2 Moral Storytelling during the 2011 England Riots: Mythology, Metaphor and Ideology

Abstract

Introduction This chapter analyses moral storytelling in media responses to the England riots. Case one analyses the myth of the Blitz (Calder 1991; Ponting 1990; Kelsey 2015a) through the diachronic–synchronic discursive tensions of national narration, popular memory and British identity. I argue that these mechanisms operated ideologically to provide metaphors of war and morality with intertextual scope and dialogical salience through public and political discourse. In doing so, case one analyses victim and hero archetypes in representations of the general public through examples of moral storytelling that invoked the myth of the Blitz. Case two then analyses representations of rioters. It considers the ideological operations and paradoxical persuasions (Kelsey 2015a, 2015b) that operated through moral discourses and a sick society metaphor. The latter shows how moral discourses oscillated precariously between constructions of rioters transcending the social class system whilst paradoxically operating through discourses of blame aimed at the welfare state. I have selected these two cases because they reflect moral constructions of Britain in past and present contexts through attempts to understand what happened during the riots. Both cases concern forms of mythology that draw on visual and linguistic metaphors of war and social sickness. But before I go any further, let us recap what happened during the riots and some of the political responses that others have commented upon since then. Riots under Review On 4 August 2011 a 29-year-old black male was shot dead by police in Tottenham. On 6 August a peaceful protest took place in Tottenham against the shooting. When police in Tottenham attempted to disperse the protest violent clashes occurred as large groups also responded by setting fire to police and public properties. From 7 August onwards, these acts of violence and civil disobedience spread across London and other cities in England with riots and looting taking place in sixty-six locations. Whilst these were not necessarily instances of protest violence following the events in Tottenham, they were clearly reactions mobilised by the riots that started a day earlier. Five people died in the riots, which lasted until 10 August and are estimated to have involved up to 15,000 people and cost the country up to half a billion pounds (Bridges 2012: 2).