The Post Bag: Letters To Squall

To Rave Or Riot

Squall 12, Spring 1996, pg. 62.

Dear Squall,

Congratulations on another excellent issue (#11). However, there were two things about it that bothered me.

The first was the short news piece, “Travellers’ Tax Relief”, which stated that “Environmentalists are concerned that the Government’s keenness to save classic car owners the £156, will also lead to people driving clapped out, exhaust billowing cars.” Any “Environmentalist” worth their salt knows that the greatest pollution arising from cars comes from their production and disposal, not their use - the emissions from “clapped out, exhaust billowing cars”. In this sense, the production of new cars is far more worrying than the use of old ones. (Check the report by the Heidelberg Environment and Forecasting Institute - Guardian 30/7/93 - if you don’t believe me.)

The need to reuse, rather than recycle, applies to this commodity as much as any other. Why do you think the car manufacturers are so keen on promoting the “recyclability” of the new generation of cars? It might ultimately enable them to kill off the used car market, meaning that they could carry on producing new ones with less competition, instead of milking every last drop of use for the old ones (see Simon Fairlie’s ‘Long Distance, Short Life: Why Big Business Favours Recycling’ - The Ecologist November 1992.)

Second, the long article on Luton’s Exodus Collective, “To Rave or To Riot?”. While I have a lot of time for Exodus and their achievements, I also have serious reservations about the kind of views expressed in this article. Not long after reading SQUALL #11, I came across the following snippet, which casts an ironic light on the tone of “To Rave or To Riot”:

Musical Truck Plays For Riots’ - A South African company is selling an anti-riot vehicle that plays disco music through a loudspeaker to soothe the nerves of would be troublemakers. The vehicle already bought by one black nation, which the company did not identify, also carries a water cannon and tear gas.” (Associated Press 23/9/86.) Ring any bells? This is exactly Exodus’ function, as described by you - basically acting as unpaid auxiliaries to police crowd control methods - and this fact is celebrated (!) by your article.

Jim Carey is described as having discovered “how the Lutonites danced off the disturbance” - the implication being that the dancing was more ‘positive’ and constructive than the seeming senseless nihilism of the “disturbance”. What it seems to boil down to is the same old tired pleas for more youth facilities (youth clubs, sports grounds, raves, whatever) ritually voiced by all shades of the political spectrum after such incidents. “Boredom is at the root of it all,” they cry. “If only they had some nice healthy outlets - like sport, or dancing (or even the illusion of their own independence to turn their energies to...) I was disappointed to hear SQUALL joining in this chorus. Don’t you get it? Boredom - and the marketing of distractions from that boredom - is endemic to this society. What happens after the dancing? Is the social war over? The Collective say a dance was intended to “alleviate the tension”. Is that tension not prevalent day in day out, riot or no riot? Where does it come from? Shall we dance all the time too, to try and ward off the tension?

This issue of SQUALL, as with every other, is replete with examples of ways in which working within the system does not work. Exodus should know this better than most - as exhaustively documented in past SQUALLs, they have been subjected to more persecution, and had more absurd obstacles thrown in their path, than perhaps any other similar group in the UK. And yet still they insist on being “Massive but Passive”. Look at the McLibel trial account, the trouble Tinker’s Bubble face, Holtsfield, Wally Hope (eventually killed for his efforts) - all featured in this SQUALL, all examples of huge injustice. The conclusion seems pretty clear to me; social change - a final end to such injustices - cannot be obtained within this system. At best, only diluted change is allowed - that which does not threaten the system’s fundamental terms of reference. To attain the level of change necessary to deliver us from the crisis we find ourselves in, the system must be overturned, not accommodated to. It seems inevitable that this will involve violence - but that is not to say that I think the Luton “disturbances” are necessarily a good example, nor that I think Exodus are worthless. There is a burning need to build up positive alternatives/sensibilities (a la Exodus), the new within the shell of the old - but there is also a burning (excuse the pun) need for disturbances.

If we are to extricate ourselves from the hell of the late 20th century, the two must go hand in hand - not one going hand in hand with their persecutors, the police.

After the recent Bradford riots, concerns were expressed over the perceived gap between the older and younger generations in the Asian community. Whether or not this is the case is to extent beside the point - these concerns were raised in part because the police found themselves with no one to talk to. They are accustomed to approaching “community leaders” for help in defusing the situation. As “To Rave or To Riot”, makes pretty clear, Exodus fill this gap in Luton (and if only the police ‘were sensible’ about it, it would all work out very comfortably). Exodus are, or could be, mediators between the police and an otherwise worryingly, uncontrollable younger population. Why do you think the police always ask who your spokesperson/leader is on demos? They want someone, as Thatcher said of Gorbachev, who they can “do business with”.

Yours sincerely,

Emile Henry

Jim Carey replies:

SQUALL received a lot of valid feedback from people who thought that stopping a riot was a bad idea. But the power of Exodus’ initiative that Saturday night has to be viewed in the context of both the riots and Exodus’ history in Bedfordshire.

Firstly, the looting of off-licences led to an increase in the number of pissed angry people rather than just angry people. Consequently the riot deteriorated into the indiscriminate burning of local schools and community centres. This is the point at which many local residents began losing sympathy with the rioters.

The media concentrated almost exclusively on these developments, avoiding the lessons and presenting a justification for the heavy-handed police response. The police tactics undoubtedly played a big part in firing up the violence; pouring petrol on a small fire. The article was in some ways an attempt to redress these wide of the mark conclusions.

If Exodus had thrown a party simply to diffuse the riot, it would have been less remarkable. However, Exodus organise parties with political purpose, where the celebration of freedom on a Saturday night is not a forgotten battle on Monday morning. Their ability to redirect social frustration into constructive community initiatives is proven by their incredible track record.

When I interviewed Luton Borough Council’s head of PR after the riots, I persisted with attempts to get him to address Exodus’s initiatives, as they seemed to be providing solutions to the problems he himself identified. His interest was solely in talking up Luton Council’s initiatives to provide the “sports facilities” etc. to which you refer in your letter.

When Luton Borough Council tried to organise their own rave, 15 people showed up. They just aren’t ‘avin’ it. It seemed to me that part of the local council’s reluctance to acknowledge Exodus is based on their desire to keep control.

If there’s any regrets I have about the article, it concerns the sub headline. Given the opportunity to write it again, I would prefer “Jim Carey discovers how the Lutonites redirected the disturbance through dance” rather that just “danced it off”.

Dancing is tribal, powerful, energising, communal and celebrationary. As such it is a modern form of freedom politics. In 1993, twenty core Exodus rave organisers were banged up in Luton Police station on the night of a dance. In a remarkable non-violent protest, 4000 people surrounded the police station, refusing to move until the release of prisoners and equipment had been negotiated.

It scared police to the max and it is interesting to note that one of the few demonstrators arrested for instigating trouble turned out to be an undercover cop from a neighbouring constabulary. What was the point of his activities other than to engineer an excuse for his riot police colleagues to come wading in with truncheons? Extraordinary discipline displayed by the demonstrators sent shock waves throughout local officialdom and increased local and national respect for Exodus’ stance. As a result of this and other stand offs, the plotting powers of official control are losing their previously assured grip on local politics; as such the voice of the community is at last emerging from the smother of vested political interests.

All power then to these freedom fighters, the effectiveness of their non-violent but confrontational stance, and the political changes they have brought about in ways that throwing a molotoff cocktail are unlikely to achieve. I support them with my pen, because my eyes witness their success.