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We discussed this last night and I read virtually every available news item about the incident with the Malaysian student at the time, and I found not a single article that suggested he had been taking photos, so I would be interested to know where you read this.
As far as I could make from reports I read, he was meeting a friend for breakfast, he had been pushed off his bike by one group of rioters, which broke his jaw, and another group pretended to come to his assistance when the came across him, and robbed him at the time.
Being a photographer myself (on the side not as a job, but I do a lot of documentary photography in public places) I think this 'victim blaming' attitude (IF he has been taking photos) pretty much stinks. It's just another example of pointing the finger at decent innocent people instead of the vermin who are committing these offences.
So if BBC reporters / cameramen are assaulted in all this, are you still going to turn around and say "Well you stupid twat should not have been there?" instead of pointing the finger at those who are actually breaking the law?? I really don't know what it is with some of you...
... *pointless*
Lirish, look after yourself today. Glad to see police have been getting spontaneous applause in some places from the public when they arrive. Most of us are on your side.
You are a vile woman. My communication with you ends here
Dear all bar one. Look folks I am using this thread to decipher the situation in this country and wishing to find out the views across the nation. All my views are here to be shot at, criticised, argued with and agreed with but when someone shoots me down because I wasn't part of her discussion last night and then insults me because she implies I am not as educated as her then that is a step too far.
Some people have been posting here for years but that doesn't make it their site any more than anyone else. Because people like(she who cannot be named) her cannot abuse people because of their race etc they use the last bastion of their awfulness to call people for not reading books or call them trolls.
BTW I have a video camera but that doesn't make me a film director
So... I asked you where you got the information that the kid who got robbed was taking pictures, as only a page back we had discussed the incident last night and I couldn't find any evidence to say that he had... and I ask you where did you read this... and you go off on one and make all sorts of inferences???
If you give your opinion in a debate on a public forum, then you have to expect to be questioned or challenged on it, don't you think???
[edited for typo]
We had some minor incidences here but nothing major... There was a huge police presence... probably prophylactically... heard blues & twos a lot more often than usual last night but nothing in the news this morning.
Interesting conversation with a lady walking the dog this morning. She has a teenage son (who she's been having some trouble with, in with the wrong crowd kind of thing...) and said if he had come home with stolen goods she would have marched him straight to a police station. Made me ponder what most people would do?
Some of the initial arrest figures seem to suggest that a significant number of those arrested have no previous convictions. As a parent you would have a difficult choice to make about "principles" versus potentially cocking up your kids life by giving him a criminal record....
(And stop shooting fish in a barrel babe - I saw your original post... tee hee)
In my day when folk had nowt to do they were conscripted into national service ( compulsory )
Aggression was then exercised against terrorists in far away places
Perhaps the hoodies seen on film footage would care to chuck bricks at the Taliban?
I was brought up immediately after the war and I can report that modern youth has no idea about what deprivation is !!!
On the poor Malaysian student issue, leaving aside Sussex Runer's definitely 'blaming' post, it is interesting how people all assumed I was 'blaming' him. I just wanted to make the point that when people who are unemployed (from my experience), and maybe now the young too, can feel when they hear all the stuff about cracking down on benifit fraud/people who 'don't want' jobs etc. it's very easy for them to take it personally. There's many people out there who genuinly can't find jobs, or don't believe they ever will. There's a 'blame culture' that puts terrible pressure on them, even if it's not meant to attack 'nice people'. it's probably a lot harder on the genuine unemployed/hopeless young than the very few genuine fraudsters.
Why I asked if he was using a camera... in fact BBC reporters did come under attack. I had the news on for hours on Monday night. I don't remember exact details but there were references to reporters being attacked and also other people with cameras and camera phones. Later on in the night reporters were phoning in reports rather than doing reports to camera. I also remember one bit where a reporter 'didn't want to give full details' but basically implied that they'd dressed to blend in with rioters, were using a phone to take pictures rather than a camera and were being very careful about it.
It sounds like riding a bike someone else wanted was what intitially got him into trouble (just to be clear... I am not blaming him...), but it does look to me like something was taken out of his bag and thrown over the wall onto rail tracks - possible a phone or camera.
Rod in my heart I kind of agree with what you say, but I also thought about what other people put to us yesterday, about the society that's been created, the value base that has shifted and the expectations that have been raised etc... and whether something can be a 'political' response even when the individuals in question have no idea that it is etc...
In my gut I still subscribe to the whole "taking personal responsibility" for the decisions that you make and that anything you think you "deserve" you need to graft for rather than think you're just entitled to... And yes some people have more opportunities than others but that principle still holds for me...
I guess the ideological shift was made really obvious to me when this girl said on camera "The police need to learn to give us some respect and then we might respect them"
and I can't help for my gut reaction to be "WTF???". I don't come from an affluent or even educated background. I am the daughter of a simple lorry driver and a factory worker and neither of my parents was educated beyond age 14... My parents are far from perfect but as a kid I had respect for any adult and 'authority' (teachers, police etc)... you didn't question that it was just there... I am not quite sure what has happened that teens now think they are so important that their "wespekt" needs to be "earned" before it can be expected that they behave in a reasonably civil manner.
Having worked in the "third world" I struggle to buy into the whole "disenfrenchised youth" argument, but as Corrie said before it's not about plain 'poverty' but poverty of experience, ambition etc... and that's a whole lot more complex...
The army doesn't want conscription; they want lads and lasses who actually want to be there and who already have some self respect.
I am the daughter of a simple lorry driver and a factory worker and neither of my parents was educated beyond age 14... My parents are far from perfect but as a kid I had respect for any adult and 'authority' (teachers, police etc)... you didn't question that it was just there...
Agree Nam (sorry my quotey thing isn't working).
Growing up I had one parent in full time and one in part time employment.
Until I was 11 we lived above a shop in a damp, miserable flat with no hot water and no bathroom. We went on holiday every year but it was only to stay with relatives who happened to live near the seaside - we couldn't afford to go anywhrere else.
And do you know it It never even occurred to me that I was poor until much later on. I was fed, I was clothed, I got presents at Christmas and birthdays so what the f*ck did I have to complain about?
To lighten the mood a little... the Libyan foreign ministry have demanded that world governments take action over the unrest in the UK. Libya "demands that the international community not stand with arms folded in the face of this gross aggression against the rights of the British people who are demanding its rights to rule its country"
Gaddafi really has lost the plot.