Chapter 6 A Tale of Many Londons: Media Representations of the Rhizomatic Metropolis in the Aftermath of Woolwich
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On May 22nd 2013, a man, his hands full of blood and equipped with a knife and cleaver is filmed by a passer-by on a street in Woolwich, South London. He has just killed a British soldier and explains to the camera he has done so ‘in the name of Allah.’ It is the first murder in London entirely captured by mobile devices and spread via the internet within a few hours. The surreal scenes are later referred to in a report by itv News as ‘the day that Baghdad-style violence came to South London’ (Fatah 2013: 01:09–01:16).
How can an act of violence committed in London be labelled ‘Baghdad-style’? Has London, a global node of pluralism and diversity, become the microcosm of a global battlefield between the West and the Islamic world, or, between ‘good’ and ‘evil’? The vision of such a moral battle is not only created by the rhetoric of Michael Adebolajo, who predicts the onset of doomsday on British soil, it can also be found in the language used by British tabloids and online media that fabricate Manichean binaries of the ‘Woolwich cleaver monster’ (Mirror) or ‘The Woolwich Butcher’ (YouTube) as opposed to the ‘Angels of Woolwich’ (Daily Mail). The discourse created by the media is mirrored in the streets of East London, when the opposite forces of followers of the bnp and anti-fascist protesters clash in the course of protest and counter-protest. Tower Hamlets, a London borough as diverse as can be, becomes the node of conflict within the rhizomatic network, in which London is locally and globally entangled. As much as hierarchical structures as well as concepts of the postcolonial centre and abroad blur within the rhizome, ideas of good and evil do. The ‘enemy within’ has manifold faces, such as the many tales told about London, in the aftermath of Woolwich. In London after 2010, we can see the many faces of good and evil and their definition varies depending on the viewpoint of the onlooker.