Riot Clean Up in London (@riotcleanup)

There has been a lot of unrest here in London in the past 3 days and I think it is safe to say that the situation with riots here in London & other UK cities became really bad last night. I have to admit that I was beyond sad whilst watching all the live footage that was showing violence & looting in so many areas.

I woke up and felt very uneasy. As I was trying to catch up with all the events that had been going on, the news broke that the Sony DADC warehouse had burnt to the ground in Enfield, and for those who do not know or missed it, they work with PIAS, a distribution company that distributes records on behalf of A LOT of fantastic indie labels, a distribution company that I deal with on a weekly basis because we at Fat City buy records from them… Safe to say that I was  (and am) gutted and even though they are uncertain of the exact extent of damages to all their physical stock, in all, it really felt like a big blow for independent music and all of us who try our best to support it.

As I was getting more and more upset by the events that had taken place the previous evening, a twitter account called @riotcleanup came to my attention. To my knowledge, the account had organised, on twitter, a spontaneous meet up in Hackney and other areas to help clean up the streets after the riots that had happened the previous night. It soon became clear that because the Hackney council had done such a fantastic job cleaning the streets from the early hours in the morning, @riotcleanup were trying to mobilise the people willing to help to other areas in London that had been hit – Clapham Junction was one of those areas.

After reading and hearing so many stupid statements and comments about the riots and the situation, I was feeling more and more restless. Surely there had to be a much better way of helping my community and my city than just sitting by a computer and reading comments & tweets from people that were spewing out a lot of stupid things. So I decided to take the afternoon off, go to Sainsbury’s and buy heavy duty gloves & bags, and for the first time in my life, go to Clapham Junction to help clean up the big mess that was left behind from the previous nights riots.

Support the good cause on http://www.riotcleanup.com/

Here are some pictures I took whilst I was there helping out…

Shops closed around 2pm at Clapham Junction station, here, the workers at fonehouse were taking down the plasma screen in their shop window

Now I’m not going to go into any speculations or reasons behind the riots here in London or the riots now happening in different places across the country, because the way I see it, there is not one specific cause to it. I did however read a great article on The Independent’s website by Camila Batmanghelidjh, so if any of you are interested, you can read her piece here.

I would like to point out that personally, I do find some comments & tweets from various different people rather upsetting… It feels like too many people are opening their mouths without really thinking of what they are saying and I get the feeling that under different circumstances, they wouldn’t be caught dead saying so much rubbish.

I know that I’m not originally from London or the UK, and I am aware of the fact that some issues in this city and this country are rooted in things that I might not have been affected by whilst I was growing up. But having said that, I have lived in London and the UK for 6 years now and I consider this country and this city as my home. At the moment, the family in my home is really hurting and I don’t see how all these negative comments and this negative energy that some people are having and spreading (not rioters & looters but “normal people”) are going to help the situation in any way.

When I decided to head off to Clapham Junction today, I did so because it felt like my “family” had been attacked and I felt very strongly about going there and helping out as good as I could. Now change the word “family” to community, or you can change the word “family” to city and try to look at it from a bigger picture (it doesn’t really matter which one, as obviously, it was my first time there today and I have no real blood family there). Instead of spreading even more negativity and creating more panic and fears through rumours, why don’t you get out and help your communities? It’s so easy to complain about things and blame various people about what’s going on – but what are you, yes you, actually doing to prevent it and/or help your neighbours and fellow citizens that have been effected?

The more I read and the more I see how things are unfolding, the more it is becoming clear to me that I personally have not been involved enough with my community and the people in it. But today I tried to rectify that by going out and helping my community, my “family”, to get back on its feet. It was a very small step in the grand scheme of things, but if a lot of people took small steps towards something positive, then maybe, just maybe, things would be different from now on.

Of course, these are just my thoughts and my opinions, and I might be naive and I might be wrong. All I know is that we can all complain and we can all moan and we can all point fingers and blame certain groups of people, whether those are politicians, the police, the looters, “youngsters”, the press and so on, but I doubt we will see any big changes in our communities, cities and this country if we’re not willing to at least try to change our selves a bit first and the way we think, act and treat each other.

Right! Im gonna stop boring you now. I am exhausted so I think I will try to get some food in my belly and get some rest. To all my London & UK friends – please be safe and careful. To the rest of you – thanks for your messages and for your concerns!