Maybe this could have been added to the existing thread on the Riots as Documentary Cinema, which does mention La Haine, and i think your comments in drawing parallels have some relevance
…the relationship that young inhabitants of the suburbs/slums of Paris & London have with police.
I heard a black MP on NPR say that the 80’s London riots were police related and that he didn’t see that as a factor in these riots. Sorry…didn’t hear what he thought was going on specifically.
What I remember of La Haine was that the vicious relationship was reciprocal i.e. sides weren’t taken by the film.
I like La Haine quite a bit but Ma 6-T va crack-er by Jean-Francois Richet gives a far more realistic depiction of young people in Parisian suburbs as well as a far more sophisticated political understanding of the logic of riots.
@Kenji Sorry, I would’ve added it if I had seen that thread at 1st, how would I do that now?
@Robert I also heard a black MP talk on NPR as well, but he was saying what I have heard several times now, on this forum and in other places- that he came out of a deprived area and didn’t end up as a jobless hood thus there is a problematic culture of entitlement behind the hooliganism. IMO this is similar to the Heritage Foundation has written, the plight of the poor in America is one caused in part by their use of luxuries like Xboxs,TV, and air conditioning-and that their struggle is at least in part to pay for all these extras.In their words,“Poor families certainly struggle to make ends meet, but in most cases, they are struggling to pay for air conditioning and the cable TV bill as well as to put food on the table”.
I don’t know how many people have read Jane Jacobs or Kunstler(apparently policy makers haven’t)-but by clustering poor or working class people together, we make the issue of poverty that much worse. If we adopted mixed use and mixed income development, it might help. By the way,this is the exact opposite direction we are headed in. Also the destruction of small business in America at least has led to a lack of responsible “eyes on the street”. A perfect example of “eyes on the street” and other issues talked by new urbanists in effect was the Turkish business owners who got together to protect their businesses.
@Ari Thanks, I’ll check out your recommendation.
@Maud’s Son …there is a problematic culture of entitlement behind the hooliganism.
It must have been the same guy. He was really unsympathetic to the rioters. It weirdly sounded like an arch conservative talking.
I did some work involving all income levels and the differences in atmosphere were… uh, cinematic to me. The isolated nature of the very rich vs the very poor was striking to me. Society wanting to pull the poor to that level of isolation is not a good thing.A mix of people were involved; children, jobless, employed, male and female, a teacher-mentor, lifeguard, military applicant. And various reasons, not simply wrong-headed entitlement, i think. Hooliganism and theft in society take many forms, occur in different situations and across different classes. The difference here was the scale, the extent of the problem for certain areas, the involvement of a high percentage of black people, police numbers needed and the media, public and political response. The initial violent reaction was Police-related and for some that was still the case later. Pride plays a part in many who point to their own superiority to others less respectable from similar backgrounds. It is still a subjective viewpoint, not an absolute truth. Individual circumstances differ, and dismissal of actions in simplistic terms while overlooking criminal and greedy attitudes in other parts of society is unhelpfully selective, i think
I’ve yet to hear any social commentators on TV mention the pitfalls of consumer Capitalism, from the top down.
Hooliganism and theft in society take many forms, occur in different situations and across different classes.
Yes, like illegal downloading !
Kenji
The complexity is being essentialized by all, to bring order to what might be a merely a glimpse into the natural order of things: chaos.
“like illegal downloading!”
Bullshit statement.
(unless it was meant as a sarcastic fancy, which wasn’t…)
I’m a repeat criminal offender, like most people in Britain wanting harsh punishments for the riots/looting. Great hatred directed at an 11 year old girl for smashing a window. There are huge numbers of offences people commit regularly and have committed at various times. Many of these are dangerous. It’s just that some crimes and criminals are more equal than others, according a lot of the time to social status.
dp
Ya know, that is a potentially credible psychological insight – they feel guilty and are in need of punishment – sort of Holy scripture-like.
It is an inevitable byproduct of alienation and growing wealth discrepancy.
The social welfare state can patch the failings of laissez-faire capitalism only so long before something bursts.
There is a core problem that isn’t going to be cured by getting tough with the thugs.
@Ari thank you for that suggestion. That was miles above anything that the US has produced on the topic,obviously Europe is different but what I hate about American films when they have tried to portray the projects is they forget to focus on the larger community. I like how there no white savior character as well. I thought in the beginning it was going be a French copy of Dangerous Minds-I was basically ready to turn it off at that point.
Great end scene.Basically there are always problems whenever they try to pull of realism but I thought this was a damn good film.
Erm, let’s all stop playing the race card, okay? It’s such bullshit.
You know, Australia bends over backwards for newcomers from war torn regions in Africa, the Middle East, what have you. They get free accommodation, they sure as hell aren’t short on clothes, modern conveniences, et cetera, but it’s not the parents with whom I have a problem per se. But it’s the little shits who have no respect whatsoever for their fellow persons. A new country is like a playground for them and they roam in gangs, forming ethnically exclusive groups, and bully, ridicule, alienate those who are different from themselves. Let’s stop blaming Big Bad White Policeman—I guess none of you have seen a non-Anglo female police officer! Obviously not all policemen are charming individuals, but are you trying to say the teenagers of today are blameless? Even idiots know the difference between right and wrong and the fact is these cretins choose wilfully to do the wrong thing.
Belting the shit out of youngsters isn’t the solution but neither is pandering to liberal excesses, giving new arrivals everything on a silver platter, and then handling them with kiddie gloves when they do wrong.
Personally, I’m more interested in the plight of Aboriginals who have been subjugated since day one but ARE gradually bridging the gap between themselves and the rest of the Australian community. Australian Aborigines have come a long way in the past few decades and perhaps these other “minorites” should quit bitching and look at themselves for a change.
P.S. A lot of “ethnic minorities” express violently homophobic/sexist attitudes and aren’t shy about manifesting their prejudices in a physical manner—I think a fair amount of “pot calling the kettle black” happens here. Minorities will bitch and moan about being downtrodden until they find a minority even more ostracised than their own mob to bully and ridicule. I respect people who practice what they preach and lead by example and save my respect and compassion for those who do.
I think some of y’all need to get out more!
Moral corruption of greedy rich, companies, politicians, media owners- whose message that crime and exploitation pay have not been lost on the less fortunate in a failed rightwing Capitalist system.
Black people are not naturally more criminal: therefore this is a case of white people and those with power scapegoating and diverting attention from their own abuse and disgraceful attitudes. Their god is money and they trample over the rest. Those with power are responsible for the state of society, not those without.
Cut the crap, Mark; Australia has plenty of racism too. You’re not alone in preferring to blame less powerful people and other ethnic minorities rather than look in the mirror; people like you who divide rather than unite.
England is sick alright and so are those who’ve led us down the failed US route of obesity, inequality and a constant bombardment of consumerist propaganda and the idea that “there’s no such thing as society”. In the US they’ve tried the tough approach and the jails still keep filling. It doesn’t work.
If cannabis was legalised in Britian that would be a good starting point, along with an honest appraisal of where we’ve all gone wrong, not one that seeks to demonise black people.
But our media and politicians are the problem; either brainwashed fools or cowards who daren’t go against the lynch mob tide and the usual cries of the Daily Mail which supported Hitler.
A lot of the British press simply deal in stirring up lynch mobs- wave after wave of scapegoat targets, but in the end it’s always the less well off who get shat on.
This started, let’s not forget, with trigger-happy, lying Police, supported in their lies by the hardly independent IPCC.
Shame on all those who support mass murder of countless women and children abroad as we ransack and loot their countries, while condemning the recent looters.
A woman got 5 months for receiving some cheap item from the looting; with such “zero tolerance” of crime, let’s bang up all those who speed in their cars, fiddle taxes and in Cameron’s case fiddle expenses after a history of vandalism, along with the arsonist Mayor of London
This moral indignation is pure hypocrisy
This is a very dark place to live in, and the solutions of hatred and repression will only make it darker
@Mark D Vanselow Sorry, are you referring to my post w/ the race card? I was talking about a film cliche we all know exists. Also, I would rather discuss film and find out if others know more films that are related to the problems in Europe .
But:I find it hard to accept the large number of smart people out there like you who share your opinion. You say Australia bends over backwards for it’s immigrants, but it’s Australia,it’s upper class,and it’s multinationals that benefit from importing people who will work cheaply. I don’t know Australia well but clearly in Europe the pattern is the same, 1st the cheap labor is imported in through aggressive immigration polices. Then there are large problem that result from the simple fact everything else is an after thought. In the ‘05 riots in Paris, it wasn’t immigrants rioting, it was their kids and grandkids who are French citizens and cannot “repatriate” even if France doesn’t except them.
Workers brought over as laborers + low income people are put up in government subsidized projects. These developments are modeled after the failed Le Corbusier garden city model + added elements ominously foreshadowing prisons like many heavy iron doors and large % of budget $s towards other security features while skimping on vital features such as mixed use, light,sound barriers,location to good schools,and functional public space with “eyes on the street”. These people are heavily concentrated in these subsidized projects,leading to alienation,a lack of contacts among the middle class or upper class(except for a few standup students who get scholarships to college),and high proportions of unemployed males.
This has happened in America at least in part because the white middle class developed a Nimby attitude towards communities with larger proportions of minorities. Middle class whites moved out of mixed neighborhoods where minorities even if middle class took up 50% of the population.Added to this is that Hispanics and Blacks are literally in a Great Depression here in America. New Urbanists Jane Jacobs or Kunstler have a hypothetical solution,mixed income neighborhoods. The problem with this solution is just the sheer number of immigrants plus the fact these people aren’t payed livable wages thus we must subsidize much of their life in the urban areas. New Urbanists communities that planned to address this like Seaside clearly show the failure because they lack a sufficient number of dependable long term jobs for potential residents for affordable housing they have built.
I hope you look again at your opinion is that they should remain eternally grateful for being let in,while hosts give them little gratitude for filling large numbers of low payed jobs to keep labor costs down and profits up. Looking at it this way you realize that it’s the wealthy(who need cheap landscapers,housekeepers,childcare,and builders) and the MNCs + their investors who benefit first. In fact the middle classes suffer from overwhelmed public schools,increased racial tensions, and lack of livable wages-especially when the average middle class families have a much smaller number of earners paying for same unaffordable housing .
Additionally, you talk as if London riots occurred in a vacuum:we’ve seen a huge student protest last Nov,similar riots in Paris basically back to back with student protests in 05/06, a current revolution in Spain called 15-M Movement,2009 Iceland protests,and various Greek protests and riots-‘11 & in ’08 as well after 15-year-old student was killed by two policemen. Plus smaller ones like in 2009 Bulgaria which again started out peaceful then became violent,or other relatively new EU & capitalist states E.European Lithunania,Estonia and Latvia. There is a clear pattern of police brutality and also what we don’t see is the day to day violence of the state, which heavily polices the projects. Instead the MSM disproportionately shows victims of the riots so the daily violence against huge swaths of the poor is missed.
I saw a hypocritical quote by Julian Assange claiming that these riots would simply bring on a 1984 style state. Well it didn’t take a riot to put London under near total surveillance- and it wasn’t the terror attacks either, by 2002 there were already 4 million CCTV cameras monitoring citizens in the UK. Before the riots, CCTV cameras have been fitted for audio which has been proven now to pick up conversations despite initial govt denial. He also claimed the communities must deal with the lack of enagement with their young people. Well, those communities,and especially their young people are being harassed on a daily basis by an oppressive police presence, just like many of the Egyptians Assange praises in (they organized National Police Day protests) . Also we miss b/c of culture and lack of translation that not all of the Egyptians are Marxist scholars.
Also Orwell said, “ Money, once again; all is money. All human relationships must be purchased with money. If you have no money, men won’t care for you, women won’t love you; won’t, that is, care for you or love you the last little bit that matters.”
This in part explains why the a govt that pays for housing has huge problems when it cuts huge number of young men out of the economy and society. One shouldn’t even have to explain this! Ma 6-T va Crack-er shows a bit of this, the dynamics between women who have jobs and the unemployed men.
Some films: Le Haine, Ma 6-T va Crack-er, If…,Welome,Cache-deals with the guilt & the Paris massacre of 1961 and it’s aftermath,30,000 Pro Algerian protestors were attacked by the cops,up to 200 were murdered.
@Kenji
I find it unbelieveable the level of unethical coverage in the UK rags(good word).I was listening to some Brit talk on NPR from the NYTimes and had to turn it off after hearing people referred to as “rats”.
It is quite interesting to see UK supporters of Ai WeiWei and his use of twitter and the ‘net react in this manner(cries of shutting down social networking) so soon after they were focused on his arrest.
I have SA ancestry and was talking to relatives about this and heard for the first time that the British had set up the worlds first concentration camps to slaughter resistors & their civilian families in the Boer War VS the Brits “shock” upon hearing of them in Germany.
IMHO Western govts would love for people to remain terrified of Chinese tyranny so as to project human rights as a concept that only needs to be pressed for in Asia and the 3rd world(especial against countries we don’t like that much). Fear seems to be the most common form of social control spread by the media. On one hand the west and its press highlights Ai WeiWei’s protest against those child victims of the earthquake and on the other hushes or simply ignores similar voices who would like to make a statement against the Japanese govt hiding information from Japanese families about radiation.
Human rights has turned into a nationalist battleground , I think that it is incredibly harmful.
I’m listening now to Ed Milliband on TV, and at last he’s saying the right thing about irresponsible “me first” attitudes of greed and undeserving rewards at the top. He’s just gone up in my estimation. I thought initially he was taking the easy route to deflect criticism from the tabloids. David Cameron who championed the idea of “hug a hoodie” in opposition to get rid of nasty Tories imnage has now gone overboard with the kneejerk reaction of the embarrassed and weak.
@Maud’s son: yes, i agree with you on the richer NIMBYS (the “middle class” in UK are better off than the “working class”, different meaning to the US middle class) and people benefiting from immigrant cheap labour, also on greed and all the Big Brother cameras already with us.
Trading Places, believe it or not, is quite instructive on the truth that reversed circumstances would lead to reversed actions and stereotyping, but its ending, not unusual in Hollywood of the greed is good 80s, goes the way of individual reward, after class and racial unity v exploitative racists in the stock market. Why would i mention such a comedy here? Cos it seems to me many people haven’t even got to first base with the environment issue, preferring instead racist nonsense of moral and character superiority.
The poorer classes as usual get the stick, the rich get carrots. Big bonuses to energise and reward some in spite of failure, benefits cuts to others. Goldman Sachs decide to make big bucks on the market and millions go without food in Africa.
In the future, as more people stay unemployed for most or their life (It is called the Post Labor Society for a reason), we will see more of this incidents in post industrial countries/areas such as France, England, Eastern Germany and the U.S.
I do not see how this trend could be avoided. Too many people are out of the labor process already and every day more join the rank of the unemployed. In Britain the de industrialization began in the mid 60s with the so called Mayfair group, millionaires that decided that the industrial base of the country could, and should be dismantled for the sake of short term profits. In the US it happened in the late 70s and through the 80s. The so called corporate raiders destroyed must of the industrial base. Just do a google search for “Detroit ruins” and you will see.
“Welcome to Aphasia”
Maud's Son
Haven’t watched the film for a while but I thought it was very good when I did see it. I think it’s relevant in highlighting the relationship that young inhabitants of the suburbs/slums of Paris & London have with police. It was made a decade before the riots in Paris in 05,which was also provoked by the police,incident that kicked it off(2 youths electrocuted) and the general presence of the police in the suburbs of Paris. The film shows the cat & mouse game the youths have with the cops, which was reflected in reality by the nature of the dead youths(they encountered cops and thought they were begin chased and ended up hiding in the worst possible spot).
But on the other hand, is it irresponsible for portraying as heroic what the media and many Londoners are calling hooligans who simply want to loot an iPad & expensive sneakers and destroy,for the fun of it, “rich” people’s property? As Cameron said after cutting short his vacation to return to London “This has been senseless violence and senseless criminality of a scale I have never experienced in my career before” and citizens have called the rioters “feral rats”.
Here’s a link to the end of the film, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ijjl6t30Kc, which I think shows the killing of a Jewish slum resident played by V.Cassel by a cop, and the resulting violence. One thing is loud and clear, the cops have a vicious relationship with the poor in modern Europe.