Operation Moonbeam

Kaitlin Dryburgh

Halloween and Bonfire night have once again brought clusters of chaos on the streets through-out parts of Scotland. Edinburgh for another year was the worst effected. Last year we bared witness to riot police on the streets, fireworks being launched at buses, members of the public and emergency services. Bricks thrown, fires started, cars smashed in and communities at times out of control. This year the exact same. I wrote about it last year and I still can’t quite believe that a year has passed already, but here we go again.

Niddrie, an area of Edinburgh, once again made a name for itself for all the wrong reasons, and it’s a real shame. Buses were stopped, roads shut, groups of kids and adults laughing as they fired explosives at police officers just trying to do their jobs. Flooding the street and quite frankly walking around like the owned it. And in that moment it wouldn’t be completely foolish to believe that they do. The police are there, but at a distance, the helicopter circles above but no one is stopping them. Perhaps they didn’t see the jolly sign attached to the lamppost informing them they were in a firework control zone (I’ll get onto that soon).

In other parts of the city like Sighthill a group of masked individuals shut a fairly major road in Edinburgh and proceeded to start fires on said road. Not forgetting these fires burned extremely close to a petrol station. While later turning their attention to a car dealership which had around 25 car windscreens smashed in. Shops were targeted and again fireworks were fired in all directions including residential homes.

As a resident I could only imagine how scary this would be, fears for your safety and your property. But also the thought that in the place you call home the streets have temporarily fallen in control of those who want to destroy it. Police and other emergency services are just putting in a shift and here they are having explosives fired in their face or bricks thrown at them. It goes without saying it’s not right and it’s not fair.

I live round the corner from Niddrie. On Halloween night I saw children trick or treating and large groups of families on the street but in contrast to that I could see the Police helicopter just a few miles away. This year I’ve struggled to find reason for this, I’ve struggled to offer compassion to those who have looked to put their community in fear.

There’s a part of me that doesn’t really want to if I’m being perfectly honest. If I lived in an area where every November riot police are posted outside my door I’m not sure how I would respond.

Yet, if you look past the awful things that were done in the past week it’s a sad story. We’ve got young people completely out of control on the streets, why are they there? Continuing to look at Edinburgh this isn’t happening in Morningside or Stockbridge, the wealthier parts. All the areas that experienced disorder were the most deprived areas in the city. It’s not an excuse, purely reasoning. Personal responsibility cannot be absolved but context allows us to realise why this is happening and the under-lying problem.

This is an area that with all the local authority cuts has been pushed to the brink. It’s no coincidence that in between the diorder health and social care charities operating around Edinburgh have announced they’ll have to make £110 million of savings in the next two years. Cut backs to youth initiatives, charities, and social services are all creating this perfect storm. On the row of small shops in Niddrie lies a community pantry. A great initiative that looks to solve more than just food poverty but just highlights one of the issues in Niddrie. Food banks emphasize one of our biggest failures.

To the children involved in the disorder I think that speaks volume. What’s taken place to lead a child to get involved with violence and vandalism? 

But this all took place in and around Halloween and Bonfire Night and was exasperated with the use of Fireworks.

Fireworks. Soaring comets of confetti lighting up the sky or noisy explosions polluting the area? Personally I believe the latter, pretty at first but after you’ve seen a few you’ve seen them all. The enjoyment potentially gained from a firework I don’t think out-weighs the drawbacks, but maybe I’m being a grinch.

This year Edinburgh was the first in Scotland to roll out Firework control zones. The zones prohibited any fireworks being used for personal use, meaning an organised public display was okay. So the list of zones included a handful of places throughout the city, one of them being Niddrie.

I know you have to start somewhere but there are several reasons why these zones are on the whole a stupid idea. Firstly, if you are content throwing a firework at a bus or a police officer one year an orange sign with a cartoon firework crossed out the next year isn’t really going to bother you. It was already illegal when you did it the year before.

Secondly, the zones are ostracising already ostracised areas. This is to stop criminal activity and keep people safe. Well a family in Niddrie will probably have already seen the effects of budget cuts on their community etc. But now they’ve been told if they had lived in Morningside the fireworks they wanted to set off in their back garden would have been okay. Quite frankly if you’re going to ban them for some ban them for all. 

Lastly, what’s the point of having firework control zones when you can walk down the road and buy them at the local supermarket? Is it not crazy that you can pop in for some milk and buy £80 worth of explosives in the process? It’s a strange situation and I really don’t see the need for it to carry on. But a firework control zone where fireworks can be bought round the corner makes little sense to me.

There are countless other reasons why fireworks for private use should be barred and it seems the support for a such a ban is growing. Public displays should definitely still be allowed but do we really everyone firing them off?

This story is about more than just fireworks but it certainly isn’t a great advert for them. There are numerous reasons why in some areas disorder is rife around this time of year. I think we need to ask a lot more questions before we villainize groups, even if that's a hard ask. Despair can materialise in different ways and I think that's a little of what we've seen in the last week.