aftermath

I sat in the Korova Milk Bar this afternoon, sipping on a summer special, sweet but refreshing. Horrorschau was blaring from the speakers, Campino at his best. It was a bit surreal. The newspaper in front of me went on about the riots, but outside, droogs weren't roaming the streets anymore, ready to trade the menacing bricks and sticks in their hands for wide-screen TVs and shiny sneakers. The center of Clapham was nearly back to normal. It would be any old afternoon in a popular neighborhood, were it not for the charred shell of the burned-out Party Super Store that fell victim to the rioting mob.

The Waterstone's nearby looked as it did last month. It hasn't changed a bit. It was a bit disconcerting, in fact, to see the shop in all its glory in the middle of the riots, standing impregnable like a fortress though with its doors open, when around it the high street was burning. But the looters, the lice, the rotten scum couldn't care less about books. They knew exactly what they wanted. And so the riots were not primarily about destruction, and they were certainly not about grabbing essentials. What drove the rioters was consumerism. They went out to pick up vanity items, things to impress the neighbors with, or their peers. What we saw was capitalism in action but at the same time a perversion of capitalism. The rioters might have thought they were using the system against itself, but in reality they used it against themselves.

To residents, bystanders, the police and those on TV, it was just plain frightening. Nights of lawlessness, of chaos and anarchy were sustained by the compounded energy of unorganized crowds delirious with power and violence. As darkness fell, any hint of civilization evaporated. Granny didn't dare walk her poodle anymore, cautious people stayed inside, and off-licenses shuttered their windows, even when they all they were facing was perceived danger. But by Monday, fear had grabbed London.

By Tuesday, the wild energy was gone, as suddenly as it had burned up. I doubt that police or televised speeches had anything to do with it. It had simply been enough. The madness had fizzled out. London is not Karachi; even the wildest vandals saw that this couldn't go on. The devastated high streets, destroyed properties and ruined lives of small shopkeepers made that clear. It was their own front yard that the rioters had pissed on. But instead of making them clean up the mess and learn something in the process, society and the judicial system decided to mete out draconian sentences with scant consideration of the circumstances. Authorities seemed intent on emphasizing their victory by coming down hard on the other side. Thousands were detained and hastily brought before judges who almost instantaneous sentenced them – as harshly as possible, by popular will. It was time to set examples, to teach lessons.

When Boris, the circus clown masquerading for mayor of London, reluctantly came back from his vacation in Canada, he suggested that defendants found guilty be put to work in community payback schemes. I was shocked that something as obvious as this wouldn't be self-evident. It should be blatantly obviously that the only effective punishment for rioting kids can be community work, blistering hours of clearing rubbish, painting shop fronts, restocking shelves, trimming hedges, and cleaning parks. The kids might even pick up skills in the process.

What has happened instead are gung-ho courts sentencing a kid with no relevant previous convictions (whatever that means) who pleaded guilty of taking a £3.50 case of water from a Lidl to six months in prison. Another guy who pleaded guilty to having a looted flat-screen television in his car but had no previous convictions for offenses of dishonesty (again, this sounds he had some sort of a record, but the report doesn't elaborate) was jailed for 18 months. To me, this sounds vindictive and vengeful rather than just.

It gets worse. Two kids in Northwich Town and Warrington set up Facebook pages to stoke unrest and incite riots in their sleepy towns. One woke up the next morning, regretted his action and deleted the page. In either case, no one showed for the scheduled rioting. One week later, both kids have been sentenced for four years in prison. Four years for inciting riots that never took place!

One has to wonder where the proportionality is, especially considering that the dude who inflamed, before Parliament, a war that did take place and cost the lives of thousands is not only still free but also gives lectures on his experience for five-figure fees. The cohesion of society is certainly not served by such egregious double standards. Good thing that the rioting kids for the most part are not the kind to contemplate these issues. (They are content to stick their smelly feet into new trainers and collapse comatose in front of big TVs, numbing their brains on the X Factor and Big Brother.) Otherwise they might also wonder how stashing a looted TV in your car deserves the same prison term as fraudulently claiming £20,000 pounds in expenses, as David Chaytor, MP, did.

You might argue that rioting and looting are offenses on a different scale than bending the rules for expense reimbursement. You might say that riots cannot be dealt with harshly enough because their mere possibility threatens society at its core. But then you might also want to consider that mendacious and criminal members of parliament bring democracy into disrepute, something no less evil in a democratic society.

I hope I didn't go too far off track. I'm not excusing or condoning the horrors that happened. The rioters must be dealt with, there is no question. They must be punished, and punishments must be severe. But they must also be constructive, otherwise you're sending the wrong message. Some of the run-down estates probably deserve an injection of unexpected opportunities as much as the iron fist of the law.

In the milk bar, by the window, I slurped up my drink and leaved over to the next page in the Guardian. That was it for politics and national affairs. Culture and Arts was next, but I wasn't in the mood. I was happy listening to the Hosen for a little longer, then wrapped up my stuff and walked back to the train station, side-stepping the odd bit of broken glass and passing a few ply-boarded windows. The sun was out; it was a beautiful day.