The riots and other community conflicts

by Peter Beresford, chair of user-led organisation Shaping Our Lives, and professor of social policy at Brunel University

Last week's Clapham Junction riots weren't the first time that Battersea made national news this year. On April 29th there was a massive widely reported Royal Wedding street party in Battersea High Street. Both occasions, however, say something about the fractured nature of the local community and broader society, as well as the part that politics have played in the process.  In the late 1970s North Battersea was a strongly working class area with two thirds of people living in council housing.

Then a Conservative Council was elected in Wandsworth, which became known as 'Mrs Thatcher's favourite borough'. This has stayed in power ever since on the slogan of the 'lowest council tax in London'. Now the population in North Battersea is polarised between an international market of people who can afford £600,000 and more for a terraced house and those on low incomes living in residual 'social housing'.

Last Christmas Battersea's private prep school 'Thomas's' organised Christmas Carols and mulled wine at the end of the High street, with carollers from Cambridge University. It was kicked off by a BBC journalist whose son went to the school (termly fees for a first child between £4,635 and £5,230) and proceeds went to the local cash strapped Katherine Lowe settlement. The local council primary school, which is just round the corner, Westbridge School, with a majority of children from black and minority ethnic communities and high levels of low income and disadvantage, did not appear to be involved.

Battersea High Street's Royal Wedding Christmas Party made national headlines and featured in the BBC's Wedding coverage during the day, with a large outdoor screen erected for local people. Valeria Ruzzon, one of the organisers who runs an antiques shop in the High Street, said: 'Everyone loves a party...Battersea is an interesting spot for a royal wedding party because we are a very diverse community. The bunting will be multicoloured and people are encouraged to fly the flags of their own countries.'

The two sets of images that made the media from the Clapham Junction riots highlight the complexity of the local community First were images and film of Debenhams, JD Sports and Currys being looted and a looter being arrested, with the local Party Shop burnt down as rioters stole face masks to disguise themselves. Second the following day, were full colour photos of a 'clean up squad of local residents' complete with brooms, after appeals on social networking sites which provided a major photo opportunity. While the rioters we saw had reflected the ethnic composition of the area, the clean up squad of young people was shown as almost entirely white in make up.

No wonder that there have been such contrasting responses to the riots, each commanding its own body of support. They reflect the conflicted nature of many local communities, whether along, class, income, ethnic, belief or cultural lines. No wonder also that within the broader stories being told there are more complex sub-texts of unresolved conflicts along lines of ethnicity, gender and sexuality. Most of these are likely to be lost given the crudity of much current comment.

Personally I fear most for my own home town, North Battersea, where over the years, the crudest social engineering has seen its traditional black and white population increasingly marginalised and more advantage incomers arrive. Understandably, not knowing its history, they have used it as a blackboard to write their own understandings of mutuality, place and community, with little comprehension of the inbalances of power and opportunity that have grown over the years, undermining all of these.