Brixton’s riots — they can happen here

By DEBORAH LITTMAN

It’s eerie turning on the television and seeing masses
of policemen and people engaged in pitched battle
around my favorite old Woolworth’s and the outdoor
Market near the Brixton station where for two years I

ught my vegetables. :

From 1974 to 1976, I was a Lambeth Council com-
munity worker assigned to Brixton. I both lived and
worked in the heart of the area. :

Strange as it may feel to see rioting in my old neigh-
borhood, I cannot say I didn’t expect it. The tensions
that erupted into violence in recent days were building
even then. They were based on the same problems fuel-
ing these riots — high unemployment, government cut-
backs and police harassment.

During the time I worked in Brixton, the South Lon-
don press carried on an hysterical campaign against
‘‘young Black muggers’’. Repeated front page headlines
Screaming ‘‘Jamaican Youth Assaults Old Age Pen-
sioner” created an atmosphere of fear and anxiety re-
garding Black crime, that was not supported by the facts.

Those of us working in the field could find no signi-
ficant difference between white and Black juvenile crime
rates, yet it was the ‘‘Black muggers’ who were singled
out as a special target by police. The Flying Squad, one
of London’s rare armed units, patrolled Brixton, picking
up people for being young, Black and on the streets.

Working out of the same office as the local authority’s
social services department, I watched social workers
Tush out at all hours to bail out their youthful clients. One
young Black was arrested while running down the steps
to the subway on his way to a job interview. He was
charged with purse snatching — although none was
found on him — on the grounds that “‘if he was running
he must have done something’. That he was racing
down the steps in order to be on time for his interview
was not regarded as credible by the police.

Another Brixton youth was hauled off a bus in Lon-

‘ don’s west end where he was shopping for Christmas

presents. A Black teenager in a “‘nice’’ part of town, with
a shopping bag full of expensive items was automatically
suspected of theft. Being the wrong color, in the wrong
place seemed to be sufficient proof.

BRIXTON ... a struggle against unemployment, police
harrassment. : .

Hundreds of such incidents over the years have
roused the anger and resentment that erupted in violence
on Brixton’s streets.

The Canadian media has tended to describe Brixton in
terms reminiscent of Watts or Miami. Brixton has been
called a ghetto slum, the ‘‘Harlem of London’’. There is
an illusion that racial upheaval takes place only in the
turbulent pressure cookers created by inner city decay.
When we look at our own cities, free of such downtown
wastelands (ours, we neglect to remember, are in the
suburbs) we think we are safe, even progressive. We
think that it “can’t happen here’’.

There is a lesson to be drawn from Brixton, because,
contrary to media stereotypes, it is not a ghetto slum in
the North American sense. The housing is poor, but then

so is much of the housing in London. There are any
number of London districts that are as bad as Brixton in
this respect. A ghetto usually connotes a place that is
racially homogeneous, but Brixton is not. Blacks,
whites, East Indians and others live and work there
together. There is nothing like the open animosity or
territorial battle lines familiar in places like Philadelphia,
Chicago or Miami.

Railton Road, for example, is a street housing many
local community organizations, mostly West Indian.
When the area was slated for demolition for the sake of
urban renewal, all groups — including women’s centres,
gays, tenant action committees, whites and West Indians
fought side by side to preserve the neighborhood.

' What racism exists in Brixton seems to have been
more the result of government policy than internal ten-
sion. Just before I left in 1976 the local authority com-
pleted two new housing projects, one large and soulless,
the other more spacious and better designed. Steve
Nathan, my co-community worker, noticed that those
moving into the more oppressive of the projects seemed
to be exclusively Black. The more desirable project was
being filled largely with whites. ;

Nathan asked to see the housing department records
and found ‘‘white only”’ pencilled on the cards of the
better project. When he shared this information with a
local councillor, who in turn leaked it to the press, there
was a predictable furor. Ironically, the furor was not
over the existence of racist practices, but over their
exposure.

The clerk responsible for writing ‘white only’’ on the
cards was suspended — not for racial discrimination —
but for allowing a council community worker to see the
cards. Nathan was forbidden to set foot again in the
Housing Department, and was soon eased out of his job
by his employer, the same local council that had built the
two projects.

The lesson of Brixton seems to be clear. Racism is not
an inevitable result of more than one racial or ethnic group
sharing living space. It is an ideology that can be created
and enhanced by the actions of employers, government
agencies, the media, the police and others in authority.
And it can happen here. :

‘

Soviet academician Georgi Arbatov,
slated to appear on a U.S. television pro-
gram, had his visa cancelled and was or-
dered out of the USA by Secretary of
State Alexander Haig, just hours before
the program was to be aired. Arbatov
Was to participate in a discussion on for-
eign policy on a U.S. Public Television
show “Bill Moyer’s Journal’’ on April

»

Haig’s America — land of the free?

| Marxism-Leninism Today

Spending — to delight of the arms
manufacturers — and cut social needs. It
is the only kind of atmosphere in which
pressure can be put on the USA’s allies
and make them fully share the respon-
sibility of NATO.”
““But’’, Arbatov continued, ‘building
tensions is not enough. They want a
‘situation where people consider the

10. Haig’s action is but one more exam-

’ ple of East-West tension-building on the

Part of official Washington. The losers
were the U.S. public.
* a *

Who is academician Arbatov? He is
the Director of the Institute of U.S. and
Canadian Studies located in Moscow, a
Member of the Supreme Soviet of the
USSR and a member of the Central

‘Committee of the Communist Party of

the Soviet Union. He is an expert on
world affairs, specializing in East-West
Telations, and has receritly authored a

kK in collaboration with Dutch jour-
nalist Willem Oitmans titled, ‘‘ The So-

Viet Point of View — Moscow’s View of .

East-West Relations’.

_ Because of his acknowledged exper-
tise and his obviously authoritative cre-
dentials, he was invited to head upa team

of Soviet experts to participate in a two-

hour discussion on foreign policy with a
U.S. team headed by Senator Sam
Nunn, an outspoken advocate of a haw-
Kish U.S. policy against the Soviet
Union.

* oe

the two countries.

However, while the American public
was deprived of the opportunity to hear
the Soviet point of view on the present
dangerous international situation, Cana-
dians were more fortunate, thanks to
Global Television and the Canadian au-
thorities who did not cancel Arbatov’s
visa. Global carried a half hour interview
with “Arbatov on its program ‘‘Global
Newsmakers” on April 11.

Because of this- independent stance

- taken by Canada, Canadians were able to

hear the Soviet point of view on East-
West tensions. Arbatov stated that
Washington evicted him in order to raise

East-West tensions. He pointed out that

the U.S. administration is ‘‘looking for

any pretext’’ to create “‘trouble’’ be-

tween the U.S. and the Soviet Union in
its efforts to worsen relations between

* * *

This reminds us of some comments
Arbatov made in an interview he had in
the Netherlands when his book, pre-
viously mentioned, appeared in that
country. At that time Arbatov said:
“Some Western journalists ask me why

the U.S. administration’s ‘tough’ line
and language did not -trigger off an
‘equivalent’ reaction at the 26th Con-
gress (of the CPSU).”’ ‘‘My answer’’, he
said, ‘‘is always that somebody in this
world has to be reasonable’: (our emph-
ases)

The Soviet academician went on to
point out that the Soviet program for
consolidating world peace stems from a
genuine concern about the future of
peace, from a great sense of respon-
sibility and political wisdom, and not
from wanting to ‘‘chalk up a few points in
the propaganda struggle’’. He went on to
say that attempts to dismiss the Soviet
peace proposals as part of a ‘‘political
game”’ are “‘absolutely untenable’’.

And we join with him, when he states
that the fate of. the world depends on
‘“‘what kind of response the Western
countries give to the Soviet proposals’’.

Moc kek

He went on to say that the cold war
hawks in the U.S. needed the atmos-
phere of mutual suspicion and tensions,
“because it is the only atmosphere in
which they can call for higher military

people should take.

USSR to be the source of such tensions.
But we refuse to be provoked, either by
election rhetoric or by the new admin-
istration’s tough talking. That is why the
new Soviet program for consolidating
peace caused so much confusion among
those who never tire of talking about
‘Soviet expansionism’ and the ‘Soviet
threat’.”’
* * *

This straight talk on foreign policy was
denied the American people for the sim-
ple reason that General Haig — the
over-anxious pretender to the U.S.
throne — decided that they mustn’t hear
it. :

The Reagan administration’s foreign
policy is not based on a return to détente,
arms limitation talks and efforts to en-
courage cooperation. Rather, it is based
on achieving military superiority over
the Soviet Union, and to put the U.S. ina
position of strength, in order to dictate to
the Soviet Union a conqueror’s
“‘peace’’. That is the road to war, not
peace.

It is not the road that .reasonable

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 1, 1981— Page 5