do things and I want to make an observation about people in groups and in particular the effect group behaviour can have on individuals. It may be completely irrelevant and possibly too tenuous to be worthy of discussion, but I'm absolutely fascinated by the effect of so-called 'Flashmobs'. For those unfamiliar have a look here on youtube for some examples. They are basically perceived by unsuspecting members of the public to be spontaneous events by upwards of 200 people who perform in a collective activity, only to disperse after typically four or five minutes.

The key bit for me is the effect it has on bystanders. They appear compelled to take part in the activity and indulge in copy-cat behaviour. Ok this is a fun example, but even this has a subliminal message of advertising a tv programme and has come to be part of so-called viral advertising. Can a similar process operate at demonstrations and people be influenced to certain negative behaviour? Crowd psychology is a funny thing and I wonder how much of a factor this has been during recent demonstrations? Come to think of it, I wonder what the effect would be of playing some Rodgers and Hammerstein really loudly, 'Do-Rei-Me.......  

I've been interested to see the comments from police officers on Inspector Gadjets site basically calling for radical action that ranges from 'shoot the buggers' to 'send for the water cannon'. The more reasonable make the very valid point that in this country neither is a distinct possibility because it is far more politically acceptable to see injured officers than injured protesters. It's been like that I guess since the Peterloo Massacre and I can't see the slightest possibility of it changing. I would have thought most police officers know this and accept it as part of the job.

I should say at this point that I have no sympathy at all with violent demonstrations of any kind and do feel sorry for the police who are required to deal with such events with limited methods at their disposal. I think 'kettling' is a big mistake, would seriously annoy the likes of me and almost certainly is counter-productive in winning any propaganda battle. I feel sorry for all those injured and regret the destruction of original windows in the listed former Middlesex Guildhall and now Supreme Court. As to the cause on which the students are protesting, I feel the argument is lost and in a sense always was the likely outcome of having a target of 50% of young people going to university in the first place. Completely bonkers, unnecessary and unaffordable sadly.  

ps I wrote the above several days ago and have since heard that the police have arrested 180 people, some of whom have been reported as saying they are 'devastated' having been shown cctv images of their behaviour. Also, I seem to remember that the police played loud music at the rooftop protesters during the long riot and takeover of HMP Strangeways some years back.