Brexitwatch: a lesson from history - when in doubt, blame foreigners.

In 1517, resentment against people from the rest of Europe swept through London. They were supposed to be buying up all the food in the markets, a Frenchman had bullied a shopkeeper into selling him two pigeons, competition from German merchants importing furniture and leather goods was ruining local tradesmen, the Venetians were using their own galleys to bring in goods, depriving English shipowners of work, and so on and so on.

A vicar at Spitalfields denounced these interlopers from his pulpit, urging Londoners to expel them. On April 30, the London mob rioted, with thousands attacking any foreigner they could lay their hands on and burning their houses. The disorder continued into what became known as ‘Evil May Day,’ with the French ambassador having to flee his house and hide.

Henry VIII was at Richmond when the news reached him. He knew that, whatever the mob felt, foreign merchants were crucial to London’s prosperity, so he ordered the Duke of Norfolk to gather a force of 2,000 men and march on the capital without delay.

By evening, the duke was in the city. He quickly suppressed the disorder and arrested several hundred rioters. Many were charged with high treason, for stirring up hostility against states with which the king was at peace. More than a dozen were executed.

London theatre fires and riots

Boyd Hilton’s excellent volume on English history from 1783 to 1846 in the New Oxford History of England – A Mad, Bad and Dangerous People? - mentions one of the many disasters to afflict London’s theatres.

The Covent Garden Theatre was burned down twice – in 1808 and 1856. The first fire in September 1808 destroyed not just the building, but also the costumes, the scenery and the scripts, but thanks partly to some chivvying from King George III, Londoners contributed generously enough to help the owners get the theatre rebuilt and reopened just a year later.

To recoup some of the considerable sums they had invested, the owners decided to put up the prices. On the first night of Macbeth, patrons rioted until the early hours of the morning over the new charges, and that was just the start of the so-called ‘old price riots’ which went on for 64 days.

In the end, the manager and part owner of the theatre, John Kemble, a distinguished actor, had to deliver a public apology, and announce that the increases were being withdrawn. (See also my blog of 21 December 2013.)

More bloody football

The stampede at a Cairo football match which cost 22 fans their lives is the second major football disaster in Egypt in just 3 years. In February 2012, 74 fans were killed in a riot at a match in Port Said.

Since then, the authorities have limited the number of supporters allowed into matches. Only 5,000 tickets are said to have been made available for Sunday’s game between Zamalek and ENPPI at a ground which could hold 30,000.

The authorities claim that fans without tickets tried to storm the ground, while supporters say police fired tear gas and bird shot as they were being forced to go through a fenced-in passageway about 12 feet (3.7m) wide, causing the fatal stampede.

The match went ahead, but football has now once again been suspended in Egypt. President al-Sisi has promised an investigation into the disaster, but relations between the security services and football supporters are known to be strained because of the part played by fans in bringing down President Mubarak.  (See also my blogs of 2 February, 2012 and 29 January, 2013.)

Football hooliganism - Argentina's 15th death this year

33 year old Franco Nieto has just become the 15^th person to die in football-related violence in Argentina this year. He was the captain of a regional club Tiro Federal, who had been playing Chacarita Juniors in the town of Aimogasta in the north-west of the country.

The match had been stopped 15 minutes from time after the referee sent off eight players for fighting. It is reported that afterwards Mr Nieto was going to his car with his wife and baby daughter, when he was attacked by three people, one of whom hit him on the head with a stone.

Police say three people have been arrested. Much football hooliganism in Argentina is blamed on so-called Barras Bravas, gangs who control the terraces and the streets around the stadiums.

The deadliest sporting riot in history came in Constantinople in 532 when rivalry between supporters of two chariot racing teams morphed into a full-scale rebellion in which perhaps 30,000 people were killed. (see also my blogs of 30 March, 2009; 2 January, 2010; 2 February and 11 May, 2012.)

War casts long shadow

An 83 year old Bangladeshi politician has been sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the country’s bloody independence struggle in 1971, which cost up to 3 million lives. A special war crimes tribunal had found him guilty of involvement in the deaths of 372 Hindus.

Abdul Alim, of the Bangladesh National Party, was convicted on nine charges. Last week the tribunal sentenced another senior BNP figure, Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, to death for crimes against humanity. 

Alim was spared the death penalty because of his poor health. Prosecutors say he headed part of a militia fighting on the side of the Pakistan government that was trying to stop Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, breaking away.

Six current and former leaders of the main Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, have  been convicted by the same tribunal. Critics say the trials failed to meet international standards, and dozens of people have died in violent protests against the verdicts.

(See also my blog of July 19.)

Brazil - prison riot anniversary

In Sao Paulo, hundreds of people have been marking the 20^th anniversary of a prison massacre in which 111 inmates at the Carandiru gaol were killed. 

The establishment held 10,000 prisoners in 1992, when a riot began with a row between two prisoners over a football match.  It soon developed into a fight between rival gangs.  When police tried to restore order, critics accuse them of killing indiscriminately as they shot prisoners at point- blank range.

Some inmates were said to have been killed by police dogs, and an evangelical pastor described his own escape as a miracle.     The commander of the raid was convicted for using excessive force in 2001, but acquitted on appeal five years later.    Soon after he was found dead in his flat.   

Now dozens more police are due to face charges relating to the operation, though officers have always claimed they were obeying orders.    Carandiru was closed and demolished in 2002, but Brazil still has half a million people in prison, the fourth biggest total in the world.

Football disasters

At least 74 people have been killed and hundreds injured in a riot after a football match between two of Egypt’s top teams - Port Said’s al-Masry and Cairo’s al-Ahly (flag pictured above).   Al-Masry won the game, and at the final whistle their fans invaded the pitch and attacked rival players and supporters, while part of the stadium was set on fire.

Although some rioters were said to have been armed with knives and metal bars, most injuries appear to have been caused by a stampede of spectators desperate to escape from the ground.

Some observers are claiming that the normal police presence for a match of this kind had been scaled down, and there are theories that there may have been some kind of concerted attack on al-Ahly fans, who are seen as having been in the forefront of recent protests against the security forces.

The world’s worst football disaster came in Lima in 1964, when a goal was disallowed in the last minute of an Olympic qualifying match between Peru and Argentina.   More than 300 people died as a riot in the stadium spread into the centre of the city.     There too, many of those killed were crushed trying to escape the trouble.

(See also my blogs of February 6 and March 30, 2009, January 2, 2010.)

London's worst ever riot

The riots of the last few nights have been frightening enough, but fortunately they have, so far, been nothing like the worst ever to have disfigured London.   It came in June 1780 as people got angry over a very minor dilution of the laws discriminating against Roman Catholics.

The ringleader was a young MP on the make, named Lord George Gordon, and what became known as the Gordon riots began with an invasion of Parliament, then soon developed into an attack on anyone or anything connected with Catholicism, like the Bavarian and Sardinian embassies, priests’ houses, homes owned by Catholics, a chapel.

Then the target list broadened to take in the homes of magistrates who had imprisoned rioters, and French Protestant refugees.  Well, they were foreign weren’t they?  How was a fellow supposed to tell the difference between a Protestant Frenchman and a Catholic?   The rioters destroyed  four prisons, and released the inmates, plus a distillery where they released the gin.

The authorities faced heavy criticism over what was seen as their initial rather relaxed attitude to the disorder, and after five days the army was turned out, while even the great radical, John Wilkes, took up arms against the mob.    By the time order was restored, nearly 300 had been killed.    For the full story, see London’s Disasters; from Boudicca to the Banking Crisis.

The worst sporting riot

The world’s worst sporting riots did not happen in some citadel of modern football -even though more than 300 did die in a running battle over a disallowed goal at a match between Argentina and Peru in Lima in 1964, and another 70 people were killed on the terraces in Buenos Aires in 1968.

No, the most disastrous came in ancient Constantinople between supporters of two rival chariot racing teams – the greens and the blues. The fans had generally been creating mayhem - breaking into houses, robbing and murdering, and they got even worse when the Byzantine emperor Justinian the Great tried to clamp down. At the games held 1,477 years ago today, on January 13, 532, it looked as though Justinian might be deposed. The crowd hurled insults at him, and for the next two days, mobs roamed the city burning down buildings. In the end, by means of the emperor’s fearsome cavalry and some judicious bribery, order was restored, but not before an estimated 30,000 people had been killed.