A Riot of One's Own

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Have any of you ever been in a riot?

― fritz, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

and if not, do you imagine it might be kind of great to toss a brick through a plate glass window just once in your singular life?

― fritz, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Are we only moral in a social context?

If there were suddenly no rules (or no consequences for breaking the rules) would you behave differently?

― fritz, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No. I have not. I would like to be, because I'm some kind of rebel. Rebel spelled backwards is leber. This means nothing to me.

― alix, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I guess I overestimated ILE's interest in and experience with riots. I thought English people rioted twice a week. I'll never believe The Clash again.

― fritz, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i've been involved in peaceful demonstrations where the police did everything in their power to make us riot, by charging their horses at us and barging us with their riot shields (there seemed to be more police than protestors most of the time!) but we were all pacifist vegan hippies, so we didn't respond - probably too weak to fight back anyway because of out nutritionally-challenged diets. and all that.

― katie, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

When we were all lurking on the street having been kicked out of the building due to the false fire alarm this morning a couple of girls walked past and said 'oooh what are they all doing? It must be a protest'. In which case we are the world's worst protesters given we were all stood around failing to chant slogans or throw things or get ourselves arrested and instead smoked fags and grumbled as office workers are wont to do.

― Emma, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I used to get caught up in Football violence, mainly because it was very hard to avoid when I was younger at Chesterfield games. When I say caught up , I mean coming out of the ground under a barrage of bottles and whatever and running quickly in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, at home games I used to have to go past the away end to get home, the long ways round I used to take! That was bloody scary I can tell you, I was 11, what the hell was my Mum thinking letting me go on my own?

Narrowly missed the riot that ensued after the speaches etc at the Criminal Justice bill march in Hyde park back in, erm 94? 95? We were making our way back to the tube when we saw coppers with taped over numbbers etc going the other way in large numbers and at high speed.

― chris, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Plenty of marches (and with a Unison banner on Waterloo Bridge last year we caught a gust of wind and almost blew away). Never a riot though. I do not believe in gratuitous property damage as a way of expressing a point.

Unless that point was plate glass windows r breakable.

― Pete, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

An old boyfriend seemed to think an ideal way to pass a rainy afternoon was to KEEP ON PLAYING me the video footage of him in the Poll Tax riots. I did not agree on this point. Watching him alternately peering at the TV going 'look! look! There I am!' and railing against the Establishment was not the highlight of our relationship.

― Emma, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My big problem with the poll tax riots were I thought the community charge was fairer than rates or the council tax we have now. Problem was it was also used to usher in massive rises in payments, so people though bigger bills = poll tax is bad.

― Pete, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Not me. I like to effect wide-scale social change in the context of three-martini lunches; it's more efficient that way.

― Douglas, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I got caught up in thee great Poll Tax Riot of Leicester Square. Our little group started off on the march early enough in the day, but then had a v. long picnic, and so by the time we got to Leciester Square things were REALLY kicking off. Even at this point no attempt was made to stop us from walking up the Square. My clearest memory is of a man with a megaphone and a scarf around his face instructing rioters on a building site opposite to hurl bits of scaffolding at the police below them. Missiles, chiefly the bits of wood used to brandish anti-PT placards, were flying through the air; although there was a lot of shouting, screaming, whistling, you could make out every sound, and everything seemed to be unfolding in slow motion. I have never ever been so scared in all my life.

― Andrew L, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There was a teachers strike last year in Ireland, and since it was my final year lots of people were annoyed. Someone suggested a student walk out (stupid idea really) and the headmaster called a meeting for the final year to "discuss" things.

I didn't like the fact that the "meeting" was just a way of trying to stop people doing the walk out really subtly and quietly. I didn't like the fact that the school captain type person made a "speech" telling everyone not to walk out.

So despite the fact I was quite enjoying the strike on a number of levels, (a) missing school (b)laughing at all the idiots who thought missing 3 or 4 weeks of school was actually damaging to our education, (c)laughing at the fact that the whole country thought this was THE WORST THING EVER.

Despite all these things I stood up and made an inflammatory speech and everyone was like "yeah revolution, we're walking out". And so it happened, and there was some disturbance outside the school while everyone was "demonstrating". I then got asked by the headmaster to negotiate with the teacher who was shop steward, but at that point I'd got bored with the whole thing and moved onto some other project.

This was my one and only brush with strike or riot. Far from a riot really.

― Ronan, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i was AT THE POLL TAX RIOT - POLICE lines PARTED TO let WHEELCHAIR THROUGH + socIALIST WERKERS charged - i thumped some guy who was lobbing bricks. last demo i ever went on.

― a-33, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I too was caught up in the Poll Tax fun - but in an incredibly wussy way. Having forgotten all about the demo, I was in a cinema on Leicester Square (watching the 'Joe vs the Volcano' of all things) and emerged blinking back into the daylight to find... MOUNTED POLICEMAN CHARGING AT ME. We all had to run back into the cinema before they pulled the metal door grill down, and were then escorted from the building and the area by the cops.

― Edna Welthorpe, Mrs, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gee thanks ILEers, now I am reliving all those riveting afternoons spent watching the riot video.

There was a crappy student night at I think Park End in Oxford called Riots. I am ashamed to admit I have been to that (but I was only 18 and drunk and someone made me do it).

― Emma, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

We watched a video of the anti-globalisation protest in Prage at the IMF summit in (boring) sociology class yesterday. It looked kind of fun. Like a mixture between the Love Parade and Bloody Sunday.

― Ronan, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I consciously spelt it Prage. but I meant Prague.

― Ronan, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I was lurking at the Mayday thing last year and found the only violence was started either a) by football hooligans (well, not protestors, not with their nice Nike T-shirts), or b) the police.

― DG, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Closest I came was at a Criminal Justice Bill thing in Glasgow when people started throwing bottles. It felt pretty cool and you could see how people would just want to push thru, over that line, to see what would happen.

― polis, polis, get tae fuck / polis - get tae fuck!, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"I guess I overestimated ILE's interest in and experience with riots. I thought English people rioted twice a week. I'll never believe The Clash again."

* stick with the Mekons then, Fritz

― Benjamin, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Been in tough situs, but no actuall riots. Occupations of thangs, yes, & thangs where cops come charging, yes.

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I believe in the joy of calm away from such things. I like my skull where it is, for a start.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I agree with Ned.

I remember there were riots, and the local green grocer boarded up his shop and had a guy in a pin strip suit and pork pie hat guarding it. Though, the riots never actually made it to Acton.

― j>e>l, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i haven't been in a riot per se, but i've stood next to someone in the calle corrinetes as they hurled a molotov through a mcdonalds window.

― Geoff, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I believe that all this rioting and brick throwing should be kept within the home, where it belongs.

― Kim, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I went to the Public Image show at the Ritz in NY in 1980 or thereabouts, the one they performed entirely behind a video screen. I always hear it refered to as a riot, but I don't know, it just seemed like a particularly rowdy crowd response (pulling the curtain down, throwing bottles and the occasional chair off the balcony), not a full scale riot. Maybe the riot happened outside the venue and I missed it. Oh well.

I lived in LA during the NY Tompkins Square riot of '88 and in New York during the LA Riots of '92. And I'm happy about that.

― Arthur, Tuesday, 19 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

CJB protest. Suffice to say, Proctor & Gamble didn't exactly see a stock price rise that weekend.

― dave q, Wednesday, 20 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If anyone wants to go on a demo / riot then the NUS National Tuition Fees Demo (against the fees obv.) is this afternoon. I may be joining them somewhere along the line to get jostled, walk slowly and sing uninspired songs.

― Pete, Wednesday, 20 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

hahahah they are on whitehall now and my co-worker is stuck on the other side and can't cross the road! hahahahah he is furious! they are hooting like fules and i think i just saw some people pushing a BED. it is probably a COMMENT! yay!

― Sarah, Wednesday, 20 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I consciously spelt it Prage. but I meant Prague.

as in, the Child of Prage?

― DV, Wednesday, 20 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I saw that student protest thing on telly, which left me wondering - why are students such cunts?

― DG, Wednesday, 20 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

eight months pass...

You are Paul Calf and I claim my five pounds!

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 00:03 (twenty-three years ago)

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