LONDON (SatireWire.com) – The clarion of freedom that sounded across North Africa last Spring has finally reached Britain, where for the fourth straight night rioters wielded the bricks of revolution to break down the tyranny of shop windows and the despotism of display shelving to liberate the exploited consumer goods of capitalism from their unjustly priced confinement.
| “Everyone was just gone riot, going mad like, chucking things, chucking bottles … it was good though. It was good fun.” |
Or, as one 17-year-old from Croydon put it: “It’s free TVs, innit?”
As the hooded youth unshackled a 42-inch Panasonic flat screen television from the Dixons where it was being repressed, it was hard not to be reminded of the brave Syrians who sacrifice their lives for liberty, or the steadfast Egyptians who continue to push for democratic reform. Asked which group he most identified with, the young man thought for only a moment before replying, “I put a brick frew a window!”
The rioting, which began after police shot a Tottenham man, has since taken on an entirely new meaning for Britain’s stalwart youth. In Birmingham, a 15-year-old woman, stoking the fires of rebellion by a finishing off a nicked bottle of rosé, explained her participation in the uprising: “We’re out here ‘cause, you know, we’re upset about, like, stuff… an’ all.”
The words were eerily reminiscent of the immortal Che Guevara who, when leading Cuban revolutionaries in an assault against the footwear section of the Havana Sears & Roebuck, shouted, “These trainers might not fit, but, like, whatevah,” before moving on to the housewares section to smash a set of hand-carved wooden salad bowls that had failed to respond to Guevara’s call of “Patria o muerte!”
These personal demonstrations against the escalating inequality of a capitalist state dominated by corporate interests are not limited to the high street. In Manchester, rioters expressed their sense of alienation by setting fire to a pair of Vauxhall Astras that most likely represented the desensitizing malaise of conformity. In Manchester, youths no doubt sensitive to the power of symbolism tore away the hard, rigid structure of a government-owned park bench, using its planks as sledgehammers to sever the chains binding the barred doors of a gold and jewelry store whose contents had long tormented them.
But it was in London’s Barking suburb where these zealous patriots made the most emphatic statement of the Rosé Rebellion.
“I watched as this kid what had just been mugged by some blokes got mugged again by some other blokes,” said Nathan, a 15-year-old eyewitness to history. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Oh my God, that is really funny.’”
And how long will this glorious movement last? Up in Enfield, 17-year-old Gabby and 16-year-old Sheila said they would not stop until they had changed the course of a fundamentally unjust society. Although they put it differently.
“We bust shops because they’re, like, full of things, aren’t they?” said Gabby, drinking from a looted bottle of the uprising’s trademark rosé. “And the people what own the shops, they’re rich, so it’s OK if we keep taking their things. It’s their fault really, having things what we want.”
“I’d like to own a shop one day,” said Sheila, taking a swig off the bottle.
“Ooo could I burn it?” asked Gabby.
“You do an’ I’ll brick your head,” Sheila answered.
“The basic clay of our work is the youth; we place our hope in it and prepare it to take the banner from our hands.” – Che Guevara.
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