Responding to the Riots

Yesterday was the one month anniversary of my last post - so I thought it was about time I wrote something.

Those of you living in the UK, and many of you living across the world, will have seen images from the riots that occurred this week in London, and in several other major English cities. Following the consecutive nights of rioting, which saw groups of people involved in battles with the police, burning properties and cars, large scale looting, and tragically several killings, the focus has now shifted to the clear up and the analysis of what happened and why. There are many different opinions and much has been written in many blogs over the past week.

As different opinions are put forward in television interviews I find myself agreeing with some and getting really annoyed at others. As I have been reflecting on the events over the last few days and wondering whether to blog - and then what to blog - my thoughts have gone round in circles, and off on tangents: clearly there are no easy answers. And one thought seems to lead to another, which leads to another.

Certainly it is true that there were large numbers of people involved who were just out for a fight with the police, out to cause trouble and destruction, out to get their hands on a new mobile, a pair of trainers, or a flatscreen TV. Why did they get involved? Some simply got caught up in the events as they happened - and many probably thought that because of the numbers involved that they could get away with it.

I wonder how much of our behaviour is governed not by an absolute sense of what is right and wrong - but governed by the thought: will I get caught?

A feeling of hopelessness, anger, of being disconnected from society, of not having a voice - these are other reasons that have been put forward as so why things reached the scale they did. With parts of our society so on the margins, some are not at all surprised by the riots, declaring them to have been inevitable sooner or later. And whilst there are undoubtedly those in our society who despair at ever getting a job, who can't pay the bills on benefits, who see no escape, no way out, who have no hope, who have been let down by the education system...(and these are the people who Jesus spent time with)...they don't all turn to violence as the only way to get heard. One does not have to lead to the other.

Of course there are parts of the world where we (or at least our government on our behalf) have encouraged civil uprising and unrest against the authorities. Where we have armed those who have no voice in order to allow them to topple 'unjust' regimes. Is there a link?

There is so much more that has been said, and there is so much more that could be said. But where should the church be in all this? We pray for peace. We pray for those who have lost homes, jobs, family members. We pray for the authorities. And we continue to seek to be God's agents for change, bringing hope and faith and love in the places where God has called us to be, alongside people, who just like us, have been created in the image of a creative rather than destructive God.