A Lesson from Roit in London
On 6th of August 2011, a peaceful protest over a police shooting turned violent in London. Within three days it became riot that caused damage for 130 billion dollars for British. Buildings and cars were burned out. Stores were robbed. During that time armored vehicles and convoys of police vans backed up 16,000 officers on duty. 1,200 people were arrested across the country including 800 in London.
The whole thing started from a black young man was killed by policemen in London’s Tottenham neighborhood. I was shock when I saw the victim’s cheerful good looking face in the website. I can’t imagine such a young guy deserve to be killed. Maybe also for that reason people felt upset for the accident. They gathered outside of police building requested for an explanation. It is said for a few hours police ignored those people totally. The peaceful protest turned to be riot when a girl was knocked down in the floor and was bit up by the policemen. The girl threw stone to the policemen for expressing her anger. It just like the street vendor in Tunis set fire on him after being humiliated by policeman, a butterfly effect was created.
British government now has the headache of handling riot in the street like the other countries have. They are bombing Libya for Gadaffi didn’t treat the violence protesters nicely. It is time for them to show the world how a democracy country handles riots in real life. After riots happen some people robbed stores to get what they want–new sneakers, bikes, and electronics and leather goods. Fires were seen in here and there in the street. There were obviously crimes that need to be fight back.
The problem is that should British government ignore the real reasons of riot and simply considered that were crimes? Obviously police fail handling things caused the riot. The conflicts actually involve with issues of poverty, human rights because most of rioters are blacks. They complain that they were discriminated and humiliated in British all these years. They have no jobs and the benefits are cut now. As foreigners they immigrated to the other people’s homeland, make a living there and enjoy the benefit there. Not like the Whites in the United States who were immigrants some years ago British people have reason to complain just like the killer from Norway Anders Breirik thought. I can imagine that British policemen don’t like to the blacks and give them troubles once a while. British should has shut its door in the very beginning. Now it is little bit late. Situation maybe is worse for Gaddafi threatens to let more blacks run to the Europe since NATO is bombing Libya. Why not let more desperate refugees live in the countries that have democracy and respect human right.
Troubles that cause by immigrants are much serious than what Western countries realized. Handful of youth guys who got no trainings gave such big troubles to the society. They flee quickly when the police came and when the police left they regroup again. As a democracy country you cannot execute them. After you releasing them they commit crimes again. You keep them in jails for their lifelong it cost money. We can’t imagine what happen if some hatful Muslins and Gaddafi supporters join the riots.
The hint is that since security systems are so lax in Western world Europeans should not make that many enemies. They should stop bombing Libya. They should learn how to compromise. They have no choice but overcome their discriminated feeling and accept those immigrants as their neighbors. Only when they treat their neighbors as what Jesus told them to do they then can have peaceful environments.
