Chain The Dogma August 9, 2011
Controversial BBC interview with Darcus Howe on the London riots
by Perry Bulwer
Darcus Howe, a political activist, broadcaster and columnist and long time London resident was interviewed on BBC today for his thoughts on the three days of riots that have occurred there so far. The Canadian political activism website rabble.ca posted a video of the interview, with a message to pass it on because it is unlikely the BBC will want to replay it. I am not familiar with Howe so I checked out Wikipedia and found that this BBC interview had already been referenced there. Here is that Wikipedia excerpt and the video.
Darcus Howe, a political activist, broadcaster and columnist and long time London resident was interviewed on BBC today for his thoughts on the three days of riots that have occurred there so far. The Canadian political activism website rabble.ca posted a video of the interview, with a message to pass it on because it is unlikely the BBC will want to replay it. I am not familiar with Howe so I checked out Wikipedia and found that this BBC interview had already been referenced there. Here is that Wikipedia excerpt and the video.
Controversial BBC Interview
Howe was interviewed live on BBC television[6] on 9 August 2011 during the 2011 London riots. The interview was noted for the hostile tone taken by the BBC presenter Fiona Armstrong conducting the interview[7]. Shortly after Howe began lamenting that "young blacks and young whites..... have been telling us, and we wouldn't listen....." the presenter interrupted him to ask him if he condoned violence. While denying condoning violence, his attempt to decry the killing of Mark Duggan (widely seen as the spark for the unrest) was again interrupted by the presenter who insisted that "we have to wait for the official inquiry..... We don't know what happened to Mr. Duggan."[8].
Howe attempted to put the unrest in context:
"I don't call it rioting, I call it an insurrection of the masses of the people. It is happening in Syria, it is happening in Clapham, it's happening in Liverpool, it's happening in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and that is the nature of the historical moment....."
At that point the presenter again interrupted, taunting Howe: "You are not a stranger to riots yourself, are you? You have taken part in them yourself." In fact Howe had never been convicted of rioting, and pleaded with the presenter before being finally cut off:
"I have never taken part in a single riot. I've been on demonstrations that ended up in a conflict. And have some respect for an old West Indian negro, and stop accusing me of being a rioter. Because I...you don't want to get abusive. You sound idiotic. Have some respect..."
Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/10/over_1_000_arrested_in_uk
ReplyDeleteUnrest continues to spread across England after protests erupted Saturday in London when police shot to death Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old black man. Mobs firebombed police stations and set shops on fire in London, Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Nottingham and Birmingham. After waiting for several days, Prime Minister David Cameron has cut short his vacation and recalled Parliament from summer recess. Scotland Yard has ordered its officers to deploy every available force to stop the unrest, including water cannons and possibly the use of plastic bullets. London has been flooded with 16,000 officers, the largest police presence in the city’s history. We go to London to speak with journalist Darcus Howe, a longtime critic of police brutality in black and West Indian communities across the U.K., and author and blogger Richard Seymour of the popular British site "Lenin’s Tomb." "There is a mass insurrection. And I’m not talking about rioting; I’m talking about an insurrection that comes from the depths of society, from the consciousness, collectively, of the young blacks and whites, but overwhelmingly black, as a result of the consistent stopping and searching young blacks without cause," says Howe of the uprising. Seymour notes that anti-terror legislation has led to an unprecedented number of stops, predominantly of youth of color, but protests against the stops have been largely ignored by the British media. "A political establishment, a media, and a state system that gives people…the impression that they won’t be listened to, unless they force themselves onto your attention, is going to lead to riots," says Seymour. [includes rush transcript]
Guests:
Darcus Howe, broadcaster and columnist who lives in Brixton, South London. His TV work includes White Tribe, in which he put Anglo-Saxon Britain under the spotlight. Howe organized the 20,000-strong Black People’s March in 1981, claiming official neglect and inefficient policing of the investigation of the New Cross Fire, in which 13 black teenagers died.
Richard Seymour, one of Britain’s most popular bloggers based in London. He blogs at Lenin’s Tomb. He is author of The Liberal Defence of Murder and The Meaning of David Cameron.