SCUM: (adjective, urban dictionary) "possibly the worst word you can have your name associated with. It is hard to define the word, but it is basically used to describe someone so disgraceful that they are seen as the lowest form of life. "Worthlessness", "waste of skin", "dirt". Nothing. Far worse than most other insults, where the victim is often just referred to as genitalia.
I have literally lost count of the number of times I have seen people I like and respect calling the looters SCUM over the last few days. Since Monday, I have also seen huge numbers of people wanting to bring in the army on our streets for the first time in 100 years. I've seen people calling to take away all benefits of all the looters (yeah: more poverty: whatever the complex causes that is bound to help. Further, as a retrospective measure it would have zero deterrence effect.) Apparently 90% of those surveyed are behind calls for the use of water cannon (which can blind) and plastic bullets (that can and do kill). Cameron indeed confirmed both could be used this morning and said he would "ignore phoney concerns about human rights". I saw a trainee barrister saying "fuk their rights... the hospitals would have been full if I'd been in charge". I've seen calls for soldiers to shoot people on sight, without trial. I even actually last night saw a call from a young educated professional to "castrate looters and bring in adult euthanasia".
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| Watercannon at work: Stuttgart Railway Station Protests 2010 |
How little does it take - just four miserable days of arson and looting (in limited urban centres, directed almost exclusively at shops, not homes) in a still broadly stable, wealthy, developed country - for educated people to be calling for the use of State violence, for the suspense of the rule of law and for extra-judicial killing? Is this the Lord of the Flies? Did William Golding actually have British society pegged so correctly? How quickly would we be leaving in a truly authoritarian State if things were really bad? Look at history and suddenly understand how rapidily countries can descend into extremism.
I wish I could attribute the original tweeter, but what amazing words:
"Norway loses 92 children and suggests more democracy; we lose 12 JD sports and some Nandos and demand the army and rubber bullets".
We have all been angry, upset, confused, perhaps terrified for our loved ones and property the last few days. I get that, I share that. I went to bed on Monday feeling physically sick: I've friends all over London. But I utterly disagree with escalating the violence and using State brutality to restore "law and order". I also totally refuse to take away someone's entire humanity because of their criminal actions and reduce them to SCUM.
For the love of God, the looters out across Britain the last four nights were criminals. They were dangerous criminals, thoughtless criminals, reckless criminals, some maybe even murderous criminals. They are young people taking terrible choices, the consequences of which we all hope they will face. Deal with them according to the law as civilised societies do; don't lower yourself by adding to the existing violence by calling for our Police to become the killers and blinders of people, and by expressing your fear with the violent language of pure hate.
(While I'm on it, fellow lefties, Tories are not SCUM. I might utterly disagree with their policies and dislike some of the personalities, but they are not SCUM. Mrs Thatcher is not SCUM. The Police are not SCUM, nor are they "PIGS". Tony Blair is not SCUM whatever the debatable legality of his actions taking this country to war.)
Please think about your words and what they mean. They can be violent, they can create a reality. Do not diminish your own humanity by seeking to take away other people's. Think also of what you are so casually and glibly calling for. Think about what type of a country we want in the light of these events. An educated person, not even directly affected, who from his armchair actually proposes genital mutilation and/or death for someone stealing a plasma screen, or even for setting fire to a building is, to me, every bit as ugly and repulsive as the people holding our country in fear the last couple of nights.
Hold up a mirror when you say "shoot young people on sight without a trial: the SCUM" and just look at what *you* are in danger of becoming.
Update: the complex debate about the various causes of the looting continues. In the meantime this little clip from the BBC website on 3 November 2011 is just so interesting and depressing in a much wider societal sense.
Nice blog Peter. I enjoyed this and the last. All I would add is that some of the inflamed comments you have read are just as much in a minority as those out on streets of this country involved in disorder, arson and burglary.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant post, sums up my feelings exactly and I've shared on FB. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteHi, nice post. I read the Telegraph today praising Sarkozy for calling the rioters in the banlieues 'scum' in 2005. They expressed disappointment that our politicians wouldn't dare do the same, without mentioning how Sarkozy's remarks massively inflamed the problem and generally offended everyone.
ReplyDeleteI've also been saddened to read supposedly educated friends and family suggest that they would rather live in a dictatorship where citizens can be shot at will, without police being held accountable. What is most disappointing for me, is that the angry comments of some friends exactly mirror the kinds of attitudes that have contributed to the rioters' alienation in the first place. Talk about punching yourself in the face.
As The Daily Quail posted on Twitter today, "Why has no nobody ever realised before that the secret to a peaceful society is vigilantism and enforced homelessness?"
ReplyDeleteAnd Cameron today says whatever the tactics the police want to employ they will have legal backing for. Am I just being ultra wet liberal in thinking that this is a disturbing sort of principle?
Thank you for putting it so well, it's one of the things I was trying to get at yesterday (here, if you want to look: https://plus.google.com/110080440219090517400/posts/PR9HkqUkVvq)
ReplyDeleteIt honestly makes me so sad that people I believe to be rational human beings could stoop so low over so little. Stuff, in the grand scheme of things, is so unimportant: people matter!
Thank you for this. A little moderation is so desperately needed. The riots have been despicable but the distinction needs to be preserved between crimes against property and crimes against the person, for instance.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughts, Peter. I think we have to bear in mind that the violence we have seen in recent days has a context we as a society have yet to understand. This will sometimes lead people to react strongly in the lack of certainty
ReplyDeleteWe should definitely "think before we speak," to borrow the old phrase, as well as think before we bite back, too. Yet to avoid entering that same spiral of hateful and spiteful language, part of that self-control means we shouldn't always hold it against people for reacting or speaking in strong terms.
Brilliant post. I find the way that many people misinterpret any attempt to understand why this is happening as defending or even supporting the behaviour extremely frustrating.
ReplyDeleteWe need to understand the root causes if we are to stop this happening again, rather than react with retaliation & oppression
Thank you
Excellent blog. A sensible, rational response to extremist language although as a Magistrate, I'm concerned that we have no sanction against law breakers. We can't fine them (usually on benefits), can't sentence them to community service (usually on drugs or incapacity benefits) and we can't send to prison (they're full).
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what the answer is but we definitely need a more effective criminal justice system than the one we have now.
The police have been using water canons and plastic bullets on catholics in Northern Ireland for years without much opposition or outcry... even killed some with the latter I find it ironic that Hugh Orde advocates that these measures are not necesary for British policing... he didn't seem to have a problem in Northern Ireland? Is not Northern Ireland a proper part of the UK or is it one rule for the proper British rioters and another for the Irish nutters?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely agree. I'm in Manchester, and it beggars the imagination that I can be about two miles from the site of the Peterloo Massacre, and hear people talk about calling in the army.
ReplyDeleteLove the comparison between the response of Norway's political class and ours. Thanks for such a wide-ranging and considered post.
ReplyDeleteQuite possibly the most reasoned sensible piece I've read about all that has happened. I also agree with Bish, the system is failing everyone.. from those that believe in it to those that need to be dealt with by it.
ReplyDeleteI only partially agree.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I feel that you are taking the words of scared, angry people venting their feelings as expressing genuine intent.
Secondly, the principle of British law in relation to self defence states is that a proportionate use of force should be used. Hopefully normal policing methods will restore order, but if not methods have to be escalated. I really hope we don't have to use water cannons/rubber bullets and I'm proud that Britain hasn't resorted to such things (as I think many other countries would have done by now). However, I don't think things should be ruled out.
Thirdly, I also feel you very much downplay the effect on people with the sentence "just four miserable days of arson and looting (in limited urban centres, directed almost exclusively at shops, not homes)". Shops have owners (some of whom have been assaulted). People live around urban centres. People have been assaulted and injured, police officers and members of the public. The fact that looting seems to be confined to urban centres doesn't make people feel much safer.
I do agree that the causes of the rioting are complex - we obviously have a significant proportion of people who are left ostracised from normal social norms. The causes of this are probably rooted in poverty, family dynamics, economic downturn and many other things I don't understand.
However, what is needed first is a proportionate response to get the immediate situation under control. Only then can we attempt to address the reasons behind the rioting.
Only an observation.... nothing more... I make no judgements but it seems to be a matter of scrutiny. The police in London get a hard time from the media for everything (whether it's not responding fast enough or been too heavy-handed). They seem to get it no matter what they do?? The police in London (I hate that prefix but use it as a ploy) Derry get little scrutiny from the English media and they get away with murder... sometimes literally. I think it's all about perceptions.
ReplyDeleteJust an interesting aside: Napoleon used a canon (not the water variety) on rioters in France as a young captain and look where he ended up!!! There's nothing new under the sun!
Thank you for expressing some sanity, common sense and, above all, humanity
ReplyDeleteIt's reactionist nonsense, but from the majority of people it is just hyperbole. Most sensible right-winger wouldn't like to see people gunned down on the streets anymore than any sensible left-winger would.
ReplyDeleteI retain enough faith in humanity not to blow peoples words out of proportion and suggest that people are actually calling for murder in response to criminality. I don't agree with the fact you're presenting peoples words as though they're representative of an actual intent.
Your faith in humanity I fear is misplaced. the first step in committing mass murder or genocide is to dehumanize the target. Then it is not murder but eradication of a problem... like lice or vermin. Learn from history my friend every great act of evil starts with hyperbole... or to the informed propaganda.
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU for being someone who stops for a short while and offers some rational thoughts on what is, quite frankly, a frightening and unprecedented chain of events. The sheer scale of this highlights to me that there's something fundamental that needs addressing and analysing*; when this many law-breaking idiots are rampaging in the streets of our major cities at the same time, there's more to it than 'just' a bunch of opportunistic thugs jumping on a bandwagon**.
ReplyDeleteThe more sensible commentators on this (yourself included) are the ones who are pointing out a distinction between justice (stop the rioting/looting and dealing with those responsible in accordance with the law) and simply retaliating.
I hope the politicians and police realise this. The comments above are encouraging; not all of them agree of course, but it's a problem that doesn't have easy answers. I wish I knew what those answers are as well.
*punishing the rioters is I think the second most important thing. Keeping their victims safe from harm is the first. I don't envy the job of the police, because their currently-shaky reputation is making it an even finer balancing act.
**as the old saying goes, "if poverty is the mother of crime then stupidity is the father." Stupidity is part of the human condition, sadly, so yes: we need to remember the rioters are still human beings.
Great post.
ReplyDeleteBut we have now lost 4 people so far, and those lives count. It's not just a numbers game.
What an elegantly written and unusually thoughtful blog entry! It contained certainly some of the best commentary on the recent disturbances occurring across the UK. It's true: some of the rhetoric being spouted by the supposedly tolerant and well-educated Brits has been truly astounding. Like you Peter, I share a sense of anger and shame surrounding the criminal actions, but what I cannot condone is the effort on a large part of mainstream British people to characterise the looters and rioters as the Other, specifically the dark-skinned Other, and to go even further and animalise them. I find it truly bizarre that many of these people refuse to recognise these rioters as the products of British society and culture. As you note Peter, there have been warning signs of serious social and cultural breakdown in the UK for decades. There are various phenomena that seem to me to be strongly related with these riots: there's the British binge-drinking phenomenon, the spate of knife crimes in various parts of the UK, the generally nasty behaviour of young Brits abroad, and a plethora of other examples of the loss of a consensus on social norms. But these riots occur in urban areas, and all of a sudden it becomes a problem of "sick sectors" of British society, the children of dark-skinned immigrants, or mothers with lose morals, ad nauseum. As you suggest, the causes are far more complex, but they have to do with deep issues within the general British social and cultural fabric. Anyway, thanks Peter for posting this.
ReplyDeleteIt's ridiculous for you to suggest that people with hyperbolic, reactionist views to the riots are unknowingly propagating some kind of genocide- they're not.
ReplyDeleteA large percentage of the populous are rightly outraged at this thoughtless destruction of property and they're responding with words- intentions are dangerous, words are not- and you're misrepresenting peoples words as intentions.
I don't agree with what these people are saying anymore than you do but I think it's worth bearing in mind that people articulate their anger with hyperbole.
James 3
ReplyDeleteTaming the Tongue
1 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
James - Fabulous, fabulous book. :o))
ReplyDeleteI will concede a point (slightly). I used to say to friends "I can't do that because my Dad will kill me". He never did nor as far as I know has plans to do so. We do use our wonderful language in odd ways sometimes. However, whilst many comments may have been similarly intentioned, during such a time of unrest the sheer volume of posts "could" assist in exciting those easily led astray.
Peter, as always sum up what so many of us are thinking and with such eloquence.
ReplyDeleteThank you Peter, amazing.
ReplyDeleteWhile I understand where you are coming from I would just like to say that while it is shops that are being targeted not homes that does not mean lives are not being destroyed. I run a shop that was looted. I spent most of Tuesday crying because a year of hard work was ruined by these people in one night for no reason. I have done nothing to them, I'm not particularly wealthy. I just work hard to get by.
ReplyDeleteMy shop is part of a company. We have support. When we're closed we will still be paid. There are many family run businesses around us who could lose everything because of this. Just because they aren't targeting houses, though homes have been destroyed, does not mean they have not violated people in the most horrendous way and taken so much from them.
The people who are calling for increased measures are not doing it, I believe, to strip anyone else of their rights or humanity. They are people who are terrified. They are looking at their communities which are being ripped apart by a small group of people who don't seem to care about anything but their own materialistic gain and the destruction of everything around them. For those calling for greater force it seems like the only way, they have seen 4 nights of this and they don't want any more. To them, cracking down on it is the only solution that might work, which I can understand. The people committing these crimes speak only through violence, destruction and intimidation so I can understand why people would believe this is the only response they will understand.
As I stood in my shop and looked at the smashed glass, empty walls and stands and stock covering the floor trodden on all completely destroyed, I began to cry and asked my colleague what kind of vile animal would do this. At that moment I viewed the people who did this as scum because I work very hard. I don't make a massive amount but I put my heart and soul into my work because I am proud of it. I don't know why they broke in and ransacked my shop, I doubt I ever will. I doubt any reason would take away the hurt they have caused anyway.
I don't want to see anyone get hurt. I don't want to see anyone lose their rights. However I think those who are abiding by the law should be protected from those who seek to harm them.
Also re: comparing this incident to the Norway massacre. That horrific crime was carried out by one extremist man who clearly set out his beliefs and reasons behind his actions. It was a purely political act hence the people calling for more democracy. They wanted to defy this person.
ReplyDeleteWhile we apparently lost "12 JD sports and some Nandos", (which is demeaning and hurtful to the hundreds of shop owners and workers whose places of work have been ruined to say the least). There has been no reasoning for this. Nobody has given any cause, no spokesperson has come forward to explain why these people are so aggrieved. To the vast majority this is merely violence and destruction for the sake of it. That's why nobody is calling for more openness and democracy. If I thought even one person who had destroyed my shop wanted to talk to me about why they did it I would happily sit down with them and try to understand why they did what they did. I really doubt that will happen.
maybe you do not have to live with these people down in Suffolk, but 7 days a week 365 days a year some of us have to live with these people. And let me tell you its not nice. come try it and then talk.
ReplyDeleteI am proud of the wonderful friends I have. So far none of them has suggested we should resort to violence or suspend due process in any way. They have been as shocked and horrified but have tried to understand what is going on and to deal with it in appropriate ways. Wde are the people using twitter to cleanup the debris. I have wonderful friends.
ReplyDeleteIf your blog convinces even one of the people who want to revert to canibalism (metaphorically) then it will be a great thing. Well done.
Comedynerd: thank you for your thoughtful comments. There is no "political act" behind this as far as anyone can tell beyond "you have something I want so I'll take it or destroy it".
ReplyDeleteI did not mean to belittle anyone's loss in having their business destroyed and apologise if it came across as much. I simply wanted to highlight how fast the angry authoritarian backlash has been and can only extrapolate where that would go if homes *were* attacked. The hyperbole, anger and language is understandable - I just do not believe it helps or is right.
The calmness and attitude you demonstrate is a credit to anyone affected by these events and gives me faith that many people will not surrender to mob mentality. I wholeheartedly agree people need to be protected against this: we all agree that and it seems the Police, with traditional methods but greater numbers, are actually now doing a fine job of it.
Thank you, and others, for having read and commented.
The tweet may have been by @thelifeofbella? http://twitter.com/?from=emailheader&iid=am-156194753213101624585462694&nid=4&uid=21897739#!/thelifeofbella/status/103550556492136448
ReplyDeleteThank you, great post by the way!
ReplyDelete