August Riots 2011

Rotterdam, Netherlands: Reflections and Report on the Nov. 19 Riots

Posted on 2021/11/25 by darknights

A comrade in the Netherlands has sent a first-hand report from last night’s extraordinary anti-police riots in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, which included Dutch police firing their guns into the crowd.

Some out-of-touch “leftists” have tried to dismiss these riots because they coincided with and/or overtook a protest called by the right wing against new government restrictions. However, something like last night’s youth uprising against police cannot be so simply reduced— as our writer makes clear.

I don’t know where to start writing about this. On the one hand I’m overtaken by emotion, still processing the things I witnessed last night. On the other hand I’m trying to make sense of what has happened from the perspective of someone who believes in social revolution. I don’t think the latter will be something that I can fit into this short, emotionally laden piece of text, but some things need to be said about this right now. What happened last night was so much more than the supposed “fascist riot” many are dismissing it as.

Last night a protest against the (renewed) Coronavirus measures was called. This protest was clearly initiated by people that should, for the most part, be called fascist. These protests draw a crowd much more diverse than just fascists, however, and the discontent is broadening, especially now that the state is imposing more and stricter repression to control the spread of the virus.

In all this time I had not seen a single sign related to the protest, not heard a single slogan, not seen a single banner. This was about a collective and widespread hate for the police. You could taste, smell and feel it on every single corner of that street that night.

Continue reading “Rotterdam, Netherlands: Reflections and Report on the Nov. 19 Riots” →

PDF: August 2011 Revolt – Anarchy in the UK

Posted on 2021/08/06 - 2021/08/09 by darknights

“Now a hostile minority of unmanageable and nihilistic ‘internal enemies’ stands against a society of consumers and citizens who have internalised the system and whose socialised group-think is an endless closed circuit of obedience (of course including the political Left, most “anarchists” and eco activists, in the UK at least).

In fact the August insurrection showed up the majority of UK “anarchists” and “revolutionaries” as cowardly citizens who though they like to whine and complain about the “evils” of the world, are fundamentally content as passive slaves. Currently most UK “anarchists” appear happily bitter simply tagging along behind state socialists and liberals as the impotent “good conscience’’ and/or the “rowdy margin’’ who wear black and use swear words. This is pathetic. Speaking the language of politics, of creating a reasonable and programmatic anarchist project, the result is an anarchism that’s neither fish nor fowl. Failing both as political pragmatics and as anarchic rebellion, civil anarchism limps along sadly. The idea that reasonable ideas of social transformation are what draw people to rebel is totally false, although it does draw leftists and liberals to the political philosophy “anarchism” who generally remain such though calling themselves anarchists. I have never had any non-political friends or acquaintances EVER be interested in the boring dribbling of “social anarchism‘’ but many who have been interested by anarchism as an extreme position of proud revolt. “Talking serious to the people”generally means churning out sub-leftist rhetoric thatfails as political leftism because it is unrealistic and fails as anarchic agitation because it doesn’t break with the certainties of society. Leftism has proved to be a social force for improving existing society in terms of the rate and conditions of exploitation, acting as a barrier to the excesses of the elite in highly industrialised and post-industrial societies, while acting as a vanguard of the capitalist mode of production in non-industrialised and semi-industrialised areas. Leftism (including leftist anarchism) is an expression of social struggle over the terms of social oppression. The point is to create insurrectional openings, lines of flight beyond normality that go beyond representation and mediation, which broaden the destruction necessary to free ourselves (or at least to satisfy our desire for revenge and moments of liberation).”

– ‘No Future, Just Vengeance’

PDF: August 2011 Revolt – Anarchy In The UK

London, UK : 2011 – 2021 ,10 years since the murder by cops of Mark Duggan

Posted on 2021/08/06 - 2021/08/06 by darknights

UK – The struggle against the existent continues

Thursday, August 4, 2011 Mark Duggan, a ‘real straight up and down respected man’ (words of London rapper, Chipmunk) from Tottenham in London, was blasted to death while on his way home in a cab by a mob of cops wielding Heckler & Koch MP5 carbines. 29 year old Mark, father of four young children, lived on the housing estate known as Broadwater Farm, a depressed predominantly Afro-Caribbean area. The area is infamous since the riot of 1985 after 49 year old Cynthia Jarrett collapsed and died of a heart attack as police raided her home. (During the riot a policeman, PC Blakelock, was hacked to death with a machete.) Today, in the words of a resident, ‘if you’re from Broadwater Farm, police are on you every day, you’re not allowed to come off the estate. If you come off the estate they follow you.’ They followed Mark Duggan and he ended up dead.

August 6 – The arrogance of the killers in uniform in the face of the protest by the victim’s family and supporters, plus the brutal attack on a 16 year old girl by police during the vigil was the last straw.

That night in Tottenham the police station was attacked, police cars set on fire, a double-decker bus ends up a twisted wreck after being engulfed in flames, press photographers are beaten and relieved of their equipment for the decades of lies they have propagated. Bank windows smashed. Countless shops looted, stuff thrown all over the streets. Young guys storm McDonald’s and start frying up burgers and chips. Indignant anger clears the brain, flushes out the cops in the head. Collective fury at this latest police murder combines with the daily bullying and humiliation of being stopped and searched, the moralising, the false promises, useless lives, no future, desire for status-affirming ‘needs’ unattainable due to increased taxes, unemployment and cutting of benefits, 4 million cameras, glaring security cops at the entrance to every store, the colonization of all remaining urban space by trendy bars filled with the noisy chatter of the carefree… that and much more that we don’t know and will never experience welled up and fueled the will to smash through the invisible and plate glass barriers that hold everything in place.

The hostages of the open prison, the young people of the ghettos of London, rise up and the capitalists’ nightmare finally materialises, as the last link in the consumer chain of submission snaps. It explodes into a free-for-all when, in a flash of illumination the solution to the existential dilemma is found: MUST HAVE/CAN’T HAVE = TAKE. It’s simple: learn and apply, possibly burning store to ashes on retreating.

The rioting escalates, scores more people come into the area responding to call outs on twitter to come up and fight the cops and loot shops. Over the following days it spreads to many other parts of London and onward towards other cities.

The rage also spreads beyond the main clashes in Nottingham, Manchester, Bristol, Gloucester, Liverpool, Birmingham. In many incidents the stories escape categorisation or quantification. One thing sure that is not reported and deliberately ignored is the chiefly anti-authoritarian flavour to the uprising, the government and corporations relentlessly branding the people ‘scum’, ‘thieves’ and other low simple catchphrases of demonisation. The failure in this to stop young people identifying with the uprising is obvious when it is seen how quickly the riots replicate and need little trigger to begin breaking the Queen’s peace. Mainstream media reporting becomes incredibly formulaic, and the bosses make mileage from their scenes of interest in reaching their political objectives, looping the same images over and over, overlaid with the stereotypical talking heads’ condemnation and reassurance.

The widespread disorder does not stop. The people who lost their fear go outside, collect themselves to attack and take as much as they can.

also read : Dark Matter Publications ‘August 2011 Revolt: Anarchy in the UK’ contains a rough chronology of events during the rebellion, and action communiques during the period from anarchist groups aiming to deepen and extend the conflict, as well as a couple of essays written after the main events analysing the nature of the revolt and prospects for the future.

Source: Act For Freedom Now!