Went to see a documentary yesterday: Riots reframed, about the 2011 London riots, directed by one of the people who took part in, and the punishment for, the riots.
Really interesting film that I very much recommend if you get the chance to see it. It goes further in its analysis than the regulare media did at the time. Instead of dismissing the riots as mindless violence and looting, it puts the whole thing into a broader perspective and says that riots such as these are the result of long-time police persecution of the black and the poor, basically. But also takes into account how the prison system works, how the (in)justice system works and how these things work in conjunction with colonialism and the Brittish empire. In a nation that constantly wages war and has a self-image saying that it is/was/should be the head of a great colonial empire ruling over countries where the people have darker skin, is it weird to expect violent answers to repression from the police?
If you know my work, like Piracy is Liberation or the upcoming Me & my Daddy & Zlatan or, for example, the short story Violence which was included in the Brittish anthology Excessive Force a few years ago, you can probably guess where I stand in all this.
Like one of the people interviewed in the film says: they’re just another gang, except they get away with everything.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnAUs1F1oyY]