Tottenham Defence Campaign

Once again our community has to pick up the pieces of major social unrest, a turmoil ignited by a local man Mark Duggan being shot and killed by the police in Tottenham.   Social disorder spread rapidly to other parts of London and finally to other cities and towns in England, each with their own specifics and intensity.  In the course of three days of disorder and mayhem, five others were to die -  Trevor Ellis in Croydon, South London, Richard Mannington in Ealing, West London,  Shazad Ali and Abdul Musavir who were brothers alongside Haroon Jahan – all three killed together in  Birmingham.  Others lost their homes or businesses or were just scared they might do.

The reasons for this outburst are many and more complex than the nature of responses that has dominated the media in the immediacy of the event, particularly those from our political leadership.  The Tottenham Defence Campaign has been formed for several reasons but its chief  aims are:

• To ensure any person arrested by police in relation to the disturbances have access to high quality independent legal advice and support.
• To inform all members of the community what basic legal rights they do have and the protections available to them against abusive conduct from the police and other officials.
• Challenge attempts to further marginalise and criminalise the people of Tottenham as a response to the disorder that took place in August particularly the simplistic view that sheer mindless criminality was the cause of such disorder.
• We seek to challenge gratuitous or vengeful responses upon individuals from the criminal justice system through sentencing policy or from other institutions through curfews or evictions.
• To engage critically but constructively with all persons and institutions who seek to understand and remedy the causes of social disorder.
• To monitor and highlight continuing coercive policing of our communities.

None who support this defence campaign wish to see where we live burnt to the ground or our neighbours (both near and far) killed, injured or hounded.  Long before the current upheaval, many of us have been working beyond the media spotlight to fashion a more humane community, especially with those who have been dispossessed of the idea that they might be part of a wider community. That work draws little political support both locally in Tottenham and at a broader level.  In the aftermath of the recent disorders the loudest voices have proudly beaten their chests as they describe members of our community as being little more than wild mindless criminals, rats even with little if any moral centre.  It is a mindset that reaches for medieval standards of justice  and collective punishment as those who may not have taken part in the riot but are associated in some way with those who did are given a measure of  retribution.

Once in a while, usually after massive disorder some of us are sought out by perplexed officials who repeat the questions they asked from the previous riot, but generally we are ignored.  We cannot engage with the political process whilst suspending our critical faculties, there are far too many serious issues we want addressed – policing and real security of our communities, employment, urban renewal to name a few and all within the framework of supporting and building our communities not towards what others have prescribed for us, but as determined step by step by ourselves.  We need more than to be ‘consulted’ on these matters; we need to have meaningful decision making abilities on matters that directly affect us.  This lack of a meaningful way to shape our future is also partly behind the cause of the disorder we have witnessed.

These  are some the  motivations behind forming the Tottenham Defence Campaign,  a defence  of the principal of equal treatment and due process, a defence against the dehumanising of an already demonised group of people, a defence against the implosion of an impoverished area and its people.

September 2011