The riots of the last week in England have been described by David Cameron as 'criminality pure and simple'. Politicians and the media have led the charge to denounce the rioters as feral, criminal, sick or immoral. This is the language of the ruling classes in the face of social disorder that echoes down the ages, demonising the subversive as wanton rebels against peaceable society in order to exclude and punish them.
Riots have a long history and many incarnations. In pre-industrial society there were bread riots, in industrialising society riots in defence of jobs and wages. Political riots such as those that swept Europe and the USA in 1968.'68. The Stonewall Riots of 1969 were in favour of gay rights and anti-globalisation riots broke out in Seattle in 1999 and Genoa in 2001. Immigrants in the French banlieues erupted in riots in 2007.
Riots are not just criminal outbursts; they have a logic and purpose. The historian EP Thompson analysed bread riots in terms of the 'moral economy of the English crowd' which had its own sense of legitimacy and responded to food shortages and high prices by forcing the sale of hoarded produce at what they considered a just price. They are also a way of communicating grievances in a society where people feel disenfranchised or voiceless.
The battle for media endorsement is even more important than the battle on the streets. When does a vigil, protest or demonstration become a riot? The first manifestation of violence, as in the student protests of late 2010, allows politicians delegitimise protesters as 'feral' and criminals. Protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria are considered heroic manifestations of the 'Arab Spring', while protests in Tottenham or Croydon seen as wild attacks on the police and communities. Some opponents of the existing order who were considered criminals at the time, such as the suffragettes or Tolpuddle martyrs, subsequently achieve iconic status,.
After the smoke has blown away and glass has been swept up politicians and journalists thrash about to explain what went wrong. Is it about deprivation and hopelessness? A response to the theatre of greed and selfishness in our society? The result of the erosion of families, communities and moral values? Because working-class jobs and the honour of the working class have evaporated, leaving dead-end jobs and the denigration of chavs and benefit-scroungers? Perhaps, rather than simply demonising and criminalising the rioters, we might listen a bit to what they have to say about the society we live in.