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The type of moralising and depoliticizing explanations given in the media cov-
erage js not unjque onjy to the 2011 riots. In his book Contemporary Issues in Pub-
/f P>isorder professor David Waddington researches public disorder in the Unites
j^ingdom over the period of 1981 to 1991. In it he writes: “The role of the media
lri pubhc disorder has been found to be consistent across different historical peri-
0<^s. geographical locations and types of disorder.”15 He goes on to argue that the
^edia are contributing to escalating conflict by not bringing attention to griev-
^nces of the participants, instead it is vihfying and dehumanizing them. The depo-
ticizing of events leads to more police repression, which in turn, leads to more
Unrest.16 Some commentators have even tried to claim that the riots in Brixton in
81 were pohtical while the 2011 riots were not. The ahistoricity of such a state-
,Tlent becomes clear when one discovers that even in 1981 the participants were
P°rtrayed as a rioting a-moral underclass only in pursuit of a new television.17
. Even many commentators on the left joined in these processes of depohti-
C1zing the events. Examples of this is Slavoj Zizek's article “Shophfters of the
"°rld unite” or Zygmunt Baumans article “Consumerism coming home to roost”
°ut ‘defective consumers’. Instead of seeing the events as insurrectional, as an
‘!ttack on an unjust society, they concentrate on a consumer analysis on looting.
1 the same instance they diminish the pohtical significance of the riots by stating
at only weh organised and structured social movements can bring about social
. ange.18 In his article “The hidden morale of the 2005 French and 2011 Enghsh
Tl°ts”, sociologist Ferdinand Sutterliity argued for a distinction between rioting and
pting, He confessed that Zizek and Bauman might explain some of the looting
',Vlth their theories, but their arguments are unsuitable for an overarching explana-
tory tnodel, they can’t explain why the riots started and why the main targets in
thr ■
be
e tiots were the police and their institutions. Furthermore, the looting could also
Seen as a consequence of the police concentrating their activity to protect their
°tcn institutions instead of containing the riots, thus territorial expansion of the
ri°ts were enabled, also riots can be seen as an adequate way (for participants) of
hr°longing and including more people into the riots, and finally the looting also at-
cts public attention to a greater degree. Therefore Sutterliity argues that looting
an be explained irrespective of more speculative theories of ‘defective consum-
s • Sutterluty agrees with the notion that riots can be seen as powerless sections
7 10av“d Waddington, Contemporary Issuesin Public Disorder, p. 175.
16 tbid, p. 1-2,176-177.
,T tilavid Lammy MP Reacts to The Tottenham Riots”,
lttP://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVEQFsjY7pY. Retrieved 16. August2015.
art>’ Angel, “Viewpoint: were the riots poliricai?”, p. 29-30.
H;
'8S1,
/shi
,0plifters-of-the-world-unite. Retrieved 16. August2015,
IPVunt Bauman, “Consumerism coming home to roost”, http://roarmag.org/2011/08/
^l&nunt-bauman-consumerism-coming-home-to-roost/. Retrieved 16. August 2015.
l erdinand Sutterliity, “The hidden morale of the 2005 French and 2011 English riots”, p. 43-45.
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