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...

The Moss Side Riot

THE MOSS SIDE RIOT

Centering initially on an area around a local after-hours drinking club called The Nile, the rioting in Moss Side, Manchester, started with shops being bricked and set alight. It wasn't, however, done on a whim. Just as in other cities around the UK, tension had been simmering within the local community for some time, stoked by high unemployment and police hostility. This sudden outburst of disorder was put down relatively quickly by the police but the smell of burning buildings and the noise of the rioting acted as a message that drifted far and wide. Everyone knew that further trouble was brewing and in anticipation of more potential disorder the shopping centre was closed down earlier than normal the next day.

In a hastily convened meeting between community leaders and police, it was decided to keep the police presence to a minimum so as not to cause unnecessary antagonism and to enable community leaders to maintain calm within their communities. The fallacy of 'community leaders' was immediately exposed that night, however, when a crowd reported to be a thousand strong made their way to the local police station with the intention of razing it to the ground.

As the station was bombarded with bricks and bottles, smashing all the windows and destroying the parked-up police cars, the officers sheltering inside frantically called for help. A fleet of police vans duly raced to the scene causing the mob to abandon their goal though by then the fuse had irretrievably been lit and everyone simply headed back into the centre where the will to riot continued.

Shops were attacked and looted, fires started and cars overturned as police desperately attempted to contain the rioting. The disorder continued throughout the night before slowly ebbing away by dawn as the tired rioters withdrew to their homes.

Incensed at the attack upon one of his police stations and seeing the rioting as "close to anarchy", Manchester's chief constable James Anderton reversed his 'softly, softly' approach and instead went on the attack himself, the next day practically declaring war upon the rioters.

Adopting tactics tried and tested by the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland, police vans with their back doors open charged directly at the crowds causing them to disperse in all directions. Officers then jumped from the vans, hitting out and arresting any stragglers. The vans then continued through Moss Side, with officers leaning out and shouting abuse at youths and inviting them to fight. Strangely, one of the chants police were later accused of making towards black youths was "Nigger, nigger, nigger - Oi, oi, oi!".

From skinheads in Southall to police in Moss Side, it seemed to be just a very small leap.

Though criticised as a being a police riot, the uncompromising tactics brought an end to the disturbances and apart from another attempted, small-scale attack upon the same police station again the next day which was repelled by a superior force of police, the Moss Side riots came to an end.

The Toxteth Riot

THE TOXTETH RIOT

By sheer coincidence (or perhaps not - who knows?) that very same night as Southall in London burned, a black youth on a motorbike was being chased by police through the streets of Toxteth, in Liverpool. After falling from the bike, a crowd of other black youths grabbed and pulled him away before he could be arrested. A stand off between the youths and the police ensued, escalating into hand-to-hand fighting and brick throwing that went on for more than two hours into the night before ebbing away.

The following evening an anonymous phone call to the police reporting a stolen car lured officers back into Toxteth where they were greeted by a hail of bricks and bottles. Vans of police sped to the scene as back-up only to met by more missiles along with petrol bombs thrown by masked youths.

As in Bristol and Brixton, cars were overturned and set ablaze as shops were burned and looted. The violence raged throughout the night only to be finally quelled early the following morning by large numbers of police charging en masse at the rioters with their batons flailing.

The events of these two nights, however, were only really a warm up as the word quickly spread and by the next evening there were even more people willing, able and up for a riot.

That night, all hell broke loose.

As rioting once again erupted in Toxteth, just about every kind of missile imaginable was rained down upon the police lines, thrown by hundreds of youths both black and white.

Spiked railing posts and scaffolding poles were hurled like javelins and thrust at the police riot shields. Stolen and hi-jacked milk floats, cars, a fire engine and even a cement mixer were driven straight at the police. A fire hose being used against the rioters by the police was seized and turned back upon the officers themselves. Snatched riot shields and police helmets were held aloft like trophies. The local Liverpool establishment's private drinking club, frequented by top solicitors and bankers of the city was razed to the ground. 
"Cars had their accelerator pedals tied down, the cars set on fire, then driven straight at the police lines," recalled a former police officer "I remember javelins being thrown. I remember a school being broken into, and javelins being taken out of the school sports cupboard and being thrown at the police cars."

Faced with such a ferocious onslaught, the police once again - as in Bristol - decided to retreat for their own safety and in doing so abandoned the area to the mob. The situation as to be expected was taken full advantage of as whole families from very young children to grandparents joined in the free-for-all, stripping the shops of anything that could be carried away.

Police reinforcements from all the neighbouring counties were called in as support but still the rioting continued and buildings burned. Finally, recognising the riot was totally out of control and that his men were continuing to be seriously injured, Merseyside's chief constable Kenneth Oxford made a hugely controversial and historic decision: for the first time on mainland Britain, CS teargas would be used against crowds of people.

As fire threatened to engulf a local geriatric hospital, rioters pulled back to allow the building to be safely evacuated. Taking advantage of this sudden lull in the rioting, Kenneth Oxford called forward his police marksmen who immediately positioned themselves to shoot a volley of CS gas cannisters at the crowds.

The introduction of this new weapon had the immediate and desired effect of scattering the rioters, bringing an end to a riot of such unprecedented scale that it left Liverpool city council in a state of fright and requesting that troops be put on standby in case of further trouble. The request was denied but sure enough, the very next day rioting kicked off once again in the same area only to be put down quickly by the police in a massive show of strength.

Straightaway, arguments flew, accusations made and blame cast as to what was the cause of the Toxteth riots. To the Labour Opposition and general critics of the Conservative government it was proof that Thatcher's economic policies were causing social breakdown and violence. For some, high unemployment was to blame while others saw the riots as a reaction to police brutality and racial discrimination. Echoing the aftermath of the Brixton riot, the police suggested the Toxteth riots may well have been orchestrated by outsiders, conspirators and agitators though once again no actual proof was proffered to substantiate this.

"We were set up." said Kenneth Oxford "I blame a small group of criminal hooligans who were hell-bent to provoke the police into a situation that would give them an opportunity to attack what is visibly a symbol of authority."

All well and good but then, before the dust had even settled in Merseyside and to the shock and bewilderment of many, Moss Side in Manchester suddenly erupted into rioting too...

The Southall Riot

THE SOUTHALL RIOT

Away from Stonehenge during that summer of 1981, a tour was about to take place featuring the so-called cream of the current Punk crop. Given the name 'Apocalypse Now', the nationwide series of gigs would be a showcase for The Exploited, Discharge, Anti-Pasti, and Chron Gen; offering an ideal opportunity for fans to see all these bands in one fell swoop.

Touted as the Eighties equivalent of the Sex Pistols' 'Anarchy' tour, the gigs were to pass (unlike said Anarchy tour) without any major incidents, bannings or cancellations but served effectively to underline just how different this second wave of Punk was to the first wave.

This new wave of new Punk was appealing almost exclusively to working class teenagers and was shorn of any pretensions of artiness or musical sophistication. Musically it was far faster, more brutal and much more political than anything that had gone before. This was Punk born from, baptised in and influenced by nothing else but Punk. As Gene October of old school Punk band Chelsea observed: this was the real hard stuff.

To most music journalists it was inexplicable. Punk was growing ever more popular with even the most derivative of bands attracting large audiences to their gigs and selling huge numbers of records. Only one journalist out of all the music newspapers would champion, support and promote this second generation of Punk and that was Garry Bushell of Sounds newspaper.

Though ultra-critical and damning of Crass and Discharge, Bushell was an ardent enthusiast for what was then being styled as 'street Punk'. Conscious of the failure of The Clash to live up to their aspirations, Bushell had turned his attention upon Clash-inspired bands such as Sham 69, Menace, and the UK Subs before focussing on the bands that those very groups themselves were inspiring.

Bushell was a very good writer and soon gained a position of prominence within Sounds, becoming the main features editor; giving him carte blanche to write of the music and bands he clearly loved. To emphasise the difference between this new breed of Punk bands and their predecessors, Bushell began categorising and labelling them according to each style of Punk he judged them to be playing.

Oi! was initially an umbrella name given to cover a large part of this new Punk scene but quickly came to define just the Cockney Rejects branch where the bands dressed in casual skinhead garb and played a type of Punk Rock not unlike that of Sham 69 at their stomping best.

Bushell (like Crass) was in a powerful and influential position with thousands of readers hanging onto his every word. A good review from him or even just a short mention could introduce a band to a huge audience so it was no surprise that very few bands initially objected to being labelled Oi!. A slight problem for some, however, was that this audience comprised a large number of skinheads and with them came the skinhead baggage of violence, machismo, and Right-wing politics.

Fighting with skinheads at gigs was a commonplace occurrence but it was at a gig in Southall, west London, featuring three leading Oi! bands - The Business, Last Resort, and The 4-Skins - that gig-related violence suddenly escalated beyond what anyone thought might be possible.

As fans of the bands started arriving into the area for the gig, almost inevitably trouble started between some of the skinheads and the local Asian residents. Seeing the concert as nothing less than a skinhead invasion of their community, hundreds of Asian youths descended upon the venue to do battle with them.

To keep the two sides apart, police threw a cordon around the venue but in the eyes of the Asians this was simply the police giving protection to the skinhead invaders. From the odd brick and bottle being thrown at the police line, the situation escalated into a full scale riot with Molotov cocktails being thrown at the venue causing those inside to evacuate and for the venue to be eventually burnt down.

In as much as the skinheads were the initial target of the violence, the police quickly took their place with over sixty of them in the end being injured. A photograph of a burnt-out van (belonging to The Business) outside the burning venue was to later become an iconic image.

The media backlash against Oi! was immediate and breathtaking, with many of the bands associated with it being falsely labelled as Nazis, and Garry Bushell (along with Sounds editor Alan Lewis) as being culpable.

Bushell, if anything, was guilty of playing with fire and starting a blaze. Everybody knew that the skinhead image was a violent one and that there was a seam of Right-wing extremism running through the skinhead ranks. Everybody knew that teenagers adopting skinhead as a new fashion were going to adopt the image wholesale, taking on all its traits be they good or bad. Bushell and co were doing very little to challenge any of the most negative of these traits, allowing a propensity for violence, homophobia, machismo and - to a certain extent - racism to flourish unchecked.

At Southall all these chickens came home to roost, dealing a near fatal, knock-out blow to what was potentially a very powerful vehicle for young, working class frustration and protest...

Maze

MAZE

There was a sense of newsiness about Crass that was very unique to them. A sense of being very on the ball and of being very up to date on worldly matters. So much so, in fact, that people were looking to Crass to interpret not only the news but the world itself. People trusted them and had a lot of faith in their interpretation and understanding of what was going on and how the world was - and the possibility of there being something that could be done about it.

Whether it was a conscious decision or not, their album Penis Envy was Crass almost reinventing themselves and presenting a credible interpretation of the world through the eyes of woman. The world, however, was changing fast and in Britain events were taking place that anyone working in the medium of music would find impossible to keep pace with let alone report on.

In a bid to gain special category and political prisoner status, Irish Republican prisoners being held within the H-Blocks of the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland had been conducting a 'dirty protest' consisting of smashing up furniture, refusing to wash, shave or wear clothes, and smearing their own excrement over the walls of their cells.

Upping the ante further, a hunger strike was started by the IRA leader in the Maze, Bobby Sands. At the same time, Sands stood from jail as a candidate in a local by-election which if he won would make him a Member of Parliament. Despite all the best efforts of the British authorities to prevent this happening, Sands did indeed win the parliamentary seat, leading to news headlines around the world.

Other governments, newspaper editorials and protest marches came out in support of him, demanding that Thatcher relent and grant Sands and other IRA prisoners political status. She refused. The Iron Lady was not for turning, choosing instead to face down all her opponents. To Thatcher, the Republican prisoners were terrorists, murderers and just plain criminals and in no way were their crimes political.

Bobby Sands MP died on Tuesday 5th of May 1981, his death provoking large-scale rioting in Londonderry and Belfast. More significantly, however, from that date on Thatcher became the IRA's top target for assassination.

None of this, of course, was touched upon by Crass in Penis Envy, nor, to be fair by any other Punk band in their recordings. Crass instead were singing of love - albeit the politics of love - but in doing so giving much credence to the oft quoted words of Belgian Situationist, Raoul Vaneigem:

"People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraint - such people have a corpse in their mouth."

The Brixton Riot

THE BRIXTON RIOT

By 1981, if the communities within the inner cities weren't already potential time-bombs waiting to explode, they certainly were after suffering two years of Thatcherism and increasing police prejudice.

Racial tensions in London were further stoked when a fire took place at a house in New Cross, leaving 13 young black people dead. Family members, friends and neighbours all felt the police simply weren't doing enough to establish what the cause of the fire was, particularly after it was suggested it may have been arson perpetuated by racists. In any other circumstances the deaths would have been considered a national tragedy but the event went hardly acknowledged by the authorities. In any other circumstances The Queen would have typically sent a message of condolence but instead there was silence. It seemed to the black community that if the victims had been white, perhaps the police and the media would have been more sympathetic and taken the incident more seriously.

As an expression of dissatisfaction and protest against the apathy as shown by the police and authorities regarding the deaths, a Black People's Day of Action was held and up to 20,000 people marched from the borough of Lewisham to central London; chanting and bearing placards with the words 'Thirteen dead, Nothing said'. The march was noisy but peaceful and viewed as a symbolically significant moment for Britain's black community for this was the first time they had ever amassed on the streets in such numbers. The next day's papers, however, depicted the event somewhat differently.

Unbeknownst to most people on the march, a fight had broken out between some black youth and the police and though it was an isolated incident and over very quickly, it was this that led the newspaper headlines. Darcus Howe had been asked his view of the demonstration and he had replied "It was a good day". His quote was used by the Evening Standard as a headline but juxtaposed with a photo of an injured police officer and it was this that was used to characterise the entire day. Other headlines read 'Black day at Blackfriars', 'When the black tide met the thin blue line', and 'Day the blacks ran riot through London'.

It was unbelievable. You couldn't make it up.

For many, the final straw came with Swamp 81, the name given to a police operation conducted in London that involved flooding specific areas with police in a bid to hunt down muggers and robbers. As nobody likes a mugger this was all well and good although as one of the main areas targeted was Brixton, to call the operation 'Swamp' was a tad insensitive as it was an obvious echo of Thatcher's pre-election comments regarding white neighbourhoods fearing being swamped by minorities. It didn't help matters that many entirely innocent people were being stopped, searched and arrested for no apparent reason, it appeared, other than being black. In Brixton, 1,000 people were stopped in just five days.

It was one such incident involving the harassment and arrest of a black taxi-driver that was the spark that caused Brixton to erupt into a riot that lasted for three days that saw the first widespread use of petrol bombs on the British mainland.

As in Bristol exactly one year before, objections from a crowd suddenly escalated from the verbal to the physical, to the throwing of missiles to full-blown riot. Unlike Bristol, however, the Commander in charge of the police was determined not to have his officers forced out of the area by the mob even under the most ferocious of assaults and the most dangerous of circumstances, choosing instead to remain on the streets and to suffer the consequences. In a bid to retain control 3,000 police officers from different areas were bussed into Brixton immediately though all to no avail.

A torrent of missiles were rained down upon the police lines - bricks, stones, bottles, pieces of iron, paving slabs, petrol bombs, even glass china plates. At one point whisky was poured over police riot shields in a bid to set them alight. Police cars, police vans and private vehicles were overturned and set on fire. Barricades were erected from overturned cars and corrugated iron. A car and even a hi-jacked bus was driven and pushed as battering rams into police lines. Wheelie bins were set alight and then pushed at the police. Youngsters taunted the police causing them to chase after them, only to lead them into dead ends where their friends waited to ambush them with volleys of bricks. Houses, shops and pubs were looted and burnt out. The police were battered, hammered and ultimately beaten.

Although complete disorder seemed to reign it was apparent there was a logic to the violence, evidenced by the properties that went untouched. Certain pubs and shops were left as smouldering ruins while others were left totally alone. The local anarchist squat/bookshop at 121 Railton Road, for example (which just so happened to be sporting a poster of the Bristol riot in its window), was left without a scratch.

By the end of the riot, Brixton was a scene of utter devastation. 60 civilians had been arrested but over 300 policemen had been both injured and hospitalised. Burnt-out cars littered the streets and buildings stood burnt-out, looted or damaged. 56 police vehicles had been destroyed. To the black community the riot would for ever more be known as 'The Insurrection' or 'The Uprising' but for the Metropolitan police it would be known as the first most serious riot of the 20th century.

According to the then Metropolitan police commissioner Sir David McNee and various reports in the newspapers, the violence in Brixton had been instigated by "trouble-makers from elsewhere" though no evidence was ever proffered to substantiate this. Much more likely was that the main influence upon the riot was the St Paul's riot in Bristol a year earlier which if nothing else had served as an inspiration. It would have been more relevant in actual fact for the police to have wondered why - following the Bristol riot - had it taken so long for Brixton to do likewise? But instead it seemed as if they preferred to apportion blame upon shady individuals, at one point even raising suspicion about the anarchists lurking within 121 Railton Road.

One thing for certain, however, was that Britain's most infamous anarchists at that time - Crass - had absolutely nothing to do with it. Though sympathetic to the anger and the reactions of the rioters to their conditions, Crass felt that rioting would only serve to increase the forces and modes of oppression.

In the official investigation (The Scarman Report) that followed the riot it was indeed stated that the police needed to be better organised for riot control, while the Met would later announce that many important practical lessons had been learnt from the experience which they would apply to any such future riots. Sir David McNee was also to put in a request as a matter of urgency for proper riot equipment which included a greater variety of shields, more vehicles, longer truncheons, water cannon and sufficient stocks of rubber bullets. At a grass roots level it also left the police wanting revenge. So in effect, Crass were correct though that's not to negate the very positive aspects of the Brixton riot:

Never again would the police feel so easily able to surge into a community such as Brixton; stopping, searching and arresting people on the most flimsiest of pretexts.

Never again would the police feel so easily able to blatantly disrespect the black community without also knowing of the risk being run.

And if any other community ever felt in the words of Discharge that they'd "been shit on for far too long", an example had been set about what could be done about it and what the authorities could expect as a result...

The St Paul's Riot

THE ST PAUL'S RIOT

Following their victory in the 1979 General Election, the Conservative Party had vigorously set out on its mission to not only save Western Europe from the threat of Russian communism but to save Britain from itself. Thatcher viewed the post-Second World War years as an experiment in democratic socialism that had failed miserably, resulting in the UK being seen as 'the sick man of Europe' and its residents as being lazy, welfare State-dependent, and in thrall to the Unions. The cure for this 'British disease' was the implementation of the free enterprise economy where money to the public sector would be slashed whilst giving the private sector free rein to capitalise, profit and exploit. Gas and electricity prices were immediately increased along with prescription charges as the process of privatisation, Trade Union reform and property ownership was put into action.

Whilst promising to roll back the power of the State, pay increases for the police and the army were immediately implemented, thus increasing and ensuring its strength. Whilst promising to cut taxes and increase jobs, unemployment rose to an estimated two million mark. And whilst promising peace, the chance of war was increased dramatically by giving the go-ahead for America to site Cruise missiles on British soil.

Life in Britain was already ugly but was quickly becoming uglier and nowhere was this more pronounced than in the inner cities and out on the council estates where the brunt of the Conservative's economic policies were being felt, particularly by those already disadvantaged. Whole communities were rapidly becoming surplus to requirement, causing many to reject the system that was rejecting them. The first real signal of a growing anger and resentment being felt within these communities came in April of 1980 when a full-scale riot exploded on the streets of St Paul's in Bristol, sparked by what at the time was viewed as a so-called routine police raid on a local café.

The Black and White Café in Grosvenor Road, St Paul's, had been raided many times before by the police in searches for drugs and the illegal selling and consumption of alcohol but on this particular occasion a large crowd gathered to watch. Having arrested the café owner and loaded quantities of alcohol into a police van, bottles and stones started to be thrown from the gathering crowd at the police, prompted by plain-clothes police openly displaying to the crowd some bags of weed they were confiscating. As the police van drove away followed on foot by other officers clutching even more cans of confiscated alcohol, remaining officers took refuge inside the café and radioed for back-up.

Reinforcements duly arrived, marching upon the café in a military-style column but this attempted show of strength, rather than causing the crowd to disperse simply served to provoke it, causing even more missiles to be thrown.

The riot had begun.

Police officers were pelted with stones and chased off by the growing crowd, whilst abandoned police cars were overturned and set on fire. Sporadic but selective looting of various shops and businesses erupted including most notably a branch of Lloyd’s bank that was attacked, broken into and set alight. So sudden and all out was the assault upon the police that the Chief Constable in charge, seeing that even his dog handlers were failing to have any impact and fearing for the safety of his men, decided to completely withdraw all police from the area to await further reinforcements from neighbouring police forces.

By retreating like this, the police were conceding defeat and for them - at least until later that night when they returned with massive reinforcements, including a firearms team - St Paul's had become a no-go area. The police had lost their position of authority and now it was the crowd that was in control. The St Paul's mob was in power.

For years, St Paul's and other similar communities throughout the country - under both Labour and Conservative governments - had been made to feel useless, worthless and undesirable. Whole communities had been thrown upon the scrap heap and held there through inequality and lack of opportunity. If resident within any of these communities there was more than enough reason to be angry and what better way of venting anger than by attacking authority? The police, in inner city and on council estate alike being the most obvious, visible face of authority.

While politicians shook their heads in disbelief, wondering how such a thing as the St Paul's riot could happen, more pertinent questions went unasked and unanswered: If the police were meant to be serving and protecting a community but that community was rejecting them, what then was their role? Who were they actually serving? What were they actually protecting?

St Paul's was sending out a message and setting an example. In total, 22 police officers were injured that day and 21 police vehicles severely damaged, six being burned and destroyed. Along with a Lloyd's bank.

A way of saying 'No' had been found and St Paul's was saying it very loudly.

Riot was a weapon held by all that the police were afraid of. Riot was an expression of inarticulate rage. A tool at everyone's disposal. Riot for the hell of it and riot as a means to an end.

People in similar circumstances everywhere heard, saw and understood that if St Paul's could do it - then so could they.

Schizophrenia

SCHIZOPHRENIA

1979 was a very weird year. A schizophrenic year. Swinging from Left to Right but with no set rhyme and no set reason. It had started with what was called The Winter of Discontent where thousands of public sector workers were on strike. January 22nd was the Day of Action when an estimated 1.5 million workers downed tools and took part in the largest stoppage of labour in the UK since the General Strike of 1926.

Following the mass protests that took place that day many unions chose to remain on strike until their demands for a proper pay increase were met, among these being gravediggers and waste collection workers. It was the strike action taken by these two particular groups of workers that came to define that period, with the press depicting the streets of the country as strewn with piles of uncollected rubbish and with unburied bodies piling up in cold storage depots. That's not to say these things didn't happen and to have happened at all might be deemed as wholly unacceptable but it wasn't quite on the same scale as projected into the public consciousness by the press - the Right-wing press, it should be noted.

Strikes were flaring up, however, left, right and centre leading to stoppages at water and sewerage works, schools, hospitals and old people's homes. All in a bid to gain nothing more than a basic minimum wage though if reading the newspapers anyone would think Britain was in the throes of revolution and that the barbarians were at the gate. And to some people perhaps they were?

In a further twisting of the truth, when Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan returned to Britain from an international summit in the Caribbean and was asked by waiting reporters what his thoughts were on the strike actions taking place, he replied he didn't believe it amounted to the kind of chaos the reporters were suggesting it was. The headline in the Sun the next day famously declared 'Crisis? What Crisis?' and was taken if not as a direct quote then as the opinion of Callaghan, which of course it wasn't. Or not quite.

After much vilification of the strikers by politicians, newspapers and media pundits, the government made a deal with the unions and their demands were met. The workers had won and were now gaining their feet. The government had lost and was now on its knees. A short while later, Callaghan found himself in Buckingham Palace asking for a dissolution of Parliament, followed thereafter with an announcement of a date for a General Election.

Throughout this Winter of Discontent, the Conservative Party in Opposition had been busying themselves with making hay whilst the sun shone, using the strikes to their own advantage and making mischief whenever possible. In a Party Political Broadcast presented by their leader Margaret Thatcher, the public sector workers were labelled as 'wreckers' and trade union reform was called for to avoid "not just disruption but anarchy".

Meanwhile a little further to the Right, the National Front were busy arranging an election rally for their supporters to be held in Southall, in London, an area well known for its large Asian community. Insulted and somewhat intimidated by what they perceived as a racist invasion into their community, residents requested that the meeting be banned but as this was now an election year, the Home Secretary declined the request and instead ordered that the Metropolitan Police safeguard it and prevent any disruption to what was after all, the democratic rights of a legitimate political party.

Come the day of the rally as hundreds of National Front supporters were bussed into Southall, thousands of local Asian residents and anti-racists rallied to protest against it. The police were there also, of course, and in huge numbers with the express intention of ensuring the NF rally proceeded unhindered. For some strange reason they seemed somewhat overly zealous in administrating the execution of this duty as they sealed off the whole area surrounding the venue, thus preventing any form of peaceful protest at all. Frustrated by the police actions and provoked by the pushing and shoving of them by the police, tension within the amassing crowds inevitably rose. It was from within the ranks of the police, however, that an ugliness suddenly reared its head in the form of the police punching and batoning the protesters for no apparent reason. The police suddenly started going berserk.

From behind their front lines more police appeared but this time wielding riot shields and then from behind them came mounted police practically galloping into the crowds causing widespread panic. A riot situation immediately erupted but this, as everyone there would later testify, was exclusively a police riot.

With barely disguised enthusiasm the police attacked anyone within reach be they black, Asian, white, man, woman or child. Fleeing from the violence a number of protesters sought refuge in a local community building called People Unite, run by members of acclaimed reggae band Misty In Roots. Not so easily thwarted, the police simply charged in after them and in the process smashed everything up inside including the heads of the people in there. Misty In Roots' manager, Clarence Baker, was one of those people and due to being batoned was put in a coma. "Clarence Baker, no troublemaker" as The Ruts would later sing in their song Jah War. "The truncheons came down, knocked him to the ground. See the blood on the streets that day. The blood and the madness." Outside on the streets, others fared even worse.

Blair Peach was a 33 year-old school teacher from New Zealand who was there that day protesting alongside his friends in the Socialist Workers Party. His body was found laid out on a road near the back of the venue where the rally was being held by some local residents who immediately called an ambulance. Later that night in hospital Blair died from injuries sustained from a blow to the head. Witnesses came forward to say they had seen Blair being set upon by police belonging to the Special Patrol Group, a formidable and notorious mobile police unit specialising in public order confrontations though more akin to a hardcore football hooligan firm than any normal idea of how the police should be.

A pathologist's report later stated that Blair had been killed not by a blow from a truncheon but by something more along the lines of a rubber cosh filled with lead. A raid on lockers belonging to SPG officers discovered a cache of such home-made, illegal weapons along with Nazi regalia but no-one ended up being charged for Blair's murder. During the investigation into his death, police officers belonging to the SPG blatantly perverted the course of justice through lying and hiding and destroying evidence but still no-one ended up being charged for Blair's murder. The investigation finally whittled it down to six suspects, highlighting one specific SPG officer as being the one most probably responsible but still no-one ended up being charged for Blair's murder.

10,000 people gathered for Blair Peach's funeral and to this day his name is synonymous with both anti-racism and police violence. In Southall a plaque has been erected in his name and a primary school named after him. But still no-one has ended up being charged for his murder.

The following day after the police riot in Southall the newspapers were full of praise for the way in which the police had maintained the democratic rights of the National Front and allowed them to have their rally. Such a good job had been done in protecting Fascism from a 'Left-wing hate mob'.

Just over a week later the Conservative Party as led by Margaret Thatcher won the General Election.

And at No.1 in the Charts that month and subsequently being constantly played on the radio was Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel in which Art was plaintively enquiring "How can the light that burned so brightly suddenly burn so pale?" The same question that coincidentally was being asked by a lot of other people though unlike Art they weren't referring to a bunch of rabbits....