芒洋の日々　

It is established that the riots connote “race” and make visible the law and order issue (Back et al, 2002). But, further questions are how the riots connote “race”, who are racialised in the riots and how the riots are interpreted in the context of political climate. The comparison of two riots which occurred in the same area in 1985 and 2005 help us answer these questions.

1) Handsworth Riots in 1985
a) The events
The disturbance occurred between the 9th to the 11th September 1985 mainly in the Lozells area of Birmingham. It is assumed that the riots were sparked by the harsh policing. Hundreds of people attacked police, looted and burned shops mostly owned by Asians, which resulted in the deaths of two Asian people. The event is still remembered as the “Handsworth Riot”, while the disturbance which took place almost in the same place 20 years later was named as the “Birmingham Riot” or “Lozells Riot”. The reason for the former is that in 1980s people easily associated the disturbance with the name of “Handsworth” because of its infamous image of black criminality as pervasively represented in the media, locally and nationally.

b) The reactions of politicians
The first responses of local politicians were to associate drugs and crime with the riot as the act of small number of people. The day after the riot, the Labour MP for Erdington, commented: “It was more drug and crime-related than anything else”. Another Labour MP for Perry Bar condemned a few hundred people for criminality who “slurred the good name of Handsworth” and denied the police were responsible, maintaining that: “the police did not start the riot” (The Times, September 11 1985). However, he rejected the connotation of the event with “race” as most of the local MPs did, claiming “it was not a race riot”. Although the Labour MP for Ladywood condemned the riot as “a mindless and destructive cry of rage”, he claimed that the problem more generally was one of unemployment that contributed to the riot (The Times, September 12 1985).

The responses of the Government and conservative politicians were to deal with the riot as a law and order issue. The Home Secretary, Hurd, said that the rioting was “not a social phenomenon but crimes”. Therefore, “it is not a case history for sociologists to pore over, but a case for the police” (The Guardian, September 23, 1985). He would meet riots by “pursuing and arresting those who commit breaches of the law”, rather than launching a public inquiry. Most controversially, Enoch Powell renewed his demand for the repatriation of immigrants (The Guardian, September 21, 1985). He claimed that the event in Handsworth vindicated his “rivers of blood” speech in 1968 and said “I told you so” (The Times, September 12, 1985).

c) Newspaper Representations
Most of the newspapers reported that a “race riot” took place and tension between the African Caribbean and Asian communities resulted in the death of two Asian brothers, contrary to the fact that the brothers were killed by whites (Solomos, 1988). A lot of local community leaders and inhabitants challenged this media allegation. The chairman of a community association claimed that the suggestions of communal rivalry were “a diversion created deliberately to divide us and to draw attention away from the real difficulties in this area faces”. An Asian boy showed his anger when the leader of the City Council spoke of “Black and brown people”, saying “here we are all black whether we have come originally from the West Indies, from Africa, or from India” (the Guardian, September 12, 1985). It is uncertain whether tensions between the two communities existed. Paul Gilroy argued after the Lozells riots that those tensions and racial hatred within ethnic minorities “go back a long way”. But, these problems were rarely revealed until recent years, “because the interpretative frame couldn’t imagine that victims of racism might be racist themselves” (in MacCabe 2005: 8).

However, it is evident that the media circulated distorted images. Although many Whites and Asians were involved in the incident, the media reported that the vast majority of rioters were African-Caribbean youths. Another Asian youth criticized the media representation of Asians: “they are responding to their own stereotype, which states that Asians are too passive to be involved in rebellion” (the Guardian, September 19, 1985)

d) The public inquiries
There were two influential inquiries to seek the context of the riots. The inquiry carried out by the West Midlands Police took the same explanation as the central government. It admitted that social deprivation was a problem in the area, but rejected its relation to the riot. Also, it denied the police responsibility to invoke the riots, concluding “the riots were due to deliberately criminality and that police/community relations were good and still remain good in Handsworth (West Midlands Police: 70)”.

In contrast, the independent Silverman Inquiry suggested social injustice such as racial discrimination and unemployment were key factors in the development of the riots. It criticized the police inquiry: “to bland all those young people as criminals is merely adding to the injustices” (143).