Justice is colour-blind
Carnivals, although not in modern times part of our accustomed way of life, are nice, bouncy, joyful events: or at any rate, are supposed to be. No one who has seen the jogging rhythmic movement of people stepping and stomping to a steel band, their hands Clapping to the beat, their mouths opened in laughing Pleasure, will fail to enjoy the sight and to conclude that a just addition has been made to the gaiety of nations. It is very recently that in the Notting Hill area something like a 'tradition has developed which ordains that in the August holiday weekend those of West Indian origin shall have a street carnival. Twenty or thirty bands promenade through the streets; floats and fancy dresses and great marvellous exhibitions are displayed; and in the mornings and the afternoons we see shirt-sleeved policemen laughing and dancing and kissing with the locals. It is all very Jolly.
But things go wrong. Even before the sun has set, there are nasty incidents. Gangs start roaming, picking pockets, mugging people up, darting into crowds to select this or that victim. The West Indian stewards do their best to restrain their fellows; but to little effective avail. By the time dusk has come and the night is close, the gangs are out; people run in terror; the police defend themselves; clenched hands hold knives and axes and chains; the noise of broken glass indicates another shop fallen to looters. It does not take many thugs to destroy a day of carnival. The bad drives out the good. Shops have already barricaded themselves against attack. Those who live in the areas affected but who have no part to play in either the celebrations or the hooliganism can do nothing but lurk into the shadows and lick their wounds.
Such was the end of the Notting Hill Carnival.
Much the same happened at Lewisham, when the Socialist Workers were intent to fight the police after the National Front March, At Ladywood, during the election campaign, young blacks seized the opportunity of a National Front election meeting to attack. protective police. We see around us a great deal of violence; and much of that violence, we cannot but observe, is perpetrated by black youths. Much also is encouraged by white extremists who see in racial tensions a suitable broth to be stirred. How is such aggressive violence to be contended with?
The answer, surely, is that it must be stopped, also tvith appropriate violence. This is to say that black violence must be treated with the same severity at white violence. It is not a question of considering what, if any, disadvantages may have been suffered by this or the other black youth on account of his colour. Such disadvantages are not entitlements to thuggery, Years ago, there were white students who thought that their dislike of the set-up allowed them to become hooligans; and the courts properly put them in their place. The courts should now act with maximum severity against the present hooligans, who think that, because they are black and deprived, they are entitled to mug and to rob and to beat up. Deprivation, real or imagined, can never be an excuse for degenerate behaviour. In the past, the courts have acted with exemplary severity. They should do so again. And in so doing, they should be colour-blind.
Mrs Thatcher has called for heavy penalties to be imposed upon those who cause violence in the streets. She is quite right. It is up to our magistrates and judges to face this question of violence squarely. We want and are entitled to safe streets in which to walk, just as we want and are entitled to have carnivals occasionally in those streets.
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