Lots of people are angry and just can't figure out where to aim their anger. We forget how to do anything political. Every generation has to start all over again-people have to figure out what's happened, but you have to start with two, three at a time, and organize. In the meantime, we need the poems-if not for the politicians then for the people the politicians ignore.

Anger should be expressed. - Any anger that is not coming out, flowing freely, will turn into sadism, power drive, stammering, and other means of torturing.

Unfortunately, the comments were misconstrued. I was saying that we needed to speak to the supporters of the EDL, not, as some people made out, that we should speak to the EDL itself. The idea that we should speak to upset, angry and dispossessed people, to try build a better life together, must be addressed and historically the Labour movement has been the vehicle to do this. It is a broad-based approach. Where there are mass outpourings of discontent, you have two choices, either you demonise them or you break them.

When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty and shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up and express their anger and frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard.

I know your pain, your rage, your sense of despair and hopelessness. Justice has, indeed, been denied for far too long. Rioting, looting, and burning is not the way. Organize. Demonstrate. Sit-in. Stand-up. Vote. Be constructive, not destructive.

We have no other tool than to ask people to take to the streets with us and fight [...] I believe that the time has come for a real social uprising because we cannot go on like this.

We do know from the numbers of people who have come out already--and from the anger that we know exists in the communities where we live--that people want to fight. They don't necessarily know how to fight or what to do. But they want to, and that's important because it means people want things to be different, and that's an important starting place to work with. For people who want to do something, and do it now, this means we have to be both patient in terms of how larger movements develop, but also urgent about doing the work of organizing for the things we can do now. Movements aren't built by waiting for the struggle to develop and build itself--it's based on what we do today.

There must be engagement: there must be protest.

To function successfully in our complex world it is necessary for us to possess the capacity not only to express our anger but also not to express it. Moreover, we must possess the capacity to express our anger in different ways. At times, for instance, it is necessary to express it only after much deliberation and self-evaluation. At other times it is more to our benefit to express it immediately and spontaneously. Sometimes it is best to express it coldly and calmly; at other times loudly and hotly.

Above all he did not content himself with hurling invectives for emotional release and then to retire into smug, passive satisfaction. History had taught him it is not enough for people to be angry — the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force.

A riot is the language of the unheard

Riots may be symptoms of a deeper socio-political malaise: the product of unjust government policy and racist policing. I know from friends I have spoken to who were participants in the 1981 Brixton riots, that riots can engender a great deal of local solidarity against an oppressive State. But I am far from convinced that energy spent doing damage to life, limb and property is likely to prove more productive than properly thought-out and planned non-violent direct action. More likely the opposite.

And it's not just getting the anger out of my head (and sleeping very well having done so, thank you very much) but letting others know that they're not alone in feeling this way, that their anger matters and that things can change for the better if we remind ourselves there's more of us than all those who accept this normalized cruelty. I used what I had, my ability to draw, as a tool to speak up. I didn't plan to, I just figured out how. Anyone can do the same, just figure out what your tools are and get loud. And if you can piss off a few bullies in the process, even better.

It is true protests are useful but we too must make proposals. Certainly the problems are many, but besides protests we need proposals. I call on our young people, always full of initiative, to convince the rest of society to unite and work together to restore peace at last … It is not right to leave everything to the authorities, every sector must make its contribution according to its possibilities, only in this way will peace return