East End rage

This weekend the most watched sporting league in the world is due to start its 2011-12 season. Yet successive nights of rioting in London,and the consequent postponement of a football match between England and Holland,has caused even the English Premier League’s security arrangements to be closely scrutinised. And,as the people of the United Kingdom struggled to explain the violence and looting,200 delegates of the International Olympic Committee descended on the host city of the 2012 Games to watch a beach volleyball demonstration held at the Horse Guards in Whitehall,within bowshot of Downing Street. The spectacle went off smashingly,apparently — once it was brought forward by 90 minutes,so as to finish before nightfall.

Immediate concerns apart,a carefully organised,high-security period like the Olympics is considerably different in nature from a period when an unprepared police force is tackling mass looting,so it would not be sensible to judge security arrangements for 2012 on the basis of these three nights. However,there is a larger question here,one that speaks to the power and point of hosting events like the Olympics in the first place. The British government’s hopes from the Games make uncomfortable reading in the light of recent events: to transform East London; to inspire a generation of young people to local volunteering,cultural and physical activity; to demonstrate that the UK is a creative,inclusive and welcoming place to live in. If the purpose was to rebrand an entire swathe of one of the world’s greatest cities,to demonstrate the vibrancy of the communities that call it home,then the images that have been coming out of East London — particularly Hackney,one of the Games’ major locations — do tend to undermine the Olympic mission.

The challenges for the UK government are,therefore,substantial. Yet one should never underestimate the ability of events like the Olympics to,indeed,build solidarity even within communities as stressed as those which produced East London’s young rioters. It seems London did not just want the Games. It needed them,too.