Rebellion Rocks England Amid Worsening Economic Crisis

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, speaking in Clark Park on October 12, 2007 at a rally in solidarity with the immigrant rights movement in the United States. (Photo: Alan Pollock), a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Rebellion Rocks England Amid Worsening Economic Crisis

Black, working class youth strike back against austerity and repression

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

As the global financial markets plunge due to the results of capitalist overproduction which has created the worse economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, workers and youth throughout the world will continue to resist the imposition of austerity measures and greater state repression. In London, where the British government has announced and implemented huge cuts in education and social service programs in the face of growing unemployment and poverty, Black and working class youth have responded to the malaise with direct action and mass rebellion.

Beginning on August 6 in Tottenham North London, thousands of youth demonstrated, attacked police cars, buses and businesses in response to the unprovoked killing by law-enforcement of a 29-year-old Black man, Mark Duggan. The family man and father of four was travelling in a vehicle on August 4 when he was pulled over by police and shot dead.

Outrage spread throughout the community of Tottenham and a demonstration outside the police station was held on Saturday August 6. Soon after the protest, several youth hotwired two police vehicles and drove them to the center of the nearby business district where they were set alight.

Later hundreds of others began to pelt police, loot stores and eventually burn down numerous establishments in the area. News of the rebellion spread throughout the city and the world.

The following Sunday night, other sections of London and its suburbs erupted in similar unrest. In Brixton, Enfield, Chingford Mount-Waltham Forest, Dalston, Edmonton, Islington, Oxford Circus, Ponder’s End, and Walthamstow, youth attacked the police and other symbols of exploitation. In the various areas affected by the rebellions youth hit the Kingsland Shopping Center in Dalston, Curry’s, William Hill, Nandos, Morley’s Department Store and T-Mobile in Brixton along with Blockbusters, Vision Express, JD Sports and other business in Tottenham.
(London Telegraph, August 8)

For a third straight day unrest began during sunlight hours in Hackney where on Mare Street, youth clashed with riot police after taking over a lorry full of building materials that were hailed in defense against the cops. In Peckham and Lewisham, youth reportedly fought running battles with the police and at least one bus was set on fire.

In Hackney on August 8, the local government council warned its staff of possible unrest in the area. The employees were allowed to go home at 4:00pm and people hurried to leave this section of East London as soon as possible.

A warning message was sent out saying that “We have been advised that there is a possible demonstration around Hackney Town Hall this afternoon. Please continue with your day as normal, but staff are advised to take care when travelling between buildings.”

Police escalated their patrols and aggressive tactics in response to the youth unrest. It was reported by Scotland Yard that over 200 people had been arrested by August 8.

During the third day of unrest rebellions erupted in Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol and other cities. Prime Minister David Cameron returned from holiday in Italy in order to convene a cabinet meeting on the current crisis.

The police and the media immediately began to portray Mark Duggan as a criminal and a gangster. He was blamed by the authorities for causing his own death by firing first at the cops. (Daily Mail, London, August 8)

Yet the family of Duggan said he was unarmed and that the killing was totally unjustified. Rather than take responsibility for the death of Duggan, the police described the people involved in the protests and rebellions as criminals and that outbreaks in other sections of London and its suburbs were “copycat” illegal acts warranting arrest and prosecution.

The rebellions in London have been compared to the unrest that swept the Black and Asian communities from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. During 1981, widespread unrest took place in Brixton and other sections of Greater London as well as numerous cities throughout the country.

In Tottenham in 1985, a rebellion erupted after a Black woman died during a police raid. A white police officer was later stabbed to death during the unrest which lasted several days and resulted in significant property damage.

Since 1958 in Notting Hill when white racist mobs invaded Black communities attacking homes and residents, the government of Britain has failed to adequately address the national question inside the country. In recent years as the economic crisis of world capitalism has impacted urban areas throughout Europe, rebellions have re-emerged as a form of resistance and protest.

In Greece, youth have rose-up in rebellion in the last two years in opposition to the worsening social conditions among the working class. In 2005 and 2006, the suburbs of France where many African and Arab immigrants live, the masses erupted in rebellion in response to police brutality and institutional racism.

Britain has instituted cosmetic changes to the labor market since the rebellions of the 1980s by placing more Black and Asian people within the media and business. But the onslaught of the economic crisis of 2007-8 has hit Britain hard prompting the central bank and the government to provide huge amounts of liquidity to shore up the financial sector.

Yet police brutality and misconduct remain a major source of complaints within the urban areas inside the country. With dissatisfaction spreading among workers and youth over the massive cuts that have been mandated by the conservative-led government of David Cameron, the situation is very volatile across Britain.

Significance of the Rebellions in England

These rebellions that have struck London during the early days of August could occur anywhere in the industrialized capitalist states. The rising unemployment and impoverishment of oppressed and working class people provides fuel for social unrest.

Many youth and workers in general find no hope within the existing capitalist system where governments engage in lengthy debates over how much of the social wage of the masses should be cut to provide further bailouts to the banks and transnational corporations. These economic decisions that are implemented without any involvement of working people and youth will spark further anger and discontent among wide sections of the populations within the entire capitalist world.

The growing agitation and unrest within the industrialized capitalist world of the West is coupled with the rising tide of struggle within other geo-political regions particularly in Africa and the Middle-East. The U.S.-NATO wars against Afghanistan and Libya have only provided more defeats for world imperialism in the desperate attempt to maintain its system of political and economic dominance over the majority of humanity.

Workers and the oppressed must strengthen the existing mass organizations and trade unions in their fight to end the system of exploitation and oppression. To many it is becoming quite obvious that capitalism and imperialism has nothing to offer working people and the nationally oppressed throughout the world.

The international crisis of capitalist overproduction is providing wider opportunities for global solidarity at unprecedented levels. From the U.S. to England, all the way to Africa and the Middle East, the demands of working people and the oppressed are more similar every day.

People want and need jobs, incomes, healthcare, pensions, quality education and a life without political and state repression. When these movements and organizations come together there will be major advances in the fight to end exploitation and oppression and to realize a socialist future for humanity.