• Why do Dickens characters still resonate 200 years on?

    By Pete Jeary , NBC News

    Peter Jeary / NBC News

    A bust of Charles Dickens in the author's former home in London, now a museum.

     

    LONDON – Having fallen victim to a pickpocket on my journey through London this morning, it feels curiously appropriate that Tuesday marks the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens.  The great chronicler of Victorian England's underworld would probably have been amused – and literally inspired – as I was adroitly parted from my cell phone.

    As the country tips its collective hat to celebrate his 200th birthday – Prince Charles is leading ceremonies by laying a wreath on the writer's grave and actor Ralph Fiennes will give a reading, among other notable events – I wonder why does this most "modern" crime feel so immediately "Dickensian" in nature? Why do the settings, such as the workhouse of Oliver Twist, and characters, such as Ebenezer Scrooge, which Dickens drew in word portraits, still resonate today?

    I believe the answer lies in the fact that millions in the English-speaking world – and countless more who don't speak English as a first language – are able to conjure up a name, plot or title for something associated with Charles Dickens. But here's the rub – it is the transformation of his work into other media that has fuelled this ubiquity.

    Peter Jeary / NBC News

    Billboard for an 1837 theatrical production based on 'The Pickwick Papers.'

    At my English elementary school, our rare cultural day-trips were reserved for worthy matters.  In one case, there was a trip to the movie theater to see a black-and-white screening of Great Expectations, which opens in the bleak landscape of the Kent marshes. 

    Just a few years later, Lionel Bart's stage-musical-turned-Academy-Award-winning Oliver! transported me to an equally strange Technicolor world, where Victorian London encountered the Swinging Sixties. 

    The start and end of my teenage years were marked, like solid wooden bookends holding up a shelf-full of Dickens books, by Smike (a musical TV adaptation from Nicholas Nickleby) and Nicholas Nickleby itself – an eight-hour stage epic, in two parts, written by David Edgar and produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

    Google pays tribute to Dickens with a special 'doodle'

    And so it transpired that I felt like an expert in Dickens, without ever having read a word.  The Jeary family volume of A Christmas Carol remained unopened for many years, apart from the well-thumbed pages with illustrations.

    Peter Jeary / NBC News

    Dickens acting the part of Captain Bobadil in an amateur production, portrayed in an engraving of an 1846 painting by C.R. Leslie.

    To a large degree, the blame must lie with Dickens himself.  He was a keen amateur actor, and adored his staged readings and lecture tours. His work was so "theatrical" it was often pirated – illicitly transformed into a stage rendition before the serialization was complete. 

    The plots and settings are quintessentially cinematic – there are around 100 known movies dating from the silent-movie era based on Dickens' novels.  He is also, without question, one of greatest authors of flawed characters in English literature. 

    As the Archbishop of Canterbury said at Tuesday's service at Westminster Abbey to honor Dickens, "the figures we remember most readily from his works are the great grotesques.  We have, we think, never met anyone like them – and then we think again." 

    And so it was inevitable that Miss Havisham, Smallweed and Sir Leicester Dedlock would creep in to the common psyche, as the TV mini-series became the modern-day literary periodical.

    These media transformations produce incredible interest in Dickens and his literature.  The London Museum has a special Dickens exhibition that's proving hugely popular and the line for the Charles Dickens Museum – right around the corner from the NBC London bureau  – ran out the passage and down the street (the fact they were offering free birthday cupcakes may have had something to do with it).

    Peter Jeary / NBC News

    A bookcase in the author's London home, now the Charles Dickens Museum.

    The trouble is, as wonderful as adaptations are, they can never recreate the complexity and density of the original.  Reading Dickens is like embarking on the trans-Siberian railway-- a marathon journey encountering multiple characters in unfolding landscapes.  I remember feeling punch-drunk upon completing my first full read-through of a novel (Bleak House) and still need to be in the right frame of mind before starting a new one.

    But there is something compelling and inspiring about his writing that becomes infectious. I have made my own dismal attempt to adapt Martin Chuzzlewit for the stage, but it's proving hellishly difficult; so unfortunately "Pecksniff and Pinch" won't be at a theater near you anytime soon... but please keep an eye out for my cell phone.

     

     

  • 18 years after racist slaying, fear still stalks London's streets

    Carl Court / AFP - Getty Images

    Flowers were left at the Stephen Lawrence memorial in the Eltham area of south London on Wednesday.

    By Jason Jouavel, NBC News

    LONDON -- A plaque near a bus stop in south London marks where murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence took his last few breaths and serves as a grim reminder of one of Britain's most notorious racist crimes. 

    The memorial at the site of Lawrence's killing -- which has been described as the U.K's "Rosa Parks moment" -- has been vandalized several times. That strikes me as a sign that deep hatred still exists.

    I'm a black south Londoner. And almost two decades after the slaying, I still feel very anxious walking through certain streets in Eltham after dark.

    Lawrence, 18, was stabbed to death by a gang of white youths in an unprovoked attack as he waited at the bus stop in Eltham in 1993. The investigation was bungled and despite multiple court appearances by suspects over the years no one was convicted until Tuesday.

    Two men have been convicted of the 1993 killing of a black teenager that prompted a change in the law and reforms to Britain's police. ITV News' Simon Israel reports.

    At least three people involved in Lawrence's slaying remain at large and to this day a notable lack of local people have come forward with information about what happened.

    Duwayne Brooks, who was with Lawrence at the time of the attack, told investigators that they had been racially abused before the stabbing. However, police initially treated Brooks like a suspect -- as opposed to a key witness.

    The crime also resulted in a 1999 public inquiry that branded London's Metropolitan Police force as "institutionally racist."

    Paul Hackett / Reuters, file

    David Norris (rear with blue shirt) runs for cover as he and some of the others suspected of involvement in the killing of Stephen Lawrence are pelted with eggs after leaving a 1999 public Inquiry into police handling of the case in London.

     Stephen's parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence, have waged a nearly 19-year battle for justice, which finally paid dividends with this week's murder convictions of Gary Dobson and David Norris.

    I've seen the slain teenager's courageous mother several times on the streets of south London as she continues her fight to clean-up the police, strengthen laws and support victims of racially motivated crimes. My immediate impulse is always to just salute her.

    'Deep darkness'
    Although there was celebration in some quarters over the conviction and sentencing of Dobson and Norris, I have to agree with the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He summed up this week's events as "little light with deep darkness."

    It's important to remember that the people who killed Lawrence have been harbored by their community for years and some are still being protected.

    Some progress has undoubtedly been made since Lawrence's slaying.

    Reuters

    Stephen Lawrence was aged 18 when he was stabbed to death near a bus stop in Eltham, south London, in 1993.

    However, recruitment drives aimed at attracting more black and Asian officers have failed to make the Metropolitan Police representative of London's ethnic diversity.

    A disproportionate number of black people are still stopped and searched by the police. It's something I've been through several times. On one occasion, I was driving to work when I was stopped. The police officer said that I looked "suspicious."

    Many young black men in London complain about being prejudged and stereotyped. 

    I was astonished when a well-educated acquaintance told me she thought that black people should be stopped because they commit most crimes as we casually discussed last summer's London riots. I wonder whether this is also the view of some police officers.

    The police must be commended for pursuing Lawrence's killers for close to two decades. But let's not forget that if the investigating officers had been more rigorous when the crime was committed, the Lawrence family may have had justice much sooner.

  • Activists ask: Undercover cop? Or one of us?

    Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images

    Protesters holding banners and placards take part in a Climate Justice march on December 3, 2011 in London, England.

    By Annabel Roberts, NBC News

     
    News analysis
    LONDON – From Occupy protesters popping up worldwide, to students marching against tuition fees, to the anti-nuclear movement – people are angry and social activism seems to be on the rise. 

    But now in the U.K. there is a question on the lips of many activists: Whom can we trust?

    Their suspicions stem from stunning revelations in Britain about the infiltration of activist groups by undercover agents working for the police.

    Imposture activist
    For seven years Mark Stone lived and breathed the cause of British environmentalism. He was known as “Flash” because he usually drove a van, and seemed to be never short of cash. Over the years he became close to a key group of activists, attended rallies with them, traveled across Europe and appeared to wholeheartedly support their causes. He also developed personal relationships with several female protesters.

    And yet, his true identity was in fact very different: He was an undercover police officer, real name Mark Kennedy, tasked with infiltrating environmental activist groups. He was unmasked when a fellow activist discovered his passport containing his real name.  

    A string of prosecutions based on evidence Kennedy had gathered (like recorded conversations) have since collapsed after it became clear the evidence was not offered to lawyers defending the activists, even though it may have had an impact on their ability to establish their innocence.

    So what was the purpose of the seven-year assignment, and the many thousands of taxpayer dollars spent on it?

    Who else is being watched?
    The case has raised questions about how many undercover operatives there are, and what sort of causes they are infiltrating. There are now at least a dozen investigations into police infiltration of the protest movement in the U.K.

    Kennedy himself estimates that he knows of about 10 underground police officers who have infiltrated the environmental movement in the U.K.

    But climate change campaigners are quick to ask: Why? They insist their movement is peaceful. The green activists say this level of police activity and intrusion would be fitting for terrorists – and that they do not pose a comparable risk.

    Issues regarding the police operatives’ behavior have also raised concern. Undercover officers are strictly forbidden from entering into sexual relationships with their targets – and yet this seems to have happened on several occasions with Kennedy. And are they permitted to break the law while acting with their groups? And what accountability is there if they do overstep the mark?

    There seems to be little clarity about what other protest organizations might have been selected for infiltration and why. While the public asks how these activities can be justified, the protesters themselves are increasingly looking over their shoulders and asking who among them may in fact be an undercover officer.

  • Fighting ‘virtual’ threats to London Olympics

    By Ed Kiernan, NBC News

    LONDON - The London Olympics are just over eight months away and already security preparations are in full swing.  Officials are lining up the big guns – literally. Aside from the reported 1,000 security agents the U.S. is sending over, officials are discussing having surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) on hand. 

    But battalions of FBI agents and SAM sites won't be much help against a growing concern that one of the biggest threats to the Olympics won’t be real bombs, but digital ones.

    From disrupting the transport system and tampering with event results, to conning visiting tourists out of their cash, organizers are working on plans to provide total security for the event.

    "There are all sorts of ways in which you can actually seek to pull down some part of all the planning of the Olympics," former security minister Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones told NBC News at a conference on cyber security in London this week.

    During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China was subject to around 12 million online attacks per day. To prepare London’s systems for the expected onslaught, organizers will run simulated worst-case scenario cyber attacks just months before the Games' opening.

    The London Olympics Technology Operations Center relies on 9,500 computers and almost 1,000 servers to run its infrastructure, including communications channels, ticketing systems and the transport network.  During the games more than 5 million people are expected to cram themselves into London’s subway system.  Anyone who rides ‘the Tube,’ as it is known locally, can vividly imagine the chaos that would ensue if a cyber-attack shut-down the capital’s primary transport system.

    And it's not just the infrastructure that needs protecting.  Millions of tourists will descend on London next summer, all eager to be involved in the games and spend a bit of money.

    "There are those groups that will try to attack the infrastructure," says John Lyons, CEO of International Cyber Security Protection Alliance (ICSPA), a not-for-profit focused on helping companies and authorities battle cybercrime.

    'Vulnerable people'
    Cybercriminals could also go after more mundane things, Lyons said.  Ruses could include phishing emails – whereby a criminal tries to get targets to divulge private information by pretending to be a legitimate business – and online cons that trick people into buying tickets and hotel rooms that don't exist.

    “Organized crime will be targeting the Olympics from the point of view of making money from vulnerable people,” Lyons told NBC News.

    There are good reasons to be worried.  The U.K. is the sixth most cyber-attacked country in the world, behind the United States, Brazil, India, China and Germany, according to Prof. Michael Clarke of British defense think tank the Royal United Services Institute.  Every year
    the U.K.'s economy loses over $40 billion to cyber-crime, according to the British government. This figure is set to rise as the population continues to move more and more of their lives online, experts say.

    Add to Britain’s hyper-connected status the fact that the world is rushing towards the virtual too. Out of the 7 billion people on earth it's estimated that 2 billion are online today, Microsoft U.K.'s Chief Security Adviser Stuart Aston said. This number is expected to rise to 3 billion in next five years. Fifteen billion devices, from Tablets to iPhones and Blackberries are expected to be online by 2015, Aston said.

    "Seventy-five percent of transactions in Japan today are mobile based," according to Aston. "It's not a question of whether mobile devices will be the Internet. They are the Internet."

    As phones and tablets become the primary tools that we use to run our lives ensuring the protection of these devices, whether at the
    Olympics or not, has become a top priority to both governments and private sector businesses.

    "You look at the billions of dollars that organized crime is making out of the Internet," Lyons said. "It's much easier and quicker than  holding up a bank with a sawn-off shotgun."

  • Occupy Wall Street-style protests spread to Britain

    By William Kennedy for msnbc.com

    LONDON — A young woman spray-paints the final letter on a floral-patterned sheet. Unfurled it reads: "Occupy London, 15 Oct, occupylsx.org."

    The small group of assembled activists applaud its look. “I love the kitschiness of it. It’s so ‘Laura Ashley’ English — perfect for a protest,” one says, namechecking the British brand known for its prim-and-proper fashions. 

    Inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests on the other side of the Atlantic, demonstrators plan to establish a tent city in London’s City financial district next weekend.

    Protests aimed at policies on Wall Street have spread to 45 cities across the US as consistently large crowds continue to occupy the financial district in New York City. NBC's Lilia Luciano reports.

    “The Wall Street protests sort of inspired everything,” said Kai Wargalla, who co-created the Occupy London Facebook group. “It was just time to start here. We need people to step up and speak out.”

    This movement aims to unite the United Kingdom’s far-flung activist communities in addressing "the inequality of the financial system," Wargalla said.

    'Not just dirty hippies'
    The dozen hipster-chic men and women making signs on Saturday in a funky, tropical-themed club in north London’s Hackney borough have varied protest backgrounds. Some come from "Free Bradley Manning" and anti-nuclear campaigns, others from the Spanish 15-M movement, which occupied Madrid on May 15.

    “These people are rightfully complaining about a lot of things,” said Matthew Slatter, an activist programmer with a theology degree. “They’re not just dirty hippies.”

    William Kennedy

    An activist prepares a banner ahead of the Occupy London protest planned for Oct. 15.

    The mood was upbeat as aerosol fumes rose past African drums, palm tree cutouts and a faded pennant seeking to "Free Mohammed Hamid" — a street preacher who called himself "Osama bin London". He was convicted in 2008 of running terrorist training camps in the U.K.

    “We’re the beginning of something,” said Ronan McNern, a member of U.K. rights group Queer Resistance who has a background in public relations. “People are not stakeholders in democracy, in the workings of the nation anymore. This [movement] gives a lot of hope for the future.”

    Occupy London's members largely identify with the "We are the 99 Percent" slogan made popular by protesters in the U.S.

    "There's something about the fact that 15,000 people are trying to march down Wall Street that is uniquely exciting," said Naomi Colvin,  an activist who worked to get alleged Wikileaker Bradley Manning out of confinement "What’s happening in Wall Street is in a way a culmination of things that have gone on in southern Europe and the Middle East."

    “We’re asking the government to be more accountable for regulating [the financial sector] in the interests of a few people, rather than the majority.

    “Having a group of tents somewhere in London is quite symbolic,” she added. “This is now a city that most of the people working in can’t really afford to live in.”

    By Sunday morning, Occupy London had more than 1,500 followers on Twitter and 3,000 had signed up to attend next weekend's event near the London Stock Exchange.

    “I think it will only get stronger of time, just as we’ve seen in Wall Street,” Wargalla said.

    But that will not be easy, McNern warned. “To sustain something like this in the British winter will be a nightmare,” he said.

  • Do only pretty blondes graduate from UK schools?

    One of the founders of the "Sexy A-levels" blog told msnbc.com it was born out of a desire "to satirize and poke fun" at the media's coverage of the day high school students get their final report cards.

    by Ian Johnston, msnbc.com

    LONDON — Based on the coverage in many British newspapers, readers could be forgiven for thinking that the vast majority of students who received their final high school report cards Thursday were pretty blonde girls who are fond of low-cut tops and joyful leaping.

    But that, of course, would be wrong, so how could it happen? Amid much soul-searching about standards in the U.K.'s media following the phone-hacking scandal, revelations have emerged about just how low high schools will stoop to collude with the press and compete for publicity on what has become branded "Sexy A-levels" day.

    Normally details of how well students have done in their A-level exams — essentially the British equivalent of final exams and SATs combined — lead to newspaper debates over whether the tests have been deliberately made easier to boost the results artificially. The accompanying photographs of good-looking girls with top marks go largely unnoticed.

    But this year, Chris Cook, a journalist on the respected and slightly dry Financial Times newspaper, has lifted the lid on some of the rather seedy ways that schools and papers set up the shots.

    In an article entitled, "We're just not that kind of newspaper," he detailed a slightly creepy message left by a public relations officer for Badminton School in Bristol, a private school for girls, on his voicemail last year.

    'Amazing girls'
    "Hi Chris, ... Just wanting to give you some details of some absolutely beyootiful [beautiful, but pronounced with emphasis] girls we've got here who are getting their A-level results tomorrow. Some lovely stories ... they're amazing girls," the message from the unnamed publicist said, according to Cook's article. (The Financial Times operates behind a paywall.)

    He also said that Bedales School, a private school for girls and boys, "helpfully supplies photos to journalists."

    "Oddly, it seems to forget to send out any photos of its male students (or dowdier girls)," Cook wrote.

    He added that a"very grand" private school, which he did not name, had invited a Financial Times staffer to an end-of-year sports event, with a teacher saying that watching the girls would provide a "unique opportunity to pick out promising candidates for A-level day pictures."

    The Guardian newspaper, in its live blog Thursday, the day the results came out, said that by about 10 a.m. local time just four out of 45 photographs of students sent in by picture agencies were of boys, a staggeringly low rate of just under 9 percent.

    At least one blogger noticed the preponderance of attractive young women in the coverage of annual exam results as far back as 2009.

    The blog, called simply "Sexy A-levels", says its purpose is to explore "the hypothesis that U.K. newspapers believe that only attractive girls in low-cut tops do A-levels." The three people behind it note their "growing sense of disquiet."

    It lists several pages of pictures from local and national newspapers, mostly of girls, many engaging in the almost obligatory, celebratory group leaps. By Thursday, the blog had been "liked" on Facebook 9,380 times, up from 5,000 last year.

    London-based journalist Tom Phillips, one of the people behind the blog, told msnbc.com in an email that the blog was born out of a desire "to satirize and poke fun" at the media's coverage of the results.

    'Perving' over teens
    He said its main aim was "to be funny," but he stressed was also a serious point. "We do get quite worried that some people seem to be taking it as an endorsement of perving over 18-year-old girls," he said.

    Phillips said a large number of Britain's photo editors were likely to be middle-aged men and suggested this might lead to "some subconscious bias" and "to be honest, entirely conscious in some cases."

    While there was nothing wrong with "celebrating bright, blonde girls who've excelled academically," Phillips said he felt there should be "a bit more space to celebrate others as well."

    Photographers, he added, should also find other ways of illustrating joy at good results than simply "making them jump in the air in a rather unconvincing way."

    Phillips said he had noted a change in coverage this year, saying there had been "definitely more boys, less jumping" and even "pictures of people looking miserable."

    The front page of Friday's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

    Sadie Wearing, a lecturer in gender theory, culture and media at the prestigious London School of Economics, told msnbc.com that the newspapers were doing "what papers routinely do, which is to equate women's performance with the way that they look, so that becomes the story."

    "This seems to happen even when the story is ostensibly about young women's achievement," she said.

    Wearing, who said she had not seen the pictures, said Cook's description of private schools' efforts to get their students in newspapers sounded "particularly distasteful."

    It was just one of the signs of the continuing inequality between the genders.

    "There's already a story out there that feminism is over; there's no need for it anymore because young women are equal and so on," Wearing said. "It doesn't seem to me that the battle has been won." 

  • London cleans up and assesses the damage

    Wpa Pool / Getty Images

    Following four days of riots last week that left five people dead, thousands facing criminal charges and millions of dollars in property losses, British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke about the break-down of morality, family values and human rights on Monday.

    By William Kennedy for msnbc.com

    LONDON -- “To be honest, I haven’t had time to watch the prime minister and I couldn’t if I wanted to,” said Niche Mufwankolo, the owner of the Pride of Tottenham pub, pointing to the now empty walls of his bar. “As you can see, I have no TV.”

    On Aug. 6, Mufwankolo locked himself in a room above his pub and watched on CCTV as a group of looters ransacked his business. He escaped down a drainpipe when they came upstairs.

    On Monday, Mufwankolo was still cleaning up the empty bar as Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to deliver a raft of new policies aimed at reversing the "slow-motion moral collapse," which he blames for fostering the disorder.

    In his speech Cameron said he would work to “mend our broken society … from the twisting and misrepresenting of human rights that has undermined personal responsibility to the obsession with health and safety that has eroded people's willingness to act according to common sense.”

    Story: UK's Cameron could gain from tough riot response

    Hours afterward, residents in Tottenham, where the unrest began, were still trying to resume their lives and make sense of a chaotic week.

    From the cashier’s desk of Everyday Pets on Tottenham High Road, Kelly Spencer, a single mother, supported Cameron’s view that excessive political correctness and a distortion of the definition of "human rights" created a culture rife for disorder.

    “In a nanny state, a lot of children are set up to fail,” she said, adding that the rioters didn’t fear the police.

    Still, many residents said they believed the police acted as best as they could – but need to be given more authority to prevent future riots.

    In a rival speech on Monday, main opposition Labour Party leader Ed Miliband criticized Cameron's response as overly simplistic, and demanded that lawmakers focus on delivering better opportunities for disaffected young people.

    Story: From bling to lingo, US inspires UK gangs

    Ola Rasheed, a manager at the Tottenham branch of a social housing association, also saw deeper problems underlying the violence. “The government is cutting back too quickly and the youths have nothing to do,” he said. “This might happen again because there are so many social problems.”

    Tottenham resident Clos Tim, 25, an unemployed construction worker and father of three, agreed.

    “They’re shutting the youth centers and cutting money for university. They need to set up more things for young people,” he said.

    World Blog: Far-right group calls for safe and sober vigilantism

    Tim, who has been out of work for two years, saw his prospects worsen when the Job Center on Tottenham High Road was damaged during the riots. It remains closed.

    Tottenham residents have set themselves to cleaning up the area and returning to their lives. The stripped Tottenham Pride has reopened, but Mufwankolo estimates his loses at over $100,000. The office of his local member of parliament promised to bring by forms that will him allow him to apply for damage reimbursements Monday afternoon.

    In the meantime, he said, “I’m just waiting to see what will happen to me.”

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

  • Is culture of mutual respect what UK needs to move beyond riots?

    Kerim Okten / EPA

    Freedom Church members pray for unity in the community, near the scene where Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old father of four, was gunned down by police in disputed circumstances a week ago, in Tottenham, north London, on Thursday.

    By Jason Jouavel, NBC News assignment editor

    LONDON - As authorities and society at large condemn the rioters and looters who ran amok in cities throughout England over the last week, one theme jumps out at me -- the anger many here feel towards the police.

    “The police have too much power and they’re using it,” a young man in London told reporters after violence broke out at a march in north London to protest the fatal shooting by police of father-of-four Mark Duggan.  Another man said he couldn’t remember how many times he had been stopped by police but was sure it was more than 20.

    These comments prompt ugly memories of my own.

    I’m well-educated, I’m law abiding and have a full-time job.  But as a black person, I’m also 26 times more likely than a white person to be stopped and searched by the police, according to Ministry of Justice’s own figures.

    I've been stopped on at least three occasions by the police, and while most of the time they have been professional, one incident has stuck with me.

    Despite it being the law, the policeman didn’t offer a reason for flagging down my car.  He simply told me I looked “suspicious.”

    Here's a line from the Police Stop and Search guidelines:

    "A police officer, or a community support officer must have a good reason for stopping or searching you and they are required to tell you what that reason."

    Then he went through my jacket and pockets.  He wrestled my wallet out my hand as I tried to get out my driver’s license, which he’d asked me to give him.

    Then he said the picture on my license didn’t look like me.  So while my car was searched by two other officers, the first one disappeared into his van, I assume to authenticate my documents. 

    He returned a few minutes later, seemingly intent on humiliating me further.  He asked me to stand against a wall and look straight at him to validate the photograph on my license.  He stared hard at my eyes and nose even though his earlier checks had shown my license was real.

    “I don’t want to say this again,” he screamed when I lost eye contact with him a couple of times. “I’m going to tell you for the last time, look at me!”

    What made this worse is that this was happening outside a church right as the congregation was leaving.  What must they think of me, I wondered?

    I asked again why he was doing this.

    Black and Asian people sometimes swap licenses or use each other to do their driving tests, he responded. 

    “I want to be sure that you wasn’t one those,” the policeman said.

    Finally convinced that I wasn’t “one of those,” he let me go. 

    The anger, humiliation and above all feelings powerlessness remain with me to this day so much so that I still remember the officer’s badge number. That’s why, while I don’t condone the violence of the last week, part of me understands the frustrations that many here assume helped fuel it. 

    Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron has been uncompromising.

    Streets were calm in London on Thursday night, as some of the police officers dispatched to keep the peace spent the day raiding homes and rounding up suspects from the four straight nights of violence, riots, and looting. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    "This is not about poverty, it's about culture,” Cameron said on Thursday. “A culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities.”

    “We will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you. You will pay for what you have done,” he said.

    While there no excuse for the outbursts that ruined lives and livelihoods, as a Londoner it strikes me that we should use this opportunity to reflect on what may be behind some of the violence.  After all, understanding does not equal condoning.

    So as Britain cracks down on those who lashed out at their fellowman we must find out why so many of our young people feel such anger at authority, so detached from society, and make sure the last five days don’t happen again.

    Perhaps fostering a culture of respect for all Britons, of whatever color or religious domination, could be a start.

  • Britons ask: What caused the outburst of violence?

    Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

    Members of the community lay flowers at the scene of a hit and run following civil disturbances in the Winson Green area on Thursday in Birmingham, England.

    Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent 
     
    LONDON – It was awful to see: four teenagers in black sweaters and hoods beat a young man, kicked him twice in the face and stole his backpack. The victim was left bleeding on the ground as the thugs strolled away.

    It was another scene of terrible violence after days of rioting and looting across the U.K. that’s left at least four dead.
     
    Prime Minister David Cameron said the violence is “simply not acceptable, and it will be stopped. We will not put up with this in our country. We will not allow a culture of fear to exist on our streets."

    He sees the immediate issue as one of crime and punishment: “If you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the punishment,” he said.

    London’s Mayor Boris Johnson agrees, calling for government to drop it budget plans to cut the number of police by 16,000 – ironically, the exact number of police on the streets in London.
     
    But the media and community workers are still agonizing over the causes, over what turned a segment of the population into muggers and looters.

    Abandoned by society?
    One column that ran in the Independent newspaper has been universally praised. In it Camila Batmanghelidjh wrote "Caring costs – but so do riots. These rioters feel they don't actually belong to the community. For years, they’ve felt cut adrift from society.”
     
    Sixteen thousand police were on London’s streets, every available person, and they put the lid back on the pot. But the problem is still there.
     
    The young man I saw being mugged put his finger on it. We recorded the conversation. Here is the exact transcript, and remember, I’m a Londoner.
     
    Me: “Oy mate, what happened to yer.”

    Him (bleeding, panting): “”I got mugged. They nicked the lot. Camera, wallet, keys, everything. Bastards.”

    Me: “Yeah, I saw, he kicked you in the face.”

    Him: “Why didn’t you bloody ‘elp then?”

    Me: “Good point, mate.

    Actually we were too far away to help. But why hasn’t society helped the young people, before it got to this crazy outburst of violence and looting?
     
    It begins at home.

    Max Nash / AFP - Getty Images

    Azim Mohamed looks at the charred remains of his business on Wednesday following disturbances in north London. Click on photo see a slideshow of pictures fromt the riots and their aftermath.

    Where are the parents?
    Community workers complain of a lack of strong parental guidance, over-stretched school teachers who place little emphasis on discipline and traditional social values, and weak communities with little moral leadership. Its members are left behind by society’s more successful strata. Left to their own devices, jobless youngsters hang around aimlessly and, in the violent outburst we have just witnessed, loot, steal and mug.
     
    Where are the parents? A Reuters reporter began his report on the riots with this:
     
    “Residents of a London housing estate laughed at a televised plea by police for parents to call their children and help rein in the youths who looted and burned swathes of the city.” He went on to write that some parents took part in the riots. 
     
    So far there has not been one report of angry parents returning stolen goods.
     
    But unfortunately there are some things you can count on here these days.
     
    As we drove away to file our report, down a side street, we saw a flurry of arms and legs like a pin cushion rolling along. It was a man being beaten and mugged.

    Related Links:

    Grace of a grieving father speaks to a wounded Britain

    British police arrest more than 1,200 

  • One for the Gipper: Brits to mark 4th of July by honoring Ronald Reagan

    /

    Ronald Reagan and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher meet in Century City, Calif., in 1995. Faced with a persistently volatile Middle East and questions about the future of NATO, Reagan and Thatcher's steadfast friendship of the Cold War days is almost appealing, analysts and former diplomats told msnbc.com.

    (Photo by Mike Guastella/WireImage)

     

     

    By Marian Smith, msnbc.com

    LONDON  – An $800,000 statue honoring former President Ronald Reagan is set to be unveiled on Independence Day, joining monuments to Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower in the heart of the British capital.

    At a time when the much-celebrated "special relationship" between the U.S. and Britain is widely seen to have frayed, about 2,000 people are expected at the ceremony. Organizers say that is about ten times the typical crowd for such an event. 

    Former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who declined an invitation to Prince William's recent wedding due to her poor health, is said to be "determined" to attend. Now aged 85, the "Iron Lady" rarely appears in public. 

    Nancy Reagan will be represented at the ceremony by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will give the keynote address. U.S. Ambassador Louis B. Susman and a congressional delegation led by House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy are also due to attend on Monday.

    Reagan Foundation executive director John Heubusch told msnbc.com that roughly $800,000 had been raised from private donors for the sculpture, with around 40 percent of the funds coming from people in the U.K.

    'Guts'
    Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who served as Thatcher's Secretary of State for Scotland, recalled that Britons were initially skeptical of Reagan due to his perceived lack of experience. However, the Conservative lawmaker – who also served as Britain's foreign secretary – said many were won over by the former actor's "good judgment, good instincts and guts."

    "The qualities he had served both countries very well at the end of the Cold War, which was a crucial period in history," Rifkind told msnbc.com. To this day, Rifkind said, "people here respect his achievements."

    June 11, 2004: Ronald Reagan and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had a special relationship deeply rooted in their conservative philosophies.

    Sculpted by Charlotte, N.C.-based artist Chas Fagan, the 10-foot bronze will stand near statues of Eisenhower and Roosevelt outside the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square. A plaque will recognize the 40th president's role in ending the Cold War.

    The ceremony will be part of a European tour celebrating Reagan's 100th birthday. It will be followed by a black-tie gala at London’s historic Guildhall – where Thatcher hosted Reagan upon his return from a visit with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988.

    The world has changed dramatically since Reagan and Thatcher stood united against the Soviet Union – and even more so since Winston Churchill coined the phrase "special relationship" after the Second World War.

    "I think we're at a point where what Britain and the U.S. can do together is relatively smaller than what both nations could achieve in the past," said Steve Clemons, founder and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington D.C.-based non-partisan think tank. "The more we put statues up the more we try to convince ourselves that the relationship is special. It's a sign of lack of confidence in the future."

    Clemons is not alone in identifying a collective distancing between the two countries as emerging economies like China, India, Brazil and Russia flex their muscles on the world stage and demand attention. Domestic issues like the economy – gloomy in the U.S. and U.K. alike – have recently forced the two countries to turn inwards, foreign policy analysts say.

    The U.K. parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee last year released a report that concluded the term "special relationship" should be avoided altogether. It advised lawmakers that the U.K. should be guided primarily by its own national security interests – not those of the U.S.

    "The overuse of the phrase by some politicians and many in the media serves simultaneously to devalue its meaning and to raise unrealistic expectations about the benefits the relationship can deliver to the U.K.," the report said.

    Seeming to take that message to heart, President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron redefined their transatlantic friendship as an "essential relationship" during Obama's visit to the U.K. last month.

    According the Xenia Dormandy, a senior fellow at the independent London-based foreign policy institute Chatham House, that indicates the two leaders are re-examining their ties.

    "The relationships had withered – [the two countries] haven't had the need to engage,” Dormandy told msnbc.com. But there is reason to be optimistic, she added.

    "The [Obama] visit marked a turning round, a recognition that the two sides have taken one another for granted and haven't focused enough on the need to engage strategically," she said. "The word 'essential' says much more about how we have to work together."

    Changing dynamics
    While there is a tendency for the British press to over-examine the friendship, there is no question the dynamics have changed, one former British diplomat told msnbc.com. Since the end of the Cold War, the two countries have simply not been as necessary to each other's national security, the source added.

    But in his farewell remarks last month, outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates blasted NATO's European members for not committing enough resources to alliance. He predicted a "dire, if not dismal" future for NATO unless other countries increased their defense spending.

    Faced with a persistently volatile Middle East, such uncertainty makes Reagan and Thatcher's steadfast friendship of the Cold War days almost appealing, analysts and former diplomats asserted in interviews with msnbc.com.

    "I think people pine for that certainty and we live in a much less certain set of circumstances," Clemons said.

    Thatcher's domestic legacy is hotly contested in the U.K., where she remains a divisive figure. Reagan is seen by some Britons as being part of that package. He was also regularly lampooned by British satirists as being an intellectual lightweight.

    June 11, 2004: Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pays tribute to Ronald Reagan after his death in 2004.

    However,  the Reagan-Thatcher partnership, which many credit for the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union, still resonates deeply.

    Robin Berrington, a former cultural attache at the U.S. Embassy in London, said the level of interest among Britons in the Fourth of July ceremony has "a lot to do with Maggie Thatcher."

    "Among conservatives she's something of an icon, and the fact that she and Reagan were close adds to his lustre," he added.

    Brits also recognize a widespread American fondness for Reagan across all political persuasions, according to Dormandy.

    "Reagan's funeral was the closest [Americans] got to a Diana funeral," she added.

    Turning out in large numbers at a ceremony recognizing a symbol of that old friendship is "much more about personal understanding than policy," Dormandy said.

  • A non-royal account of student violence in London's capital

    By NBC News’ Nancy Smith

    LONDON – I had intended to do a little Christmas shopping on the way home from work Thursday, but instead walked straight into a riot at Oxford Circus. 

    Traffic all over London had been at a virtual standstill all afternoon, the result of road closures due to the massive student demonstrations, so I had headed out on foot toward Oxford Street. 

    Nothing seemed unusual – stores were open, Christmas decorations were sparkling and people were moving in and out of stores with their purchases. 

    One moment I was surrounded by Christmas shoppers, the next I heard a groundswell of chanting, bricks and stones were flying overhead, and garbage cans were crashing onto the ground. The peaceful holiday landscape was suddenly transformed into a scene of urban violence. 

    The swelling crowd and the rising chants seemed to come from nowhere, catching shoppers and bystanders unaware, the noise and the violence quickly escalating.

    The glass on two of the front doors of Topshop’s flagship store at Oxford Circus were shattered, the doors closed and a line of security men formed inside the shop. Pedestrians fled as debris thrown by the demonstrators began to crash land nearby.

    A forlorn student, holding his banner to protest against the rise in student fees but standing away from the mayhem, seemed mystified and frightened by the violent turn the demonstration had taken.

    Carl De Souza / AFP - Getty Images

    British riot come under attack from flares as they clash with protestors during student demonstrations in Parliament Square, in London, on Thursday.

    Slideshow: London student protests

    As rocks and stones flew overhead, an armored police vehicle slowly made its way through the melee. A line of police officers, carrying shields and wearing protective visors over their faces, began to form a barrier between the increasingly belligerent protestors and the bewildered shoppers. 

    Although most of the pedestrians retreated back down Oxford Street or sought safety behind an abandoned bus, a significant number walked toward the police line, snapping pictures with their mobile phones. The flash of the phones created an eerily dazzling effect combined with the illuminated seasonal decorations suspended above the mayhem. 

    With police quickly blocking access into nearby side streets, the only escape route was back down Oxford Street, where Christmas shopping resumed as normal. Only minutes away from the confrontation, the calm inside the stores was interrupted only by the squawk of walkie-talkies advising security guards of the status of the demonstration.  Shoppers went on about their business.

    U.K. police under pressure after royal car attacked

    I suppose I should have known it was not the time to venture out for a shopping trip. Earlier in the day, on the way to an appointment at Parliament Square, near the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, I had seen an enormous police operation preparing for the anticipated student demonstration. It looked like a police state. Barricades had been set up, spare barriers were stacked along the square and police were suiting up for potentially violent confrontations. 

    By the time I left the area, lines of police were beginning to form at the entrance to the square.  Most of the police at that point in the early afternoon were answering questions from tourists, fearful that the overwhelming police presence signified something sinister. Roadblocks were already causing traffic chaos and it took twice as long as usual to get back to the office.

    Later in the afternoon, thousands of students joined the demonstration, Parliament passed the bill raising student fees and breakaway demonstrations spread across town, including the violent encounter I witnessed at Oxford Circus.    

    

  • London's winter woes

    Nigel Roddis / Reuters

    Vehicles travel through snow on the A168 road near Topcliffe, northern England on Dec. 1. Heavy snow grounded all flights at Gatwick airport on Wednesday, while the worst early winter weather in almost two decades also caused severe delays on roads and rail lines up and down Britain.

    ANDREW WINNING / Reuters

    A traveller shelters from the snow as he waits for a train at Clapham Junction in south London on Dec. 2.

    By Nina Saada, NBC News London

    LONDON – Name three things that begin with the letter ‘S’ and can each bring central London to a standstill: snow, subway strikes and students.

    Roll all of those together and what do you get? A good description of Londoners' miserable week so far: record-breaking snowfall in U.K.’s capital, yet another strike by subway workers and another student demonstration.

    And to top it all off, Londoners’ daydreams of hosting the 2018 World Cup have just been crushed – they lost their bid to Russia!

    The white stuff has forced London's Gatwick Airport to close until Friday, train services to grind to a halt and schools and businesses to shut their doors, and caused traffic pile-ups have trapped people in their cars for hours. 

    Luke Macgregor / Reuters

    Passengers wait in front of check-in desks at Gatwick Airport in southern England on Dec. 2.

    As temperatures drop to around 24 degrees Fahrenheit in and around London and as much as six inches fall in some parts of the capital’s suburbs, millions are settling in for the big freeze.

    Packed train
    Given the tales of transport chaos I had heard, I felt lucky to squeeze onto a packed train as it pulled away from the platform at London’s Paddington Station.  

    The young lady sat opposite me hadn't been so lucky.

    "I've been travelling for seven hours on a journey that should only haven taken me three, and I still have two more hours to go," said Bristol University student Bea Bishop.

    Despite her mammoth journey, 22-year-old Bishop was just pleased to be getting back to campus in time for her morning class.  Apparently she wasn’t one of the thousands of students who boycotted class and took to the streets earlier in the week.

    While most people have been trying their best to keep warm and stay out of the cold, thousands of students have been standing outside holding placards and challenging the freezing weather, the government and the police force this week.

    Despite the frigid weather, protesters turned out for their third mass demonstration against the government’s plans to triple university tuitions to $14,000 Wednesday. Call it youthful imperviousness to cold. 

    Luke MacGregor / Reuters

    Demonstrators march through the snow during protests about student fees in London on Nov. 30.

    Lee Griffiths, a student dancer, had been training hard in the studio all day – only to get stuck in the middle of an angry protest at Kingston University on the outskirts of London.

    “Hundreds of people were marching in front of my bus. Things looked like they were getting out of hand and there were police everywhere. My bus was stuck behind the protest march so it took me nearly an hour rather than 20 minutes to get home,” she said.

    The 21-year-old has not felt the urge to join in with the protest.

    “This is my second year of university so these changes don’t really affect me, but as far as I can see the radicals are ruining it for those who want to protest peacefully,” she said. “I don’t want to be involved in that.”

    Chaotic misery
    With the snow bringing travel to a standstill and student demos upsetting the balance, the city’s frosty air has a tinge of chaotic misery. Throw in another tube, or subway, strike and you’ll understand why.

    Luke Macgregor / Reuters

    Traffic lines up around the M25 in Kent as snow causes travel chaos in southern England on Dec. 1.

    Hundreds of thousands of Londoners started work late on Monday. For those who did make it in on time, their usual mode of transport was doubly as crowded or the commute doubly as long. On Monday staff on the underground tube transport network went on strike for the fourth time since August. 

    Thousands of London Underground maintenance workers, drivers and ticket hall staff had walked out in a dispute over job cuts and safety. The 24-hour industrial action forced the closure of 50 tube stations and caused widespread disruption across the city. Commuters had to either force their way onto packed buses, trains and boats, or face freezing temperatures and walk to work.

    Social networking sites were as busy as London bus stops, with people voicing their complaints about the disruptions on Twitter.

    “Harrymarr” tweeted that thanks to the Tube strike he had “resorted to sleeping in the office – what has my life come to?” And “Chrishealeynz,” quipped “with #Tubestrike yesterday & the #snow today, the City of London is like the set of #28dayslater.”

    And getting to work won’t get much easier if the subway unions have anything to do with it: Tube workers are threatening more action, possibly for three days in a row next time and possibly over the Christmas period.

    Oh yeah, students are vowing that they're determined to demonstrate until the government rethinks the rise in fees. 

    Unfortunately for Londoners, their only hope is that the snow is due to stop falling soon. 

Older posts