Reading the Riot Act
2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 14; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14714787.2013.782156
ISSN1941-8361
Autores Tópico(s)Race, History, and American Society
ResumoAbstract This article explores some of the ways in which the act of rioting has been visualized, firstly within reggae music and secondly within the work of several black British artists. The article begins with a consideration of images of burning buildings that were captured during the course of the riots in England in the summer of 2011, before briefly discussing some of the pitfalls in the terminology and language of the ‘riot’. The article discusses the somewhat counter-cultural view of rioting as reflected in reggae music, and the profoundly empathetic view of rioters that is arguably advanced in the work of several key black British artists, across several generations. It argues that the works it discusses do much to shed light on why any given riot, involving black people, takes place. Keywords: riotingreggae musicblack British historyblack British artistsalbum covers Notes 1 As with a great many other riots, the riots that took place in certain English cities in the summer of 2011 were subject to all manner of theories by media pundits and others as to why they had happened. There was, however, one unavoidable truth: the riots started with a grievance, the central contributory factor being the shooting dead by armed police of Tottenham resident Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old black man, on August 4, 2011, in circumstances probably best described as unclear. Initially, rioting grew out of a palpable sense of frustration, on the part of certain people, because the community of Duggan's friends, family and neighbours had been unable to secure from the police adequate or satisfactory responses to their respectful and reasonable demands for some sort of immediate explanation. The atmosphere of questioning and suspicion was perhaps needlessly stoked by the familiar release of untruths and misinformation in the immediate wake of Duggan's death. Chief among these untruths was the claim, peddled by an obliging media, that Duggan was involved in some sort of shoot-out with the police. Believing themselves to be stonewalled, the anger of Duggan's community of friends, relations and neighbours turned to frustration, and out of this frustration grew random acts of destruction by certain individuals not necessarily connected with the spontaneous protest that erupted in the wake of Duggan's shooting. These random acts of arson quickly spread first through Tottenham, then through other areas of the capital, then through other areas of the country. The shooting of Mark Duggan is apparently the subject of several formal investigations and, to date, no definitive explanation has been forthcoming. 2 I make mention of mainland Britain, to distinguish such rioting from that which has taken/which takes place in the cities of Northern Ireland, Belfast and Derry, in which predominantly younger people from both sides of the sectarian divide have done battle with the police of the province. Within Britain itself, towns in the north of England have periodically witnessed rioting by Asian youth. According to Dominic Casciani, community affairs reporter, BBC News website, ‘In the summer of 2001, a number of northern towns in England erupted in violent clashes predominantly sparked by racial tensions, mixed, to some extent, with orchestrated rivalries between criminal gangs. ‘Oldham, Burnley and Bradford experienced violence which saw hundreds of young Asian men (Pakistani and Bangladeshi) take to the streets.’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5032166.stm (accessed May 25, 2012). 3 Mercer,: Welcome to the Jungle, 178. 4 Kettle and Hodges, Uprising! 5 Ibid., 10. 6 After the Riots: The Final Report of the Riots Communities and Victims Panel. The panel (whose members were Darra Singh OBE, Simon Marcus, Heather Rabbatts CBE and Maeve Sherlock OBE) released its report on March 28, 2012. 7 For more on John Martin, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/sep/08/john-martin-painting-the-apocalypse. 8 ‘Share the Riches’ appeared on several CDs by Jamaican reggae group Culture, including Culture: Chant Down Babylon, Crucial Roots Tunes, 1989–1999, Reggae Collectables label, 1999. 9 Quoted in Sivanandan, A Different Hunger. 10 Linton Kwesi Johnson, ‘All Wi Doin is Defendin’, from Dread Beat an’ Blood, the first long-playing record of poetry released by this British, Jamaican-born poet, then styling himself ‘Poet and the Roots’ (Front Line Records/Virgin Records, released in 1978). According to Wikipedia, ‘Johnson was the first person to accurately describe the situation of the black British youth in the inner cities in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This theme runs through most of the songs on this and his other albums but it particularly evident in the last vocal song on the album “All Wi Doin’ Is Defendin’” which it is remarkably prescient as it foresees the Brixton riot (1981) in some detail and justifies it before it had even happened. All media commentators and politicians were shocked by this event. Not Linton Kwesi Johnson. Lyrics include “Send in the riot squad quick because we're running wild” “All we need are bottles and bricks and sticks” and these were indeed the principal weapons used by the 1981 rioters. “All Wi Doin’ is Defendin’ so get ready for war!” for Johnson was correct in seeing the forthcoming riot as an essentially defensive act by the black youth of Brixton after years of victimisation by the police.’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dread_Beat_an%27_Blood (accessed June 4, 2012). 11 Linton Kwesi Johnson, ‘Bass Culture’, the title track of a long-playing record by Linton Kwesi Johnson (Island Records, 1980). In 1976, during the course of the annual Notting Hill Festival, violent street battles had erupted between black youth and the police in the vicinity of the carnival. But it was the rioting in St Paul's, Bristol, in 1980 (plus major eruptions the following year in Brixton and elsewhere) that emphatically declared the arrival of the dissatisfied urban-dwelling ghetto youth. These were heady days. These years, the late 1970s and early 1980s, made up one of the most politically, culturally and racially charged periods of black British history. 12 Solomos and Black, Race, Politics and Social Change, 81–2. 13 ‘Riots in England: The fire this time/The worst rioting in decades will cost the country more than money’, The Economist, August 13, 2011, http://www.economist.com/node/21525945 (accessed May 27, 2012). 14 Though others have laid claim to it, the phrase is said to have originated with H. ‘Rap’ Brown, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) national director, who coined the phrase when race riots erupted in the mid-1960s. See Dierenfield, The Civil Rights Movement, 166. 15 ‘77’ written by Michael Dan, Barry Ford and Winston Bennett and performed by Merger on the long-playing record Exiles in a Babylon (Sun Star Muzik, 1977). 16 Sheridan, Soul Rebel, 44. 17 Donald Rodney in conversation with Lubaina Himid, State of the Art, Illuminations Films, Channel 4, 1986. 18 A number of writers have attempted to detail various aspects of the cultural, social, economic and political relations of reggae, both in Jamaica and abroad and, importantly, including recent developments in reggae dancehall (in which the political subtexts are no less powerfully present in both commercial and ‘slack’ as well as so-called ‘conscious’ exponents – if possibly more ambivalently with respect to contemporary conditions). See for example, Potash, Reggae, Rasta, Revolution; Partridge, Dub in Babylon; Foster, Roots Rock Reggae; Bradley, Bass Culture. 19 Compelling evidence of this exists in the form of An England Story: The Culture of the MC in the UK 1984–2008, Soul Jazz Records, 2008. 20 Newsnight, August 12, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14513517 (accessed September 30, 2012). 21 One of the most celebrated songs on the album was ‘Slave Driver’, with its haunting music and pressing lyrics that located the plight of the Jamaican sufferer in the legacy of slavery: ‘Slave Driver, your table is turned. Catch a fire, you're gonna get burned.’ . 22 The portrait of Marley, in profile, on the record's back cover was from a photograph by Esther Anderson. The album design for Burnin’ was by Visualeyes. 23 http://www.bobmarleymagazine.com/2011/11/interview-with-tony-wright/ (accessed May 28, 2012). 24 Substantial publications on black British artists’ practice remain something of a rarity, but see, for example, Piper, Relocating the Remains, and Rodney, Doublethink. 25 The Times, January 16, 1987, quoted in Institute of Race Relations, Policing against Black People, 26. 26 The scene of Cynthia Jarrett's tragic death was memorably recreated by Kimathi Donkor, one of the artists discussed in this text, in his painting Madonna Metropolitan (2005, oil on linen, 152 x 152cm). Madonna Metropolitan depicted a collapsed and dying Cynthia Jarrett, being attended to by one of her distressed daughters, while all around them police officers continued to turn the domestic room upside down, in their search for heaven knows what. For good measure, one of the officers aggressively remonstrates with the daughter, jabbing his finger menacingly in her direction, even while life drains from the heart attack victim. 27 For a discussion of these ‘riots’, see Rose, A Climate of Fear. For more on the Broadwater Farm riots, see Dabydeen, Gilmore and Jones, eds, The Oxford Companion to Black British Culture, 71–2. 28 Ibid. 29 ‘No Woman No Cry’, written by V. Ford, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Natty Dread, Island Records, 1974. 30 Tam Joseph was not the only artist interested in these fractured and fractious urban environments. Mohamed Bourouissa, an Algerian-born photographer, has recently emerged as an image-maker whose locations draw heavily on la banlieue. Magali Jauffret, commenting on Bourouissa, noted that he was an artist ‘who has chosen to work on France's ghetto-like suburbs’. Jauffret, ‘The Suburbs as Visual Object’. 31 ‘Concrete Jungle’, written by Bob Marley, performed by the Wailers, Catch A Fire, Island Records, 1973. 32 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/28/newsid_2540000/2540397.stm (accessed May 25, 2012). 33 The Ministry of Truth was where Winston Smith, the main character in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, worked. In the book, it is described as an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete rising some 300 metres into the air, containing in excess of 3000 rooms above ground level. To emphasize the sinister and terror-laden function of the Ministry of Truth, on the outside wall of the building there appeared three slogans of the Party: ‘WAR IS PEACE’, ‘FREEDOM IS SLAVERY’ and ‘IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH’.
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