Opinion Restive in Olympic city
Voices on the London street.
A sunny day in London almost always means picnics in Hyde Park,shopping in the open-air markets on Portobello Street and lunch on the pavements. Last evening,an old man stood on an empty street corner in the West End,yelling,Armageddon,as police cars tore along the road and helicopters circled overhead. The constant sound of sirens,the absence of people and the palpable fear were a continuation of chaos that saw London burning in the past few days.
A boy,no older than 12,ran along the high street in Wood Green. He surveyed the street with a brick in his hand and chose his target. He lobbed the brick at a Body Shop store. The window didnt smash,so he tried again and again. A few other boys joined him,all teenagers,who eventually managed to get inside the shop: it took just about 10 minutes for them to clean the shop out. With their booty in their hand,they chanted,For Starrish Mark.
The mayhem looting,thuggery and arson can be traced to the death of Starrish Mark,the moniker for Mark Duggan. A 29-year-old from North London,Duggan allegedly died in a firefight with the police in Tottenham last Thursday. His death brought together residents from his turf,the Broadwater Farm Estate.
No violence was planned at his vigil. We were taken by complete surprise,there were so many of them, said PC Ahmed,who was on duty the night the violence erupted. Duggans friends gathered outside the police station to get an answer. How did he die? A young boy told me that he had been shot in the face; another boy corrected him,execution-style. That day and the few preceding it,there were no facts,only rumours.
And in the confusion,the helplessness of the Metropolitan Police under stand and observe orders came to the surface. In Tottenham,Enfield and Wood Green,the police were on the defensive. The most telling moment was a face-off between a group of 20 boys and four police officers. It culminated with the coppers hiding behind a horse.
This is North London. Tough and erratic,the belt around central London that is notorious for gun crimes and late-night stabbings and the powerful gangs that run the show on the streets. Elif,the owner of a Turkish store in Tottenham that was one of the first properties to be looted and burnt,told me that the destruction could only have taken place through an agreement between the different gangs in London.
Mo,a young Somali at Café Juba in Tottenham,explained further. Starrish Mark,he said,denotes membership of the infamous Star Gang Crew that controls Londons N17. Much of North London is carved up in such a manner: the N17 battles the N22 Wood Green crew,and the Wood Green gang routinely gets into scuffles with the N17 Tottenham gang and together they battle the N9 Edmonton gang. Usually gang members cant cross the postcode barriers,but PC Andrews with bloodshot eyes,a Metropolitan officer on duty for three consecutive nights,said,Gangs have united for this spectacular show and it can be traced to Broadwater Farm Estate.
Broadwater Farm Estate was the starting point for the riots that rocked North London. Duggan is a resident of Broadwater. The estate is a rundown block of apartments,the corridors of the estate reek of urine,the electricity is sporadic with power cuts in the depths of winter. In the area itself in the past year,88 gun crime offence have taken place,5,000 violent offences committed and heroin trade is rampant (Metropolitan Police Report).
Broadwater is not without history. The last largescale anti-police riot took place in Broadwater in 1985. The catalyst then was the death of a black woman and it resulted in a police officer,Keith Blakelock,being hacked to death.
But the problem goes deeper than distrust of the police. The Borough of Haringey,the area that was most affected,faces severe unemployment,and Tottenham has 10,500 people out of work claiming Jobseekers Allowance. Yet many on the streets are children and the new governments budget cuts have come under severe scrutiny.
The Haringey Council has had its service budget slashed by 75 per cent,effectively bringing an end to initiatives like youth clubs which keep children off the streets. The Education Select Committee says such soft-services have experienced the most severe cutbacks.
Yet,despite the cuts,the chilling orgy of violence that London experienced over the past few days is an image the city has tried to brush under the carpet. Much has been done to showcase a safe London in the run-up to the Olympics. It should be noted that the Games will be held only a few kilometres from the epicentre of the rioting.
alia.allana@expressindia.com
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