Two wrongs make a riot

In August thousands of people in cities across England took to the streets in the country’s biggest riots for decades.

Apocalyptic images of burning homes and businesses, track-suited looters raiding JJB Sports and lines of armoured police, beamed into living rooms everywhere.

Even those living in the leafiest of London suburbs flinched at the sound of a siren, as they anxiously checked Twitter for news.

Nearly 4,000 people were arrested for their involvement in the unrest.

Among them was teenager Danielle Corns, who was sentenced to 10 months in prison for stealing two left-footed trainers from a shop in Wolverhampton.

Pointless? Yes. Wrong? Of course. But worthy of nearly a year in a young offenders institute? I don’t think so.

A string of harsh penalties have been handed out to those involved in the summer riots.

While I believe those who caused criminal damage and spread fear up and down the country should be punished, the punishment should fit the crime.

It’s easy to say the book should be thrown at them, but in reality what will sending someone with no previous convictions to prison achieve?

Sure it’ll make them think twice about doing it again, but for most of the people punished, a court appearance would have been enough to put a stop to their faltering criminal career.

In the months since the violence some have put what happened down to the desire for a free TV. But I’m not so sure.

So why did rioters firebomb a family carpet shop in Croydon? What made them trash 89-year-old Aaron Biber’s Tottenham barber shop?

In the heat of the moment we could accuse them of being a “feral underclass” -  a la David Cameron – but we can’t  ignore the rising discontent bubbling beneath the surface that sparked the violence in the first place.

A joint study by the LSE and The Guardian released last week found for most rioters it was a sense of social injustice that fuelled their anger.

The research, which interviewed 270 people involved in the four-day riots, said they were reacting to a lack of opportunity and jobs.

However, it also found those that looted acted on impulse and opportunism.

So those girls who were recorded saying they loved rioting because of the free alcohol were clearly not political activists.

But there’s no denying that for many there was nothing to lose.

While this may not be true of Danielle, who had just finished her A Levels, I’m not sure that just because someone has something to lose we should take advantage of that.

Instead of handing out disproportionate sentences, which only serve to perpetuate the injustice people felt in the first place, we should be addressing the causes of inequality in our society.

·         A Reading the Riots report will be published in full on Wednesday

·         For more on riots and protest in 2011 look out for the first issue of POV, a new magazine full of creative content, out in January. 

Why our culture is priceless

Last week I got talking to a friend about a popular Twitter feed I’ve starting following.

MetPoliceCO11 isn’t a real life crime fighting message board. Instead the spoof account tweets about amusing and often implausible incidents.

After guffawing at the genius of a tweet about catching a drunk Brian Blessed with a large net, my friend replied, ‘But what’s the point of it?’.

At first I wasn’t sure how to respond.

Because it’s funny, I thought.  It lights up my otherwise dull day.

Then I got thinking. You could ask that question about almost anything.

What’s the point of music, of poetry, or fine dining? Why go to the cinema, play sport or watch the X Factor?

Whatever your views on reality TV these things exist because in one way or another they give us pleasure.

From watching a play that moves you to tears, to listening to an Adam and Joe podcast, none of these things are strictly ‘necessary’ but they’re what make life interesting.

While a joke twitter feed or a televised karaoke contest aren’t exactly Orwell, most people get that art has a vital role to play in our society.

The UK Government however doesn’t seem to share this opinion.

Its cuts to arts council funding and humanities education feel like an attack on the desire to create something beautiful or imaginative. (OK I know this is a bit of a jump but bear with me.)

According to most politicians it seems the only thing that matters is business and making money. Who cares if university courses in the likes of philosophy, English literature or history have to close or ramp up their fees to survive?

The Government seems to have forgotten that for every £1 invested in arts and culture £3.50 is put back into the UK economy.

Despite this more than 200 organisations up and down the country are losing Arts Council Funding.

At the same time universities only offering courses in arts and humanities will have their funding cut to zero.

I’m not saying cutting cultural funding will somehow stop people from creating funny and whimsical twitter feeds.

But it’s this attack on the idea of creating something just for the sake of creating it that I find depressing.

The impression that if something doesn’t have a strict purpose and isn’t there purely to make money, it’s somehow redundant or unnecessary.

This view is short-sighted and simply untrue. We should be embracing our diverse and colourful culture, not stifling it.

So next time you find yourself wondering why on earth someone has bothered to build a life-size bear out of Lego, or painstakingly hand-make millions of ceramic sunflower seeds, give yourself a mental kick and embrace it.

Go on, open your mind.

11.11.11

This week thousands of people across Britain paid tribute to those who have died in conflicts all over the world since WWI.

Either through attending a remembrance service, watching TV coverage or by simply wearing a poppy, nearly everyone in the UK marks the anniversary in their own way.

And this year was the first time services were held since the world’s last known WWI combat veteran Claude Choules died in May.

That makes my generation the last to have any real living connection with the two wars.

Many people my age will remember sitting down with their grandparents to hear tales from the front line.

A couple of years ago, working as a freelance journalist for a local paper in North London I interviewed Donald Wilson, an 89-year-old WWII veteran.

He was there during the D-Day landings and the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

I remember the interview well; he spoke proudly of his fellow troops, describing them as “good blokes” who faced head-on the fearsome tasks at hand.

Describing the scene as he arrived at the notorious death camp, he said: “We fed the prisoners because they’d been living on potato soup and they were starving.

“We had 2,000 under our control and we managed to evacuate 400 of them to Switzerland but the rest died.  It was very hard.”

The Second World War left such a gaping hole in Donald’s generation, they became defined by it.

They had experienced an unprecedented moment in history and the overwhelming need to make sure it was never repeated left its mark.

Today in 2011 war has mutated for us here in the UK. The country isn’t caught in the grip of air raids, rationing and black-outs.

The so-called war on terror is really only felt by the families of the servicemen or women fighting in Afghanistan.

It’s only Remembrance Sunday that reminds us of the loss inflicted by war.

We are detached from war – a distant reality only experienced through our TV screens.

Remembrance Day is a way for us to feel connected to today’s conflicts, and more so the events of the 20^th century.

And even when the last veterans from WWII have left us, marking the 11^th hour of the 11th day of the 11^th month will always bring home the sacrifice made by the generations before us.

Feeding the world

The world’s population hit seven billion this week, pushing our planet’s resources to the limit.

As the West’s obesity epidemic grows, around one billion people are starving, with the famine in Somalia expected to kill up to one million.

Something somewhere has gone horribly wrong.

The balance has been badly tipped in favour of rich Western nations scoffing their faces with what is often factory-farmed, low quality meat.

Meanwhile those in Africa and the developing world are struggling to feed their families at all.

The New Internationalist magazine pointed to food market speculators in its feature The Food Rush as those gambling with hunger.

In the piece by Hazel Healy it explains how the rise of commodity trading is seeing banks and hedge funds bet on the price of crops like wheat and corn – the staples of the world’s poorest.

This is pushing food prices up to the point where one in seven people can’t afford to eat.

She writes: “There is something particularly sick about wealthy and unaccountable elites increasing their fortunes in a way that stunts – and starves – children. This is raw-edged capitalism at its worst.”

And as land to grow food for multiplying mouths shrinks, feeding the world gets even more complicated.

Sadly intensive farming – where animals rarely see the light of day and are bred to the point where they can no longer stand, let alone reproduce – is playing its part.

Precious space that could be used to grow crops for the starving is instead being used to produce enough animal feed to fuel the West’s obsession with cheap meat.

According to Compassion in Word Farming chief exec Philip Lymbery’s blog, it takes six tonnes of plant protein to produce just one tonne of animal protein.

If that space was used to grow plant crops there would be more to go around.

And while big farms would argue there’s a demand for this meat, the fact is, we don’t need it.

If everyone cut out meat from just one meal a week it would make a huge difference to the world’s health, as well as the environment.

In the end this global problem is being caused by greed.

From the banks gambling on hunger, to farmers sacrificing welfare for profit, the West’s greed only serves to exacerbate the plight of the poor.

And with the population set to rise by a further two billion by 2050, unless something changes, this will only get worse.

Tibet's lost children

This week two Tibetans – a 19-year-old former monk and a nun – set themselves on fire in protest of China’s rule.

Their acts took the total number of self-immolations to nine so far this year.

And the ‘Free Tibet’ campaign, calling on China to release its stranglehold on the region and for the return of the Dalai Lama, is showing no sign of slowing.

China’s repression of the Tibetan people in their homeland has caused thousands to flee, with more than 100,000 currently living in exile in India.

One of those is Sambo, a 24-year-old Tibetan I met when I was travelling in India two-and-a-half years ago.

His tale of extraordinary courage and determination has stuck with me ever since.

Growing up in the north-east of the disputed region, Sambo came from a family of nomadic people.

Along with the 50 or so other families living in the village of Wayang Rho, they lived off the land, moving from place to place with their herd of yaks, sheep and horses.

Sambo said despite not having much, his existence there with his father and two sisters was a happy one.

“There were wide grasslands filled with colourful flowers in front of the village,” he said.

“Although most people in my village were illiterate, they were very happy because they were living in a peaceful, natural place.”

At the age of nine Sambo started school but by the time he reached 16 his thoughts had already turned to India.

China’s tight grip on Tibet spreads to the education system, and he was forced to learn Mandarin, a language he struggled to grasp.

His desire to learn English – along with his longing to meet the Dalai Lama – was one of the reasons he made the decision to take on the treacherous journey to India.

In the autumn of 2003 without telling his father and aged just 16, he and his two cousins travelled to Lhasa, Tibet’s administrative capital.

Knowing what was on his son’s mind, Sambo’s father followed them. But only to give him his blessing.

Sambo said: “One day we suddenly met in front of the main temple in Lhasa city. When I told him my thoughts he smiled widely and said, ‘I must let you do what you want, but always remember you are leaving behind a group of people who will always worry about you and will hope that one day you will come back home alive.’”

That was the last time he saw his father.

Sambo’s journey through Tibet and Nepal was a dangerous one.

Together with nine others and one guard, the group travelled for several months, moving only at night to avoid being spotted by the Chinese army.

During the day they sheltered in caves, sleeping in tents and sometimes went for days without food.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, to travel thousands of miles in such fear,” said Sambo.

“The whole journey was filled with terror.”

It took the group two months to reach the Tibetan Reception Centre in Nepal.

Then on December 12 2003 Sambo finally arrived at the exile centre in Dharmsala in India.

And it was there he achieved his first aim of meeting the Dalai Lama when he gave an audience with the new arrivals.

Sambo said: “It was a thrilling experience. The tears of pleasure were dripping down my cheeks when I saw his smiling face and heard his great voice.”

As far as I know Sambo is still in India progressing well with his English, but the reality of seeing his father again remains distant and faint.

According to the Central Tibetan Administration, in 2006 alone nearly 2,500 young Tibetans, many under 18, arrived in Dharamsala.

And as you read this many more will be making that same dangerous journey.

Cat scrap over rights laws

The claws came out this week when Home Secretary Theresa May once again argued for the scrapping of the Human Rights Act.

And while her cat gaff left tabloid headline writers across the land tapping at their keyboards with glee, they barely scratched the surface of the debate on this issue.

In Mrs May’s view the use of Article 8 – the right to family life – has been used to prevent the Government from deporting illegal immigrants and suspected terrorists.

So she wants to scrap the Act altogether and replace it with a UK Bill of Rights.

For a start she was wrong about the case of the Bolivian and his cat.

But even if she had been right, why throw the moggie out with the bathwater? Wouldn’t it be better to amend the Act or clarify how it should be applied rather than get rid of this country’s most important piece of human rights legislation?

Take a recent story of the police van that drove hundreds of miles so a prisoner wouldn’t have to walk a few yards in handcuffs.

Apparently they were worried it would contravene his human rights.

But rather than being treated as a genuine claim this would most likely have been laughed out of court.

It’s an example of how badly the law can be misinterpreted and misunderstood.

The Human Rights Act is there to protect us from real violations, and it’s used to positive affect hundreds of times a year.

We don’t condone torture, we believe passionately about freedom of protest, expression and to a fair trial.

These rights are something to be proud of.

And scrapping it would almost certainly weaken our call for democracy in countries like Libya and Egypt.

Charity Liberty has called for the Government to do more to educate people about their human rights.

It recently commissioned a poll that said just 9% of respondents remembered ever seeing any information from the Government on the Act.

So while a new Bill of Rights may seem on the face of it to be a good idea, really we should be doing more to help people understand the law we already have.

Because just like a new kitten that’s cute and playful when you first take it home, the Bill will inevitably end up just like the old tabby you traded it in for. 

Step on it to improve Saudi women’s rights

Allowing women in Saudi Arabia to drive is a move in the right direction.

The fiercely Islamic country’s King Abdullah revoked a sentence of 10 lashes to a female driver this week, as part of an apparent new wave of women’s freedoms.

Although this year’s municipal elections were reserved only for men, women will be able to vote and even stand in elections in four years time.

But the ban on women driving is still in force, provoking the June’s Women2Drive campaign, which saw a group of women take to their cars in defiance.

And despite the King’s reprieve in the case of Shaima Jastaina, all those arrested during the protest were apparently warned not to drive again.

The country’s guardianship laws are also still in place, meaning no women can participate in public life without the permission of a male relative.

So say you just want to nip out to get some bread, better check with your husband.

Or you decide to sign up at the local university to improve your education, only if your father will allow it.

This hard line approach to treating women as second-class citizens only serves to highlight the religious right’s own weaknesses.

Take the views of 25-year-old Nawwaf, the Saudi man interviewed by Radio 4’s World at One programme, who believes allowing women to drive will cause them to suddenly abandon their whole belief system.

Talking to the show, he said: “I think women driving is the key to a lot of things. In Western countries, 100 years ago women's clothes were different but now you can see they are a little bit naked.

“If you start now to let women drive, let them go wherever they want, let them do whatever they want, we will be in the same position some day.”

Forgetting the fact that women should be free to do whatever they want regardless of their religion, I’m sure those women following the rule of Islam would be astonished to hear of such a lack of faith.

Women’s rights and Islam do not have to be an oxymoron.

Commenting on the new vote for women, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa deputy director Philip Luther, said: “The whole system of women’s subordination to men in Saudi Arabia needs to be dismantled.

 “We can only hope that this announcement on voting will be the first in a long line of reforms that guarantee Saudi women the rights that they have been demanding for so long.”

Better step on it then.