We’ve received the following contribution from Nisha, who has sent photos and reports of earlier peaceful demonstrations in the capital.
Hey!!!
As you all know, there are riots taking place thoroughout london and other areas of the UK. ive been following everything on the news (not allowed to go out and join them 😦 ). despite all the controversy, you have to remember, all of this is reaction to the death of a member of the community. all the anger and frustration due to the cuts, the way the police treat black people and youths in particular and to being ignored on peacful protests against the cuts has built up and up to create this!! Martin Luther King himself said ‘Riots are the voices of the unheard’.
and in case there are any people who have no sympathy for Mark Duggen (the guy who was shot by police), nothing he had ALLEDGEDLY done could ever justify the execution that took place. besides, it looks like the police lied when they said he shot first, the bullet in the radio is a police issued bullet.
now, after searching YouTube for all the videos and info the media refuse to tell us, i found one very interesting one, which shows the power of the people, and just how weak the police are!!! read the text written about the video, and think about it!!! its actually quite good!!! and if you can, please ‘like’ the video!!
please watch and forward this message, or post on facebook and twitter etc etc!!!!!!!!!!
IN DEFENCE OF YOUTH WORK 
I agree with you Nisha, this has been building up, and all the young people I have spoken to said similar things. Here’s some comments I have heard from young people in Hackney yesterday (I have written a bit more blurb around this on the detached youth workers’ forum if anyone wants to look there, detachedyouthwork.ning.com/forum/topics/riots-views-from-the-street)
‘We’re angry… the policing, the cuts, no jobs, EMA going, Connexions gone, oyster cards going up – we’re at a dead end and we’ve got nothing to lose, and when people have nothing to lose they don’t care any more’.
‘We don’t get asked what we feel’.
‘I saw the police battering a 16 year old girl at the demonstration in Tottenham, that’s what got people really angry’.
‘They say we’re animalistic, but animals don’t get angry for no reason – they get angry if they’re provoked’.
‘The meeting the politicians are at today is called Cobra, that’s a snake isn’t it? To young people the word ‘snake’ means someone you can’t trust’.
‘We’ve got nothing from the Olympics’.
‘The riots are an excuse to lock up bare of us in time for the Olympics’.
‘We are genuinely scared. If Operation Trident is meant to stop young black people shooting each other and now it shoots one of us, it’s like they’re saying “you’re not killing each other fast enough, we’re going to help.”’
‘We respect our elders, we know you had it even harder than us, but we’re not looking for a part two, we want things to change’.
‘The media don’t show pictures of the peaceful demonstration just the looting’.
‘Some of us knew Mark Duggan but we all know other Mark Duggans’.
‘We’ve had enough. This is the only way we can get our voices heard’.
‘they call us violent but the prime minister has a button to set off a whole load of nuclear weapons that would kill everyone, that’s violence’.
‘the police had it coming, people have been angry for a long time and now the police have killed someone it’s no surprise there are riots.’
‘young people from rival postcodes were united last night against the police.’
‘We are angry that we are not listened to, there are no jobs and the police treat us badly.’
Some of these comments are from young people I know who I met yesterday, others from young people at a community meeting, where a mother said, ‘If the police are battering our children in front of the cameras, how are they treating them in the cells?’ Most people felt it was important to be out with the young people, despite media and police condemnation of ‘spectators’ – community members need to be out, listening to young people, keeping an eye on the policing, and talking to anyone who thinks of attacking people’s homes or hurting people. The general consensus was that young people are understandably angry, that some or most of the time there was a positive atmosphere on the streets in Hackney on Monday night, that there were very few attacks, and that young people were being demonised by the media coverage.
[…] version of these notes has been posted as a Comment under Nisha says, ‘it’s been building up’, but it feels useful to put this fuller account from Tania on the main […]