When the news broke about the London riots, scenes on the television in our coffee room – black clouds of smoke over Enfield, looted shops in Tottenham, smashed windows in Wood Green – were completely unrecognisable. I consider North London my home, even though I haven’t lived there for more than four years, but I’ve never felt as distant from it as I did last week.
To be frank, the rioting looked like the kind of uncontrollable chaos that happens to other people, in other countries. Not Britain. I’ve always pictured Britain (for better or for worse) as a placid, orderly country. When our emotions run high, we like to hold placards, shake our heads vigorously or write strongly-worded letters. Our idea of a violent, nation-shocking attack is Rupert Murdoch getting a custard pie in his face. But obviously, Iike many other relatively privileged Brits, my perspective on the country was completely and utterly wrong. It’s actually a place where people are furious, reckless and destructive, exactly the same as everywhere else.
I spent hours scanning pictures of ransacked streets and reading endless cool, analytical comment pieces in the UK’s newspapers about broken societies and disaffected youth, but at first found it hard to associate what felt like just a news story, with home. As is often the way, it took messages from people I know and love to make the situation seem real. Livid emails from friends calling the rioters scumbags, thugs and of course, far worse. Facebook messages angrily calling for curfews. And most heartbreakingly – a post from a friend who was alone in her house, seriously afraid that someone was going to smash her windows in that night.
But I still felt very far away, and while I realise I’m lucky to be nowhere near any danger, a small part of me actually wanted to be there – I suppose for the same reasons you get on the next plane home if something terrible happens to a family member. I know other Brits out here felt the same way, and I guess all sorts of nationalities have experienced similar pangs when society-changing events happened in their countries. I can only imagine what it feels like when the events are on a completely different scale – Egyptian expats watching the uprising in Tahrir Square or Norwegians grieving for their shooting victims must have felt a deeply intense pull towards home earlier this year.
It was stranger still watching news about England unfold together with people from different backgrounds, as I got a glimpse of how the country looks to the rest of the world – in particular how smashing up your local high street to get a pair of free trainers must look to Arabs who have been risking life and limb to put an end to corruption. Or how London’s bobbies and politicians appear when they’re wringing their hands over whether or not to use water cannons, to people whose police force regularly carry deadly firearms.
But that’s Britain. We are what we are. And no doubt the next few months will be spent examining exactly where what we are (or thought we were) went wrong earlier this month. They might be from far away, but our thoughts and prayers are with everyone at home.
