Word: skinheads
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...songs, full of threat and challenge, never mean to menace. They are, rather, about anger and desperation, about violence as a condition more than a prescription. Last Gang in Town, a fleet, bleak vision of the immediate future with London deeply riven by intramural combat between "rockabilly rebels," "skinhead gangs," "soul rebels" and "zydeco kids," is in part a smart parable about musical rivalries. Even more to the point, it is a shrewd reflection on class and generational warfare, as Strummer sings, "The sport of today is exciting/ The In crowd are into infighting/ . . . It's brawn against brain...
...street. The mellow lamplight and the shadow of the trees combined to form a second dusk, in which the sounds of nearing footsteps and the noise of an approaching car brought only mild curiosity, not apprehension. Yes, you are right: London is a civilized city. It has strikes, demonstrations, skinhead forays against hippies, and racial troubles with its West Indians, Africans and Pakistanis. But compared to America's big cities, it is profoundly at peace...
...Guys. "You've got to be in a crew or there's nothing for you to do," a skinhead explains. "If you're out, you're a loner, and in bovver no one will help you." Admits one: "I don't say any of us are nice guys. We want to be 'tasty'-y'know, big guys." Most if not all the skinheads are working-class boys from 15 to 18, stuck in low-paying manual-labor jobs and reflecting the crudest prejudices of their blue-collar parents. Few have read...
Beyond bovver, pleasures are simple: beer, a very occasional whiff of pot and dancing in seedy clubs to the solid, punchy beat of West Indian blues. Skinheads don't bovver with the West Indians, probably because they are tough. Pakistanis are a favorite target because they seem passive, weak and, above all, different. "They smell, don't they?" says the son of a London docker. "It's all that garlic. I mean, they've no right to be here." One skinhead described the "Paki-bashing" technique to a British television interviewer: "You go up to them...
Last week more than 2,000 Pakistanis marched on No. 10 Downing Street to protest skinhead attacks, which have numbered more than 50 in recent weeks. If the skinhead problem worsens, some British voters, increasingly sensitive to law and order, may pay closer heed to the Conservative Party's emphasis on the issue and vote Tory in the forthcoming national elections. On a few occasions, police have confiscated bootlaces and braces from skinhead packs, on the theory that it is difficult to kick a victim if one's boots are flopping and one's trousers are dropping...