A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
But if one thing has become clear over that past few days, it is that the social dichotomy in England has become so great that no longer can any of us confidently say that we know our own country.
What we do know is that the recent rioting that has deeply affected London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and the West Midlands is rudderless and without purpose. It is a vague and confusing symptom, rather than a clear and obvious consequence.
The wanton looting cannot be realistically compared with race riots in France: the violence here is clumsily and almost unwittingly directed at corporations and authority. The riots lack the political drive to be called a fight for freedom in a Syrian or Libyan vein, and as most relevant coalition cuts are yet to take effect, one cannot, as Harriet Harman tried to do, blame police cuts, the loss of EMA, and tuition fee hikes for the troubles.
However, what the rioters may lack in terms of purpose, they more than make up for in conveying a significant political message. No protest could be more potent than the fact that individuals should feel the desire and have the conviction to vandalise, steal and assault on the scale we have seen over the past week. This is an excluded underclass reacting to commercial taunting and temptation, economic misery, and total exclusion from communities and from society.
Those who call rioters ‘scum’ or call for the return of hanging or national service show frankly astounding bigotry and lack of understanding. Labelling, mocking and loudly tutting at rioters are not solutions. These are human beings with whom we share an archipelago, and they feel it necessary to pillage and destroy. The question should not be what to do with rioters; it should ask why it is that some people see fit to turn social order on its head.
Darcus Howe, the West Indian writer and broadcaster, gave a controversial interview on the BBC yesterday. Amid the condescending and sanctimonious questioning of Fiona Armstrong, he said that “I have been living in London for 50 years ... and if you listen to young blacks and young whites they have been telling us, and we would not listen, that what is happening in this country, to them, it is wrong.” The riots have been a protest by proxy, and failing to engage with and listen to the people involved is foolish.
Generations before us have proved that poverty and a bleak future do not necessarily mean riots. Clearly, however, this is an idea not shared by thousands of young people in England in 2011. A serious lack of education and economic opportunity means the rioters could not care less about social norms and criminal activity. Perhaps the money ploughed into the Libyan intervention, which according to the Guardian newspaper’s latest estimates could end up costing around £1bn, would be better spent on schools, community projects and creating commercial opportunities in Salford, Croydon and Birkenhead.
Earlier this year, when the people of Greece flooded Athens in protest against austerity measures, it was a test for Greek democracy. A YouTube search for ‘Greek police brutality’ and the governmental approval of the measures tell us that Greece failed its test.
Though things in Britain are less desperate, this crisis is still very much a test of whether we crush and ignore our own people, or talk with and try to understand our own people. I am not condoning rioting or looting, nor am I saying criminals should be let free. I am simply arguing that if measured understanding doesn’t happen, then more rioting certainly will.
In a sense, I am inclined to agree with you about this. I think that once the criminals involved in these riots are brought to justice then the government has to seriously think about the reasoning behind the riots and what we can do to try and stop these events repeating themselves in the future. Taking an authoritarian approach will only push a disenfranchised youth further away, but at the same time the police cannot stand by and allow people to think that they can get away with things like this. These are socially motivated riots without a political cause, and that for me is perhaps the most worrying aspect.
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