Summer of '81 - Babylon's Burning

SUMMER OF '81 - BABYLON'S BURNING

That week of July 1981 something very strange and bewildering was happening to Britain that was taking everybody by surprise. Nobody had foreseen riots of this nature occurring and nobody - particularly within politics - could offer any adequate explanation for them.

The inner cities had become so marginalised that for any of the major political parties or even any of the minor ones they were off the radar and weren't figuring in any of their visions. The revolutionary Left in particular was failing spectacularly to seize the moment and instead were standing idly by, at best simply seeing 'police brutality' as an issue to contend with. Stuck in a Marxist mindset of power being held only in a Union and on the shop floor - exercised by striking - the Left appeared oblivious to the power held within a community - exercised by rioting.

As to be expected, however, a chorus of voices on the Right ranging from Conservative MPs, newspaper columnists and Chief Constables (in particular Manchester's James Anderton) saw the riots as being politically motivated and nothing but; without hesitation casting blame upon the Communist Tendency, the Labour Party Young Socialists, the Militant Tendency, and even the leader of the Greater London Council, Ken Livingstone.

Perhaps Ken Livingstone was one of the four masked motorcyclists as reported in the Daily Mail that were being hunted by Special Branch - suspected of being responsible for fermenting the riots? If so, then Ken and his gang were being mighty busy and travelling a lot of miles for as soon as the rioting came to an end in Moss Side, Manchester; further rioting, looting, burning and mass confrontations with the police suddenly erupted in towns and cities all around the country.

In the Hyson Green area of Nottingham, hundreds of youths attacked police, fire-bombed vehicles and looted shops. "A man distributing leaflets calling for the downfall of 'Babylon' was arrested and it kicked off," said a former local police officer. "He and the arresting officer went through a shop window and that was it, within half an hour it was bedlam. We were being attacked with bottles, poles, concrete blocks, anything and everything."

In Sheffield a 500 strong crowd charged through the streets shouting "Brixton! Brixton!" There were 20 arrests and 14 police officers injured, with offices inside the Town Hall being damaged and the trees outside set alight.

In the Handsworth area of Birmingham there were 121 arrests and 40 police officers injured, with widespread damage being caused to property.

In Hull, 300 youths smashed windows and shops in the city centre.

Rioting was spreading like wildfire with further disorder erupting in Reading, Wolverhampton, Hull, Preston, Slough, Yorkshire, Bradford, Halifax, the Chapeltown area of Leeds, Huddersfield, Gloucestershire, Blackburn, Blackpool, Fleetwood, Highfields in Leicester, Southampton, Portsmouth, Luton, Derby, High Wycombe, Birkenhead, Aldershot, Chester, Knaresborough, Stockport, Maidstone, Crewe, as well as Bristol, Brixton and Southall again.

The sheer breadth and scale of the rioting was astounding.

England was in flames.

Babylon was burning.

Five years after the release of the Sex Pistols' début broadcast to the nation, the spirit of Anarchy In The UK was being made flesh through mass, violent attacks upon authority. Five years after John Rotten's brilliantly searing pronouncement of the word 'Destroy', riding out on an electric hurricane of scorching feedback, the country appeared to be finally doing as Rotten had bid.

"You have to destroy in order to create," the Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren had declared in response to his protégées being criticised for their destructive behaviour "You have to break it down and build it up again in a different form."

To give him his due, for a renowned bullshitter this was one of a number of statements McLaren made that actually rang true. This wasn't the first time, however, that the idea of the destructive urge being a creative urge had been cited, most notably having first been made years before by Russian arch godfather of anarchism, Mikhail Bakunin, from whom McLaren would have taken it.

Destruction could indeed be a potentially creative force due simply to the fact that it could open up and make way for any number of new possibilities, or at the very least create an atmosphere for change. In the case of the inner city rioters of that summer of 1981, the destruction being wrought was both an actual and symbolic attack upon the order of things. Violent assaults upon the police were violent assaults upon authority. Whether the rioters were conscious of it or not, chasing the police from the streets meant ridding the streets of State authority and State control.

The immediate effect of this, of course, meant the opportunity to loot but beyond this the further possibilities were potentially huge and far-reaching.

Could a community actually function properly without a police presence? Would the weaker and minority members of that community be protected? Would all the essential services be able still to operate as normal? Could this be a first step toward a genuinely free and progressive society?

If the answer to all this was 'Yes', then what would that mean for the structure of power within society? Could the world, in effect, be turned upside down?

Interestingly, during that same week of rioting, Crass had been touring and though encountering violence at their gigs had become nothing unusual, it was at a gig in Perth, in Scotland, that the violence appeared to come to a head. Years later, a recording of this particular gig would be released as a live album entitled You'll Ruin It For Everyone, capturing Penny Rimbaud arguing from the stage with one of the brawling audience members: "If you want anarchy, mate, go out on the street and start it. We're in here for our form of anarchy, you go outside for your form of anarchy - now fuck off out of it! Just look at what happened in London last night, mate, if you want anarchy and just you wait for it to come to you - and then you'll learn a little bit of what the word means, wise guy. Mouth and trousers, mate, will get you nowhere so fuck off out of it! Balls, you twat!"

Was Penny condemning the rioting? Was he suggesting a riot was something to be feared? Were Crass possibly out of touch with the inner cities when it came to the question of rioting? Or as pacifists, were they simply unhappy with the violence being unleashed? For the first time, Crass's position seemed suddenly to be quite ambiguous.

Margaret Thatcher, on the other hand, whilst insisting there was no excuse for the rioting (particularly as there was plenty of worthwhile work in local communities for wayward youths to expend their energies upon such as cutting grass and picking up litter) was shrewd enough to understand that this was a blatant display of anti-authoritarianism born from a breakdown in family values and a lack of respect for law and order.

Whether or not unemployment was a contributing factor to family breakdown was a debate for the sociologists but in pinpointing lack of discipline and lack of respect for law and order, Thatcher was perfectly correct. If there was any respect for the police then they wouldn't be getting bombarded with bricks and bottles. Obviously.

Further to this, Thatcher was also perfectly correct in talking of a lack of respect for authority in all its forms - in the home, the school, the church and the State. The difference being that for some this was a rather healthy thing but for Thatcher and her ilk it was the end of civilisation as they knew it.

As towns and cities throughout the country burned and tension everywhere escalated, police in Brixton once again displayed the by now expected stupidity from them by staging a series of raids upon premises in Railton Road, scene of the riot earlier in the year. Supposedly in search of caches of petrol bombs, police armed with axes and crowbars smashed their way into properties, causing widespread and wanton damage. No petrol bombs were found but unsurprisingly the result was the area once again erupting into rioting.

Then just as the spell of nationwide civil disorder had suddenly started, so did it suddenly stop. It was almost as though the rioters - wary of what exactly they were unleashing - were withdrawing to their homes to consider their next move. Only there wasn't a next move.

The rioters had raised their fists and had let out a collective roar, giving the police a good hiding and sending a shudder of fear down the spine of middle England. What was left was a wake of blustering conservative MPs and chiefs of police calling for detention camps, the return of the Riot Act, and the re-introduction of national service. Perhaps for most rioters this was enough?

In Liverpool, however, having suffered a high number of injuries and much humiliation, the police there were seemingly out for revenge as they continuously stopped and harassed youths for weeks after - particularly black youths. Lo and behold, rioting once again broke out in the Toxteth area though this time with a far deadlier and tragic result than previously.

Borrowing the tactics used to such effect in Moss Side, chief constable Kenneth Oxford ordered that police vans drive straight at the crowds so as to cause them to scatter. Anyone within the riot zone would have the very simple choices of dispersing, being arrested, or being hit by a police van. Kenneth Oxford had made the decision weeks earlier to use tear gas upon crowds of people (a decision that turned out to be an entirely illegal one), this time round he was following the example of Manchester's James Anderton and declaring war.

Although the Toxteth rioters had caused massive damage to property and countless injuries to police officers, they hadn't actually killed anyone. By following Kenneth Oxford's orders, the Merseyside police did.

David Moore, a twenty-three year old disabled man was struck by a police van and killed, his death marking the end of that summer's riots but also signalling something far more complex.

Thousands of different people had rioted that month for a thousand different reasons though between them all was a shared thread of unspoken commonality. Through the act of rioting they had all - every single one of them and if only for a moment - thrown off the yoke of ingrained subservience to a society and ultimately a world not of their making and become alive. They had breached a series of invisible but very real walls both within and without and entered into what Thatcher described as "a virtual saturnalia" but what could also be described as a realm of unadulterated freedom.

Rioting had proved to be a way of glimpsing and actually touching upon this freedom that throughout history the greatest of philosophers had agonised over. Just as Joe Strummer had stated years before in White Riot, rioting was potentially a way forward: "Are you taking over, or are you taking orders? Are you going backwards, or are you going forwards?" Remember?

A riot was not to be feared but applauded. It was a means to an end. A ticket to ride. From riot to...? Where? Insurrection? Revolution? Who knew? Who could say? But wherever it was, it was a place that those in authority wished to prevent people from reaching.

So it came to pass that the rioters of Toxteth were met by those intent on preserving the status quo at whatever cost and by any means necessary. The police were willing to use the most extreme measures - firstly tear gas, then threat of death, then actual murder - to have people stay in line and for things to stay exactly as they were.

David Moore paid with his life for the police to show that ultimately they would not buckle or allow the rioters to win and from that point on, England changed. The gloves were off. It was different rules now. The United Kingdom became polarised and the divisions within society became stark and clear, no better exemplified than by the royal wedding between Prince Charles Windsor and Diana Spencer held the very next day after David Moore's death.

And of the two events, it was the least important one, of course, that garnered all the attention...