London riots: One expat's take, on the ground

By Sean O'Neill
October 3, 2012
blog_londonbroom_original.jpg
Courtesy <a href="http://www.anorak.co.uk/289566/photojournalism/londons-broom-revolution-erupts-in-clapham-after-riot-party-photos.html/?pid=45997#img">Anorak</a>

I finally fell in love with London during the riots. Stiff upper lip, and all that.

By writing a positive blog post about the riots, I don't—by any stretch of the imagination—mean to trivialize the suffering of the more than 200 people made homeless by arson or the countless shops—many of them family run—that were wrecked in a terrifying way that no amount of property insurance can forgive.

I also don't want to ignore how upsetting it is to live in a place experiencing unrest. The uncertainty can be intense. On Monday in South London (where I live, far from the tourist circuit), shops and pubs that ordinarily remain open until eleven o'clock were spookily closed by five. Helicopters flew overhead. Police were nowhere to be seen. The Balham mosque, roughly 300 feet away from my flat, was being guarded by its black-bearded worshippers. Hours later, shops about 150-feet and farther from my flat were hit by stupid violence. The echo-chamber of TV news and the worried messages from neighbors made it a sleepless night.

But enough with the bad part. What hasn't been said enough is that Londoners are a wonderfully resilient and open-hearted people—as their response to the riots demonstrates. They're very much worth visiting on your next major vacation.

The Blitz-era slogan of "Keep Calm and Carry On" became a visible reality as I worked side-by-side with neighbors in cleaning up. The signature photograph in newspapers and on websites has been of citizens carrying brooms in the streets. Naturally, new friendships have been microwave fast.

Within hours of Monday night's widespread looting and arson, the Twitter feed @RiotCleanUp received more than 80,000 followers. I followed its instructions, bringing a broom to nearby Clapham Junction, which had been hard hit during the looting. In this one neighborhood on a weekday morning, there were hundreds of Londoners ready and willing to clean up. They had marched there from a previous borough where they had found there was nothing to clean up because the residents had already been busy at work since dawn. Keep calm and carry on, indeed.

Why did people riot? We have to wait for smarter people than me to explain why the riots happened. In the meantime, I have sympathy for the view expressed online by a fellow travel writer, Benji Lanyado: "A sad underlying factor: Their lives are boring. This is thrilling for them. Suddenly they matter." He says that, and I repeat it, without condoning the rioters: They're morons, and they deserve criminal punishment. But I agree with Lanyado that it was the illicit thrill that probably caused many of them to take to the streets.

When I moved here as an ex-pat a year ago, I had immense respect and curiosity for England. Who couldn't? But admiration isn't the same thing as affection. Having seen the city's classy response to trouble, I'm now totally enamoured.

I never expected the moment I would fall in real love with London would be while sweeping up broken glass and smashed electronics in a street. But Londoners have never seemed more impressive. Stiff upper lip and all that.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT LONDON'S RIOTS? SOUND OFF IN THE COMMENTS. THANKS.

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London still welcoming tourists amid riots

As riots in London and in other cities in the U.K. continued into their third night on Monday, VisitBritain assured that the country is still welcoming tourists and that the violence and looting is far from any major tourist sites. "We're continuing to monitor the situation closely," said Karen Clarkson, vice president North America for VisitBritain, the country’s tourism marketing organization. "There are pockets of unrest occurring in London," she said, but added that they are occurring away from the destinations that travelers normally visit. More than 600 people have been arrested in a swath of rioting that began in Tottenham, England on Saturday over the fatal shooting by police of a 29-year-old man, Mark Duggan, the BBC reported. Over the past three days, riots and looting have spread to various cities throughout the country, including Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and the capital. Prime Minister David Cameron returned early from his summer vacation and recalled Parliament in the wake of the continued unrest, BBC reported. "We're actually not getting a lot of calls about the London issue at the moment," said Paul Wiseman, president of Trafalgar Tours, which offers numerous tours that include London. "Perhaps [our passengers] are understanding it's a suburban issue that's largely contained." Indeed, the events in the U.K. "have been largely confined to secondary shopping centers in the suburbs," the European Tour Operators Association said in a statement. "No iconic landmarks have been affected. So long as the damage is contained outside of central London, then there will be little long-term impact on demand for London as a tourist destination." "London is still one of the safest and most vibrant tourism destinations in the world," ETOA stated. Clarkson said that of the airlines and tour operators she had checked in which, while most had recevied calls from concerned travelers, none had seen any cancellations yet. "There are approximately 330,000 [international] visitors in London on any given day,” said Clarkson, adding that this is a busy time for travel to the U.K. "Tourists attractions are receiving and welcoming visitors as usual." A spokesperson for London &amp; Partners, the official promotional agency for London stated, "it is currently too early to anticipate the effect on tourism and inward investment but we are monitoring the situation … Past experience tells us that London recovers very quickly from such events and we will focus on recovery activity as soon as it is viable to do so." London &amp; Parners has posted updated information for visitors on its website. More from Budget Travel: Theft from luggage at airports and how to avoid it Bookworms rejoice! Harry Potter takes over London and New York London: Top fish and chip shops

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