Story and Photograph by Lehan Winifred Ramsay

I think that we should not place too much emphasis on the underlying motives and motivations for rioting and looting. Once it gets big enough it’s no longer individual rage. It’s spectacle. Spectacle every bit as large and sumptuous as the royal weddings. Of which there was one only last week. Wasn’t there? People love spectacle, and now with our social media we can all be part of them, whenever the and wherever the bigger all-present Media should point our attention.
People think that there can’t be any connection between a riot and a wedding. Especially if they’re not happening at the same time. But there is, people are glued to the television screen, it’s very big, very grand. The fact is, we can’t really get excited and make large pronouncements about natural phenomenon so well. But we can get excited about people tying knots and making their desires so public.
I don’t know what you thought, but I liked the brooms, I thought they were a very nice touch. I was really looking forward to the waves of looters, waves of brooms, waves of looters. Then I read that the brooms were a media construct, and I was disappointed. The waves of looters, they were the real thing, and then those brooms, they weren’t. And there I was, foolishly, imagining that they had all been doing their thing imagining themselves to be on camera.
Off-camera, I guess it might have been a little different. The problem is, there isn’t really any such thing as off-camera any more, if you’re English. All public space and much of the private space is now on camera. What that means is that as soon as there’s a hint of trouble on the streets, anything coming after that, anyone shown anywhere, are as good as there. Any youth not wanting to get his or her face on Television this week really had to cover up with anything they could. And anyone with anything on their face was, we all know, a looter.
Not a few months ago people with something stuck on their heads were called ever-so-fortunate, and were assumed to be guests of the Royal Wedding. Can we say that the prevalence of headwear at this riot is some kind of response to the tendencies of the British upper classes to dress up their heads? Maybe, probably. Perhaps the hoodie phenomena speaks to us of the facelessness of the riot monster creature, it’s headless-but-many-eyed, limbless-but-many-armed organic/robotic octopus-like presence.
Young people like social media spectacles because they can be part of something bigger than themselves. They let go of themselves and become part of the event, the machine, and if the machine tells them to loot, to light fires, to perform, that’s what they do. It’s a performance. Performance is no longer confined to the defined and delineated event. If you are connected, then in some way your mobile phone will hear of it and will call you. You do not need to make a decision to opt in. You are called. Your presence is sought. Your participation is assumed.
We’ve all no doubt gone through some kind of trying ordeal. Gotten to the end of it exhausted and confused; confused because we could not say why we would have done such a thing, such an ultimately unprofitable thing. We couldn’t see the enormity of it before we started, and by the time we did, it was too late. I’m sure a lot of people who participated in the events of London.
But what of those who wanted a riot, went into a riot, deliberately chose to riot. Most times a riot gets put down before it really gets to the size that it can be called a riot. Perhaps we can say that in this day and age, there is only a riot where there is a television camera. And yet, generally where there is a television camera there is also police, confrontation, conflagration, and the violence is usually put out before it can escalate. Perhaps this is a case in which the predictable chain of events did not happen. Social media getting ahead of Big Media, changing the conditions. Or maybe not the Medias at all, but the players. The performers.
The Police changing their strategies. Instead of jumping in, they were directed to stand back. This spectacle changes the rules. Instead of the performance we find it was the audition. The real performance will be the next one.
What’s it going to be, the next one? While all the aristocracy of the olympiad strut their wedding finery on the field will the surrounding suburbs be holding the torch? It’s clear that many young Londoners are looking for an excuse to party. And who could blame them. They watch their Greek compatriots, the Egyptians, the Libyans, and they have some real passion in their performance. England is neither too sheltered nor too miserable for comfort. Just irritated. A year to go to the Olympics, a lot of potential partiers have just gotten their wrists slapped and their mugshots snapped.
I too was a bit shocked to hear that ballet dancers, young ambassadors, school children had been involved in the looting. Usually we just call them youths, or unemployed, or black. Even our troubles are becoming gentrified. But then, ballet dancers have been outed by Bigger Media. Hollywood Herself. As has the U.N., and therefore anything ambassador.
We’re all going to seem quite old-fashioned if we don’t start gearing up for local riots. Clearly they are where the news is. Where the eye is. Not long before brands start popping up deliberately in the flames, not just the luck of the draw. Photographers breaking windows so they can set their models on fire, what a nice piece of editorial that would be. Designers wishing and praying that theirs will be the next target. Before long we’ll all be out hitting the shops. Getting a little of that cachet.