Let there be Hip Hop (Sydney)

Saturday 10th September 2011
“LET THERE BE HIP-HOP” feat. Jae Druitt, 6PounD, Mirrah Reflects, Izzy N The Profit, Swarmy, DJ Kinetic, MC: L-FRESH The LION
8PM $10 – Empire Hotel  Annandale | 103A Parramatta Rd, Annandale NSW

Featuring 1DEADLYNation.com friend MIRRAH!

Wave Hill Walk Off back in our minds

For many years the Mainstream media hadn’t given much attention to the annual commemoration of the Wave Hill Walk Off and the years of strike that followed led by Vincent Lingiari and the Gurindji people. This year the efforts of those who organise the anniversary activities and the elders of the Gurindji who made all this possible are receiving the coverage they and this great part of Australian history deserve. Many radio stations and local newspapers carried stories of the strike, ABC’s The Drum published 1DEADLYNation.com’s piece (http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2855942.html) and SBS television news ran a story from the anniversary ceremony (see below)

In coming years we sincerely hope that more mainstream media is dedicated to this remarkable piece of Australian history and the lessons we can all learn from those events. With the 50th anniversary only five years away Government, media and education bodies have a responsibility to ensure the date is marked by the sort of national celebration the strikers deserve in recognition of their struggle, their commitment to justice and the sacrifices they made for all of us.

http://www.gurindjifreedomday.com/

From Little Things Big Things Grow

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are warned that this website contains images of deceased people.

Gather round people let me tell you a story
An eight year long story of power and pride
British Lord Vestey and Vincent Lingiari
Were opposite men on opposite sides

You probably know these as the opening lyrics to the 1991 Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody song, From little things big things grow. It is one of Australia’s most important songs and most Aussies will know it if not from its radio play or performances from Paul and Kev around the nation, but also from its use by grass-roots movements around Australia and in advertising campaigns.

Two of our finest, Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly

“Paul Kelly and I had gone away on a camping trip in about ’91 or something and we just kind of pulled it out around the campfire. Paul had a good chord progression and I thought it would be good to tell a little story over it. So, by about 2 o’clock in the morning, we had a six-minute song.”—Kev Carmody, 2008

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The story told by the song is one of the greatest this wide brown land has known and one that sadly too few Australian’s know. It’s a story that is everything we lionise in Australia, mateship, courage, the battler, a fair go, the under dog getting one over the powerful and a happy ending where the hero wins. This is the story of the Gurindji Stike! The hero; Aboriginal man Vincent Lingiari as he led the Gurindji, Ngarinman, Bilinara, Warlpiri and Mudbara peoples on a long, courageous battle for justice.

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In the late 1800’s the lands of many Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory and Western Australia were being forcibly taken over (invaded) by pastoralists eager to exploit the large areas of grazing land the Indigenous Peoples had called home for thousands of years. In the 1880’s Gurindji land was taken and Wave Hill cattle station was establish with huge numbers of cattle brought into the area. A police station was built and Mounted constable  W.H. Wilshire began a process of killing the Aboriginal people who dared to stand up against the invasion of their lands. In 1914 the Vestey Brother’s group, a large British food production company, took over Wave Hill station and used Aboriginal labour to increase the size and capacity of the station. The term labour is not as we know it today, the Aboriginal people were used as slaves on the land and they only received rations for their work.

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Over the next 50 years the Gurindji were treated appallingly, the women often used as sex slaves, men who would not bow to the command of the land owners beaten or killed and no wages ever provided to the workers. Throughout this period the people were often isolated from the change taking place in the rest of the nation by the geographical distance and the dictatorial manner in which the area was managed. However through meetings with visiting anthropologists, union officials and the message coming from other Indigenous people the Gurindji began formulating their plan to free themselves from Vesteys.

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After the second World War and the collapse of centuries of colonialism the fight for independence, civil rights and rights to traditional lands was well under way for people around the world. Gandhi in India, Mandela in South Africa, Martin Luther King in the US and many many more took their fight for justice and equality to the streets and the courts. Many believe no such fight took place in Australia, but this is far from true. In 1965 the brilliant Aboriginal Activist, Sports Star and Public Servant Dr Charles Perkins led a brave group on a bus trip around NSW known as “The Freedom Ride”. The main focus of the ride was to protest the discrimination Aboriginal people faced in rural and regional NSW, but the significance of the journey and the leadership of Perkin’s meant the Freedom Rides became a driving force for awareness and a campaign for Indigenous rights across Australia.

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In American they had Dr King and Malcolm X, in Australia we had Dr Perkins and Vincent Lingiari (pictured)

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A year later, On 23 August 1966, led by spokesman Vicent Lingiari, the workers and their families walked off Wave Hill Station and began their strike. A report by the Northern Territory Government had found about Vesteys “It was obvious that they had been … quite ruthless in denying their Aboriginal labour proper access to basic human rights.” Billy Bunter Jampijinpa, who worked on Wave Hill Station – “We were treated just like dogs. We were lucky to get paid the 50 quid a month we were due, and we lived in tin humpies you had to crawl in and out on your knees. There was no running water. The food was bad – just flour, tea, sugar and bits of beef like the head or feet of a bullock. The Vesteys mob were hard men. They didn’t care about blackfellas.”

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Vincent Lingiari, The Gurindji and other Aboriginal Peoples from the area left the station and formed a new settlement at nearby Wattie Creek (Daguragu). Many believed the action by the Aboriginal people would not last and was simply an attempt to gain slightly improved workers rights. There were many cynical attempts by Vestys, other pastoralist companies and those in Government to convince the people back to work. But they wouldn’t be moved and the price they sort was and would be nothing more than the rightful return of their lands. During the years of the strike, conditions were not easy for the Aboriginal people, but they did not waver. Vincent, Billy and others toured Australia with the assistance of a number of workers unions to educate the broader Australian community on the issues they faced and lobby politicians for changes that would improve the lives of all Aboriginal people. So impressed by a speech given by Vincent Lingiari one man who had never met an Aboriginal before, was moved to give $500 to the cause. This was a very sizeable donation at the time, that donor was a young Dr Fred Hollows.

Gurindji elder Billy Bunter Jampijinpa, with grandson Selwyn, at the site where he and other stockmen camped before they walked off Wave Hill cattle station on August 23, 1966.

During the period of the strike the cause of Aboriginal people was becoming, for the first time in the nation, an issue of national significance in politics. There was the 1967 Referendum in which 90.77% of all votes cast were in favour of the question on Aboriginal people, while the other question on the ballot raising issues on the composition of parliament was soundly defeated. Aboriginal people and many students, unions and other groups began large protests in the Southern States, not only to raise awareness of the strike in the North, but on broader issues facing Aboriginal people.

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Many in the political establishment would ignore or go out of their way to sabotage these efforts and heavy-handed police tactics were used. With the election of the Whitlam Government Aboriginal people for the first time had a Prime Minister interested in their cause and willing to make changes. There was the 1972 Woodward Royal Commission, 1973–74 Gove land rights case in which the Yolngu people fought the mining of their land through the courts and finally the passing of the 1976 Aboriginal Land Rights Act.

But it was on 16 August 1975 when victory for the Gurindji arrived in the form of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. After nearly a decade of strike action, facing down one of the World’s largest land owners at the time, police brutality, Government interference and the ignorance of much of the broader community on the issue…, victory was won!

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The rightful return of land

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The Government had struck a deal with Vesteys to give the Gurindji a portion of their land back and in front of a crowd at Kalkaringi then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam rose to speak.

On this great day, I, Prime Minister of Australia, speak to you on behalf of all Australian people – all those who honour and love this land we live in. For them I want to say to you: I want this to acknowledge that we Australians have still much to do to redress the injustice and oppression that has for so long been the lot of Black Australians.

Vincent Lingiari, I solemnly hand to you these deeds as proof, in Australian law, that these lands belong to the Gurindji people and I put into your hands part of the earth itself as a sign that this land will be the possession of you and your children forever.

Now please take a few minutes to listen to the song and ponder the lessons we can learn from this tale of the Gurindji, from all Aboriginal people and from the legacy of one of our true Nation hero’s to both Black and White, Vincent Lingiari.

This year celebrates the 45th anniversary of the Walk Off. For more information please visit:- http://www.gurindjifreedomday.com

And for an interview with Brenda Croft – a Gurindji woman and one of the organisers of the event http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2011/08/24/3300918.htm?site=darwin

Hicks, it was political all along!

It is claimed in leaked documents not yet seen by the public that John Howard in a meeting with then VP Dick Cheney asked for David Hicks to be charged with War Crimes.

It was February 24, 2007 and the majority of the Australian public was demanding David Hicks be brought home from Guantanamo Bay. What started out as a small group of family supporters, lawyers and activists had grown to be one of the largest human rights campaigns for an individual in Australian history. For years the Howard Government had tried everything to make it go away, but on the issue of him coming home a free man they would not budge.

With an election certain for some time late in the year and new Opposition ALP leader Kevin Rudd surging in the polls Howard would look to his friends in high places. He couldn’t go to another election with the Hicks issue still unresolved and with Hicks in US hands, he would need their help. So in a meeting at his Sydney office on that February day John Howard told Dick Cheney Hicks, or more accurately his cause, had become a ”political threat” to his re-election.

Calling in a favour from a powerful friend!

As then Vice President of the United States Cheney was a man known to get things done. He had been seen the entire time of George W. Bush’s presidency as the man who pulled the strings. But more importantly he had been Secretary of Defense under Bush Snr and knew the right people to call at the pentagon. Howard was seen as a key ally for the Bush administration, he’d sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq and followed the entire War on Terror in step with the US. This was a favour Cheney could do and wanted to do for a friend.

A week later on 1 March 2007, David Hicks was formally charged with material support for terrorism, and referred to trial by the special military commission.

He would be prosecuted by Chief Prosecutor, Guantanamo Military commissions, Colonel Morris D. Davis. With his high rank, four medals, a Juris doctorate, two Masters of law degrees and distinguished career in military law he was seen by the Bush administration as the right man to prosecute the “worst of the worst” in Gitmo. But in a recent interview with an Australian newspaper Colonel Davis has maintained there was political interference in the charge against Hicks, which he says any reasonable person would see as a ”favour for  an ally”.

Colonel Davis believes Howard asked for Hicks to be tried for War Crimes

“Colonel Davis said Hicks had been a good candidate to be transferred back to his home country – without charge – like dozens of others held in Cuba. He came to the conclusion that there was political interference in the case soon after  he received an urgent phone call from the Pentagon General Counsel, William  ‘Jim’ Haynes, who had asked him: ”How quickly can you charge David Hicks?”

”I knew for John Howard it was becoming a political liability with an  election coming up,” Colonel Davis said. That was the first and only time Mr Haynes had ever called him about a specific case and he found it to be ”odd”.  The eventual plea bargain was negotiated behind his back, Colonel Davis said.”

With internet publication Truthout claiming to hold the official documents that would back up these claims it is time John Howard answered some very serious questions. Did he ask the US Administration to charge Hicks to help his own re-election bid and why, when it is stated Australian Government policy not to interfere in legal cases involving Australian’s did he do exactly that?

Political trials, under laws that no International or US legal body, including the Supreme Court accepted are not how Australia or any other democracy should conduct itself on the International stage. To ask for a political favour for re-election at the expense of your own national interest and the interest of your citizen is disgraceful. Many prominent International law experts have stated clearly it is worse than that. And with the UN set to investigate and proceedings to determine if Hicks can keep his books profits, Howard may find his friend’s in high places are no more.

Ten years on from Tampa

For many the Tampa is not a boat, it is not a place their lives changed or even a policy that took Australia outside of International legal norms. It was a defining moment for then PM John Howard in ensuring he would win the coming election. But what about the people? The Sydney Morning Herald’s Ben Doherty examines.

A decade after their disastrous voyage, the Tampa asylum seekers sent  back to Afghanistan are still on the run.

Sarwar had been home a week when they came for him. After more than two years  away from Afghanistan – on leaky boats and in refugee camps, seeking a new  country to call home – he returned to his village in Ghazni province.

“He was at his home for one week when some men, some Taliban, came on  motorbikes. They took him from his house and they killed him. They dragged him  outside and choked him to death with barbed wire.

“His wife and children saw him killed. They fled. I don’t know where they are  now,” Mohammad Akbar Sohrabi says.

Fearful … Mohammad Akbar Sohrabi, fourth from left, with members of his  extended family in their rented home where he remains largely in hiding. Photo: Kate Geraghty

Sohrabi carries a photo of Sarwar. It’s mixed up among the meagre possessions  he has from his time overseas, alongside a flimsy passport with an incorrect  birth date and a Nauru stamp in it.

The shopkeeper and the metalworker were firm friends at Topside, the  Australian-run refugee camp on Nauru. The photograph shows them in happy times,  seated, making preparations for one of the occasional parties the detainees  held. Then, they believed they would be resettled in Australia.

Eventually though, pressured to return to Afghanistan, they flew home  together, “but we faced the same problems, the same people, waiting for us”.

 

The Tampa’s human cargo pictured from the air as a political storm erupts in  Australia. Photo: Mike Bowers

For the complete story visit:-  http://www.smh.com.au/national/bonds-of-hope-and-hardship-20110819-1j2ct.html

Wedding Crashers and Carbon Kooks (gay marriage & carbon tax)

“Well known radical feminist” was the description delivered at a rally against Same Sex Marriage in Canberra this week.

But who was this radical feminist they were speaking of, Germaine Greer? Maybe Eva Cox, although personally I don’t find her that radical. No the target of the comment was Finance Minister Penny Wong; Che Guevera in a Pant-Suit she is not! A more bland centrist you could not find, she is common sense with a clever hair cut. But Senator Wong is exactly the kind of “evil” this crowd was rallying against. The hatred is also directed at people like Dr Kerryn Phelps, former head of the AMA and recipient of the Centenary Medal for services to Health and Medicine. Also a Member of the Order of Australia, a mum of two children and her partner is woman. Would the world really end if they were allowed to tie the knot under Australian law? I think not!

Keynote speaker, Rebecca Hagelin from the conservative US Heritage Foundation told the audience, if you allowed gay marriage, “anything” such as polygamy and marriage between paedophiles and children ”could be called marriage”. I have many problems with this statement, it is simply false to begin with, it equates the union between two adults with that of sex crimes and in doing so undermines the suffering of all those, including LGBT people, who have been the victims of paedophiles and it comes from an American, whose organisation lobbied for the war in Iraq, calls Maggie Thatcher a hero and has links to jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The think tank was also responsible for the “Contract with America” taken on board by US republicans in the 1990’s that resulted in much of the deregulation that caused the Global Financial Crisis.

Bob's worried about people stealing "Gay"

Of course it wasn’t just an “intellectual” rally, others like Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce, were eager to point out it isn’t just Gay marriage he has a problem with. “If someone wanted to introduce legislation calling ‘camels’ ‘horses’” that would be equally as ridiculous.” Never to be out done when it comes to statements of brilliance MP Bob Katter offered up. “Gay is one of the most beautiful words…no-one should have the right to take that word off us.” Bob, nobody is trying to take gay away from you, in fact they want you to be able to express “gay” in a way you feel comfortable and that is recognised by the law. In the past you have also expressed alarm at having laws taking away your right to “go horse riding”, “catch a fish for dinner”, “light a campfire” and “boil a billy”. Change boil to another word Bob and your lifestyle starts to sound a little Brokeback Mountain. Which is fine Bob, as I said, nobody is trying to take “gay” away from you, whatever boils your billy!

Meanwhile outside on the lawns of our Parliament House, the temperature was rising faster than Bob’s campfire. Well in actual fact the people at this particular rally contest that any temperature rise is caused by them or any humans, but something was making them awful hot under the collar. Angry Anderson took to the stage telling the Anti Carbon Tax rally to “maintain the rage” and muttered something about a higher power, while fresh from their gay ole time inside the building Katter and Joyce raged against “socialism” and got all Advance Australia Fair to the great joy of the audience. Much like inside it was left to others to offer up the intellectual side to the debate.  “I can see a lot of people that I agree a very great deal with. I can see some  people that I probably don’t agree with on everything,” opened Tony Abbott. Not quite JFK or FDR, but I think there is a real gem in there somewhere Tony. And of course the banners and placards were back, “JU-Liar” “Bob Brown’s Bitch” and what’s a patriotic rally without fitting out a picture of your Prime Minister in a Nazi uniform.

American style dirty politics arrives in Australia

What was clear from both rallies was that older people will get out and have their say. And what are 60 somethings worried about in Australia, pension rates, hospital beds, golf course accessability? No, what gets these folks off the lazy boy recliner, throwing the Women’s Weekly at the floor in disgust and raising a “Ditch and Witch” banner, are a few Gay folks wanting to walk down the aisle and a policy designed to protect the environment.

Conservatives find the whole idea of conservation nearly as disgusting as they do two adults just asking for a “fair go”. Of course by the time we have actually crawelled our way into the 21st century and legalised Gay marriage for their Lesbian grand daughter and face the real impact of climate change these folk will be sleeping the eternal sleep and their only legacy will be a shift in the Australian political debate.

All they were missing was a "take your government hands off my medicare" sign

A shift that takes us closer to the US style “tea party” movement and the grubby politics it leaves behind. Where calling your Prime Minister Hitler, a bitch and a witch is how you get your view across and vilifying people you do not know nor understand is accepted, even inside the walls of the peoples Parliament. The attendees of both rallies will neither pay the carbon tax (I didn’t see Twiggy Forrest in attendance) nor be compelled to marry anyone Gay. But they attack both as if their very life depended on it and one can only think the media has very badly informed these people, some politicians have lied and our ability to communicate intelligently lost to an angry mob.

If you are a wedding crasher or a carbon kook it’s time to put country first, do a little reading and leave the Nazi accusations for the only people who deserve them…, Nazi’s!

Serious questions for FMG

Mining mogul Twiggy Forrest and the Fortescue Metals Group are no strangers to issues Indigenous. Whether fighting native title battles to build mines in the nation’s west, to promoting the employment of Indigenous people Twiggy has always had a lot to say.

“I know that Aboriginal people have every bit the ability any of us in this room have, and I know for sure they work as hard and when they come on board and join your company they will add value to your business,” Mr Forrest said in 2010

Earning Billions, Paying Peanuts and still complaining!

With companies who deal in Billions of dollars adding value is both in finding cheap resources that can be sold at inflated prices in the International market and by finding bargain basement labour that can dig it out of the ground for you. In the Indigenous community FMG has now found both. Buying resources from traditional land owners for peanuts (because any more would be welfare) and then selling them on for billions. Now today the ABC reports that FMG have found the answer to the labour side of the equation. Why pay people a few hundred thousand a year to fly in and fly out of your mine site when you can pay Indigenous “trainees” 50 bux and a day, not provide them accommodation or the ability to fly home.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-17/pilbara-mining-trainees-doing-it-tough/2843524

Maybe the ABC has it wrong, maybe the workers denied a chance to speak on camera by their supervisor would give a glowing report of FMG, working in the mines on the cheap and sleeping rough. Or maybe they weren’t allowed to speak because their answers would be something we don’t want to hear? That there are Aboriginal men, working hard in the mines, trying to further their education and in return being paid much much less than their white counter parts.

Whatever the case, the WA and Federal Government must get to the bottom of it. And in the context of great pushes by mining companies such as FMG to grab traditional lands for their own benefit this must be done now!

Gay Marriage – Why the fuss?

Yesterday thousands of people rallied around Australia in support of equality. Not asking for anything others don’t have, not asking for special privileges, just the right to be treated like everyone else. Our politician’s still say no!

For some reason the debate in Australia over Gay marriage still rages. I say for some reason because there seems to be no logical political or social reason as to why two adult Australian’s cannot get married if that is their wish. Who is adversely impacted by Gay and Lesbian couples being allowed to marry? An answer is rarely offered up and usually advocates for the status quo simply state they don’t see the need for change. Which if we followed to its logical conclusion means they also didn’t see the need to change civil rights that discriminated against people based on race, gender or disability. Should slavery have remained the status quo because no politicians were Black? Should Aboriginal people still not be given the vote or counted in the census because at the time no politicians were Aboriginal and therefore they personally were not impacted? Of course not, but then following her logic Prime Minister Gillard would support women not having the vote or be eligible for elected office, because that too was once the status quo.

Thousands rally in Melbourne for Marriage Equality

When an answer to the original question does come there are usually two lines.

1. “Think of the children”. Well yes, let us think of the children! Shouldn’t children know from an early age that they live in a nation that treats all its citizens equally? And let us be honest, a very large number of Australian children are raised in less that ideal circumstances. But what is wrong with two people in a committed relationship who want to care for a child and raise them the best they can? Isn’t that what we need as a society, more people so committed to parenting that they will jump through hoops to get the chance to do it?! Children respond to love, care, affection, education and a safe environment. We help protect their rights when we protect the rights of their parents no matter who they are.

2. Many politicians and public figures will claim Gay and Lesbian marriage is against their religion. Well maybe it is or maybe it isn’t. But their religion is not what they were elected to parliament to represent. They were elected to represent their electorate and their isn’t one in Australia that doesn’t have a large LGBT community. Polls also show that the majority of Australian’s support same sex marriage, international law makes the equal treatment of all a requirement and common sense tells us it just makes sense. Your religion is your own personal  right, just as it is the right of all Australian’s to express their love for their partner in a union of marriage.

Sarah Palin is against Gay Marriage, so to is Fred Nile, Bin Laden was against Gay Marriage and George W. Bush too. Is that really the sort of ideological company you want to keep? Your marriage or your relationship with god is not altered in any way by two adults of the same sex getting married. Given how we view past generations that refused to grant rights to women, people of colour, the disabled and the lower classes. How will our children view us in the future if we maintain the status quo of denying a fundamental right?

Is this your crowd? Or do you support equality?

Marriage has evolved for centuries, the idea that it’s an unchanged institution is simply the view of rose coloured glasses of a few that are entirely blacked out. In ancient times marriage was a union simply of two people with no formal ceremony or approval of the state required. There were great periods of time when marriage was between one man and many women, a time where marriage was between a man and a female child and a time when a white man could not marry anyone but a white women. All these things have changed, with the exception of some countries whose human rights record with rightly slam. Now is the time to remove the final obstacle that simply allows two adults to be given the same legal rights as the rest of us.

The short version – Don’t like Gay Marriage? Then don’t marry a Gay man!

Don’t abandon Aboriginal homelands (Amnesty Campaign)

Aboriginal families are strongest when they can stay connected to their homelands – but right now the government is stripping funds for essential services from traditional Aboriginal homelands.

Homelands are communities established so that Aboriginal people can maintain connection with their traditional, ancestral land. These communities have lower levels of social problems and significantly better health outcomes, and are home to around a third of the Aboriginal population of the Northern Territory.

Joycie Jones Pitjara and driver in a four-wheel drive used to deliver health services to the remote Utopia homelands community. © Mervyn Bishop/AI

Sign the visual petition and tell the government: respect Aboriginal country and culture!

Each name is represented as an individual tile. The picture will be complete once Amnesty reach 10,000 names. Add yours now and ask the government not to abandon homelands. Amnesty will deliver your message directly to the Utopia community to show Australia’s support for homelands.

 http://www.amnesty.org.au/indigenous-rights/dontabandonhomelands/?

Protest, don’t riot!

Part’s of London and across the UK are burning and the threat of rioting continuing has not let up. But there are two aspects to all of this and only one part is the rioting.

Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in circumstances that are still unknown, but it is now believed he did not fire a shot himself. What are now nationwide riots started as a protest outside the police station in Tottenham near to where Duggan had been killed. “Mark’s parents and family went to stand outside Tottenham Police Station,” Frank Crowe friend of Duggan says. “It seemed to be a major cover-up.” “It started off with just the peaceful protest,” he says. Frank says he can’t really explain how the peaceful protest turned into days of violence.

So what seemingly started out as a protest against a police shooting has denegrated into full scale rioting and criminal behaviour. And with it any chance of a non political examination of the shooting death of a man by police is gone and the socio-economic reasons that sparked it too are largely to be set aside in what will become an issue of law and order. Criminals are not revolutionaries, they don’t prove a point by their actions and Mandela in an Adidas Hoodie they are not! But as those who would seek to find the truth in amongst the chaos we must not simply see this as a riot, it isn’t! Riots don’t start for no reason at all, they require a level of anger amongst a large group of people. They require that said group of people feel so removed from society that they are literally willing to burn it to the ground and that they feel, rightly or wrongly, that where they direct their anger is the appropriate target.

Communities should not be on opposite sides!

There can be no doubt that certain minorities have faced undeserved scurtiny by the police in areas of London. This is not anything new and riots of previous decades in the same areas are testament to this. But what rioters fail to recognise, that protesters do, is that causing destruction and behaving criminally will win you zero supporters and set you back in any cause you might have. The aftermath of all this will not be as much about disadvantage and the underclass but about law and order. Never again will come the cry, zero tolerance, tough sentences and fight back will all be the buzz phrases as London cleans up. But if some of the roots causes are not addressed then another riot, as in the past, is only a matter of time.

By all means those who act in a criminal manner must face the full force of the law. In fact sometimes heavier sentences are warranted given the fear, anxiety and financial loss that the English community has suffered as a result of a few. But there are always lessons to be learned and they aren’t about how to crack down on criminals. They are about building a society and a community that is inclusive, that provides an opportunity for all and that addresses the underlining issues before they reach a point where a percentage of that society turns on itself.

There are those who say there isn’t racial profiling or a gap between the rich and the poor. But this footage that has gone around the world shows exactly that and it is deeply ingrained, even on the BBC.