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of severa! nights' rioting, the Adel–
phi Hotel stood out as a handsome
neoclassical reminder of another
much more prosperous era. Not far
from the hotel district a large
newish shopping district graced the
landscape. As we continued down
Renshaw Street we noticed that the
shop windows were boarded up
with plywood- like t imber in antici–
pation of a spread of the rioting to
the main shopping area. Fortunate–
ly this did not happen.
Beyond the town center we
entered an altoget her di ffe re nt
world. lt is
not
the world of glitter–
ing prosperity that characterizes
the main downtown section of Liv–
erpool.
lt
is instead a rundown
assortment of abandoned buildings
with broken and jor boarded-up
windows dotted by the occasional
small shop still open for business.
In short it is urban blight al its
worst in England.
Very quickly we arrived in trou–
ble-torn Toxteth to take a few photo–
graphs and to su rvey the wreckage.
Whatever the causes of the rioting,
one conclusion is inescapable. Tox–
teth is a hor rible place in which to
have to live. And unfortunately this
was true
before
the first rioter
picked up the first petrol bomb.
Now, of course, conditions are just
that much worse. 1n the aftermath of
the destruct ion of the lion's share of
the shops, residents will now have to
travel all the way to the Liverpool
town center ora neighboring suburb
todo their shopping.
Let's not pick on Liverpool. But
an inner city, almost any in ner city,
is an exceedingly demoralizing place
in which to dwell. Very little to see
except concrete and tarmac, these
urban monsters are typically very
cold, lonely and d irty habitat ions.
Often people don't even know the
name of the person occupying the
next Aat or apartment.
The many, multistoried ftats are a
problem in themse lves. Often
defaced on the sides with obscene
graffiti, people are forced to live vir–
tually right on top of one another in
these cheerless match boxes they call
apartment buildings. Human beings
desperately need privacy. Living so
close to one's neighbors is against
human dignity.
It
reminds one of a
particular scripture in the biblical
book of lsaiah: "Woe unto them that
6
join house to house, that lay field to
field,
till
there be no room"
( l saiah
5:8, KJV and RSV). The cultural
context might be d ifferent, but the
sentiment is certainly the same.
Of course, bad environmental
conditions, unemployment, poverty
and other societal ills are no excuse
for violent crime.
The Ugly Faces of Crlme
The current "in" crime in Liver–
pool happens to be mugging help–
less pensioners. Even sexual assault
on elderly ladies is not that uncom–
mon. And newsboys are even on the
take. Sorne few have collected pay–
ments from readers, shared it out
among themselves and pretended to
S ociety itself- in its
various ways-has
taught people to be
contemptuous of au–
thority-and especial/y
toward that most basic
symbol of al/ govern-
mental authority-the
po/iceman.
' '
the newsagents that they were
mugged and robbed of the money.
C rime is not racial in Liverpool;
it cuts right across the racial scene.
Liverpool is a virtual nursery Óf
crime with criminals from each
racial group-white, West lndian
and Chinese, plus mixed groups
due to an unusually high rate of
racial intermarriage in the area.
Violent crime in Liverpool has ris–
en by 45 percent in four years. The
riots merely represented a sudden
concentrat ion of this crime prob–
lem in a blatant, open rejection of
authority. But no rampaging mob
was needed to document the break–
clown of law and order in Liverpool.
The evidence was already present
to the seeing eye.
Yet the government was caught
somewhat unprepared.
It
seemed to
merely hope that what had already
happened in Br istol and Brixton
(south London-see the article on
London in this issue) would not
worsen and spread.
L ittle can be done in the short
term to solve this long term prob–
lem. True, the pol ice can and most
certainly will be given better equip–
ment and more effective weaponry
with which to deal with riots. But
the long-run solution to the prob–
lem is much more fundamental
than that.
Unemployment a Factor
T he editors and writers of
T he
Plain Truth
wilJ
not
ever say that
pover ty, poor housing and unem–
ployment are an excuse for vio–
lence!
No, never!
Nevertheless,
unemployment in Liverpool tends
to be twice the national average.
Forty percent of the young people
in the Toxteth area are without a
job. Up to 60 percent of young
black people in Toxteth bave little
bope of ever getting any work in
LiverpooljMerseyside.
According to sorne authorities
sorne of those who are out of work
would rather collect t heir dole
money and then simply supplement
it by stealing a couple of purses a
week. Even so it is still a dreadful
experience for many to be unem–
ployed and dependent on the gov–
ernment for one's living.
Human beings need to feel that
they are productive, useful a nd
needed members of the particular
society in which they dwell. One of
the most basic of human needs is
the right to a job. Man is equipped
with an innate creative capacity. If
he is consistently denied the oppor–
tunity to express this creativity in a
useful manner constr uctive to
society, life can become pretty
much of a despairing existence.
Because of the serious shortcom–
ings of the world in which we live,
many people have been shunted
into meaningless, non productive
lives. They see no visible hope.
Nothing on the horizon that could
channel their energies into any type
of posi t ive action.
Furthermore their lives have
not
been undergirded by the right kind
of religious teaching. T hey have
not
been taught right from wrong.
(Continued on page 40)
The PLAIN TRUTH