I wake up every day it's a daydream
Everythin' in my life ain't what it seems
I wake up just to go back to sleep
I act real shallow but I'm in too deep
And all I care about is sex and violence
A heavy bass line is my kind of silence
Everybody says I gotta get a grip
But I let sanity give me the slip
-Bonkers, Dizzee Rascal
I touch down in Babylondon on Thursday morning. It is predictably and reassuringly overcast. There is nothing that suggests the chaos I have been watching unfold online and on the news for the past few days. At Victoria the crowds are thick and bustling and aggressive and it's just another day in a big city.
But this is Central London, in the heart of the city's wealth. There are no poor people here. Except the invisible ones who make sure that the stores open and the streets are clean. There are no chavs here. No dispossessed youths wandering the streets looking for a purpose that never presents itself. But the newspapers have the stories. Of mayhem and madness. Of communities getting together to clean up. Of survivors and perpetrators and police overwhelmed.
There are more sides to these riots than can be discerned from just watching the news. The carefully controlled voices and perspectives that make it to air. The police raiding homes and the black officer emerging with the white youth handcuffed. Just in case anybody starts thinking this is a race issue. Because even the middle class black people are starting to call for something to be done about these monkeys, because don't you know that Enoch Powell was right? And immigrants never did anything for us. Except build our civilisation and create our wealth and run our city doing the jobs our people are too good to do.
And for a brief moment South Asians get to breathe a sigh of relief that they're no longer the most hated minority, because for a moment everyone forgets July 7, 2005 and radicalised Islamic fundamentalism and how the country exploded with anti-Asia rhetoric in the past few years. And for a moment Darcus Howe gets to be a hero for putting the BBC reporter in her place for do-ing her job, which is to make a mockery of this fossil of a community that has no credible, legitimate voices. And even though she is farse and out of place, I want to know where he's been with the rest of the so-called black leaders and voices, silent for years as the problems of displaced second and third generation Caribbean children grew more and more pressing.
In West London where in two weeks, Notting Hill Carnival may or may not happen, there is a heated discussion about the state of the corporation called the State that continues to sell out its subjects. Who stands to benefit from a state of chaos and fear. And a young man tells of his experiences in Hackney where he claims he saw plainclothes police officers instigating acts of violence and looting. And everyone wonders why it's okay for young people to be charged for stealing a few polo and T-shirts and some sneakers but no-one has put any corporate thieves in jail for fleecing people of millions. No one has held Rupert Murdoch accountable for invading the lives of citizens. And all ears and eyes are on what David Cameron is saying or not really saying in Parliament. He says this is criminality plain and simple. This has nothing to do with politics. But I suppose he was wealthy and out of touch reality back in the eighties too, when Thatcher's government was getting the same kind of reaction.
But even among the right-wing voices, even some conservatives are seeing this eruption for what it is. A symptom of a much deeper disease called injustice. That continues to affect those who have the least when those who have the most continue to get away. It is capitalism gone mad. Things are falling apart for the West and this is another indication that Babylondon and the rest of Babylon might really be falling. You can't worship money. And building buildings doesn't mean you are building a civilisation or people. There is a cautionary tale for Aunty Kamla here too. If we don't start to create self-sustaining spaces where young people can learn and explore all their intelligences and not just their academic capacity, then prepare to reap the whirlwind. It's not a threat, it's a warning.
The sirens still wail and the police still stalk the streets. Londoners are resilient, though and they are uninterested in being prisoners in their own city, having been through every imaginable kind of attack. In Notting Hill the pubs are open and the patrons drink and laugh and talk, oblivious to the boarded-up windows. I think about all the people in Trinidad begging me to stay safe in Babylondon. As if they are not living in the real war zone. Tyres burn every day. And whole communities are under siege from impassable roads and politicians who are uninterested in hearing the complaints of their constituents. And a government that has difficulty understanding accountability and justice. Even as they can no longer enjoy the freedom of living in a country that is not constantly besieged by criminals big and small. I am still more comfortable walking on my own in Babylondon at midnight than I ever will be doing the same in Port-of-Spain. Riots or not, I am glad to be momentarily free of the insecurity of living in Trinidad.
THOUGHTS
• More sides to these riots than can be discerned from just watching the news.
• For a brief moment South Asians get to breathe a sigh of relief that they're no longer the most hated minority.
• The sirens still wail and the police still stalk the streets.