In the news

Dear All,

I have read with intrigue, wonder and delight the developments so far....
and a great deal of nervousness.

You see I was a youth worker, for quite a while (six years) and then a
journalist, for 20. *My 'client group' was these 'thugs' these people who
hurled missiles and stones.
I became a journalist- for the BBC - in the days when they still ran reports
talking to single women about how they got pregnant to 'get council homes'
or actually funded me to interview slum dwellers in Kenya about how they saw
their housing options. And then, because I wanted to go deeper, after 20
years of hammering loudly on the media door (and knowing I can use those
platforms on behalf of people I know much more about than many other
journalists from different socio-economic backgrounds than my own) I started
a PhD, thinking maybe anthropology can 'help'.

I am from Peckham (I now live in Africa): I grew up in those streets. I ran
a (very small) youth club on North Peckham estate, working specifically with
media using techniques we developed doing peace and reconcilitation work in
Kayleitsha, South Africa. The tools we used to broker conversation between
the PAC and the ANC were the same ones we used with angry young men yielding
AK 47's, small weaponry, knives, in my own home area, SE15. *I argued with
Leroy (one of my favourite people) for two years about why 'white people'
wouldn't employ him and his friends, about how the world he knew, the
language he uses, automatically excludes him for multiple power structures,
forums, from 'being acceptable' to the establishment.

Now Leroy works as a 'consultant' for various youth projects- as a son of a
very big gang leader in Southwark, he absolutely knows, first hand, what
poverty and exclusion means. Leroy got me thinking- as did some of the
young, self harming, drug dependant single women I worked with- about what
it means to have 'no voice', no agency, not to connect, to feel so angry
that all you CAN do is riot- someone on this list mentioned the Penny Red
Blog- for me the comments attached to it remain the most pertinent,
invigorating and authentic I have read so far. See
http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/panic-on-streets-of-london.html?spref=fb
.
The bit in it that seems so real, and meaningful to me, having worked as a
youth worker, is this: "In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was
asked if rioting really achieved anything: *"Yes," said the young man. "You
wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you? Two months ago
we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was
peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a
bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
*

For me, the key issues remain- what does 'political agency and engagement'
actually mean- for those who resort to stealing trainers, knickers,
blackberries. How do actually put into practice some of the theories, the
knowledge, about how to lessen the divides, increase promotion and
visibility in the axis of power? Yes, I am fascinated as to why people
destroy Currys, nick phones (yet it seems obvious to me: we brandish these
things in the faces of people who don't have them, marks of desirability,
then are confused when they tell us they want them too! Billig, maybe is
pertinent here?)

I apologise for sounding thick: I am not at heart an academic. I am a youth
worker and journalist, who happens to be completing a PhD. And is lucky
enough to teach some classes to undergrads. I *can put names and
personalities to the people who burned, broke, pillaged and rampaged my home
town, my neighbourhood, the places where I have emotional and historical
investment and narratives. I want change, real change, and a chance for
those of who have weight, clout, security, safety and luxury of perspective
and social/emotional/political mobility, to make this change.

As an afterthought: I am also part of a the LSE alumni blogging network-
last week a call went out for people to set up new venture capital groups. I
rather innocently asked why they weren't thinking about social and ethical
enterprise venture capital, where wealth inequality is actually sanctioned
against- where equitable distribution was embedded into the fund. It was, of
course, met with total derision and hostility- yet this is PRECISELY what is
happening in certain investment areas in Sweden etc.... not so nuts
actually.

Please, can we keep looking outwards: not get so lost in conversations about
silencing, timing, our own procedures, that we forget that there are real
people, with real situations, and Hire Purchase loans and debts and mould in
their flats, and who have NEVER ever been out of their post code....

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for reading. Thembi Mutch (Ms, SOAS, University of London

An interesting read IMO