The reasons for writing about not writing about riots

Let me put this into context...

Last night was the third night of rioting in various areas of London, which also saw the riots spread not only to new areas, but to other cities including Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool and my home city Nottingham.

The reasons for the rioting are already known or will come out in the wash. I am not going to start supposing or commenting. However, I am going to respond to some critics.

Last night, I made some very fripperous comments on Facebook not in anyway related to the riots. The response that I got was along the lines of "how can you be so flippant/sarcastic/ignorant about the riots happening?" Apparently if you made any comment on Facebook which did not condemn the violence or sympathise with the residents, then you were ignorant. One 'friend' deleted himself. No loss really.

So, why did I not condemn the violence. Why did I not use my Facebook page to rant or make political statements?

A number of reasons.

Firstly - I don't. If people want to know my political/fiscal/other views then they can find them by other means. My Facebook is - and always has been - a light-hearted look at life. If anything, in the current circumstances that distraction is probably welcomed by a lot of my friends as light relief...

Secondly, there is overload. If I look through my Facebook feeds from last night there were well over 400 posts from various people. In fact some of my friends just seemed to repeatedly post the same thing every hour/half-hour/ten-minutes. They treat the feed as though I have no other way of finding out the news. I do - I have a lot of other news sources, most of which are infinitely more credible, accountable and accurate than my friends various ramblings on their feed. It really is disappointing that no-one had anything else to say. Of the well-over 400 statuses, I would be very lucky to have read half-a-dozen which were in any way unrelated to the riots. I hope that, for my friends at least, I have injected something different into their day which would otherwise have been filled with masses of 'oh-woh is me' messages. Yes, it gives a sense of the public opinion of the riots, but a) was there really any doubt that the public at large condemned them? and b) I would be associating with the wrong type of people if the statuses were either condoning or encouraging them - I know my friends, I know what they are like. I also know what they are thinking and would have appreciated a break from the predictable.

Thirdly, did I really have anything to contribute to the debate? It's all very well talking, but if you are not saying anything new or anything sensible, you are just adding to the noise. And there are only so many ways that people can be 'disgusted' with the behaviour. Yes, I could stake out my political opinion; yes I could wade into the rights and wrongs; my conjectures as to the underlying cause and any potential resolution. But am I really contributing that other people haven't already? There are many, many, many people more learned out there on the subject; all of whose views can be read in the newspaper articles, on the websites or heard in the interviews. The chances are they actually know more what they are talking about. And if they don't then they deserve to look as stupid as they are about to be made to look; and it certainly isn't my intention to look any more stupid than I naturally have to.

None of this is to say that it doesn't affect me. It does - greatly in fact. I have a lot of friends in all of the cities involved, many of whom were posting particularly interesting updates about how the incidents were affecting them personally. These statuses were the ones I was interested in. I needed to know that my friends were ok.

And, more particularly, it did directly affect me. I was woken up at 1:30 am as the Nottingham rioters passed the end of my street less than 20 yards away. My house itself was directly between two of the areas subjected to damage. You can read the news report here But you won't hear me make mention of it on Facebook, unless I can do so in a suitably flippant manner.