ABSTRACT
I couldn’t believe what we were doing: windows were being smashed, police charges dodged, and all the time the police were yelling, ‘Get onto the pavement!’. The bottle of some people was amazing. A man in jeans walked up to the police lines, picked up a couple of rocks, stepped back and threw them at the knees of the policeman who seemed to be in charge. Another grabbed a broom and made a show of sweeping away the debris only feet from the police. Pairs of men would sprint up holding dustbins, hurl them and amble back to do it again. A woman stood ten feet away, pelting rocks and laughing…
The crowd was delirious, maniacal smiles all round. This was outside my experience, power surged through me. I was beyond any law the police could impose; they’d charge and I might run, but I would be back again. The crowd seemed to swell. It felt like a bloody revolution. But all the time, the traffic lights changed as usual: red, amber, green. People were queuing to buy kebabs at a shop and cokes and 99s at an ice-cream van. And a riot was going on.
