Regarding an intellectual leadership, or something that can perhaps give this all a bit more of a meaningful and politically motivated direction, a la MLK or Malcolm X, this video I saw of this old black woman in Hackney bravely speaking out against the looting was quite inspirational.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SHKhvVjLIc

1) Why it is mostly people from the lower class who initiate such destructive uncontrolled riots and lootings? We have to consider that the events of the last days in London are no new phenomenon. It is only a repeat of history we have already witnessed in Watts (L.A.) 1965, in South Central (L.A.) 1992, Paris 2005 etc. These events in the past have all in common that they were triggered by an illegal act of the police with an unfortunate ending against people from the lower class. The reaction of the lower class youth were all the same. So there must be a connection between belonging to a class and the outbreak of such events. And an interesting point is that the events where not limited on Tottenham, and even not on London. They spilled over to other big cities with deprived areas.

2) Where does this huge criminal energy and ignorance come from? Every human being is influenced by its environment. When we consider the dysfunctional environment within the lower class as a social system than we have to consider the internal values, norms and attitudes within this like all social systems, for example the entire society as a whole. Every individual internalize the values, norms and attitudes of the social system he grows up in, this is simply the process of socialisation. Would this young people be the same persons tending to the same actions if they would have grown up in another social advantaged environment? So where does all this dysfunctional values and premises come from? There must be causes. We have to consider that most of the young people within the lower class have social disadvantaged, dysfunctional, partially disrupted, uneducated, unemployed familial backgrounds deprived from society with unequal opportunities. They’ve experienced being ignored and excluded and so they’ve learned to be ignorant towards everything, especially the system and the police which they see as their enemy. Because of dysfunctional and social disadvantaged background they have a lack of willing to educate. Because they are uneducated they have a lack of moral consciousness and are ignorant and have a “nothing to loose” attitude, so their way of protest is just to give a damn about everything.
From this good article which actually mentioned all these points which I wanted to reaffirm:

>>It is sad to see, that instead of directing this rage and anger into actual demonstrations against the social injustices faced by so many of these people, it has turned into a massive circus show of self-interested ends.<<

Critics of the looters/rioters compare them with the protestors of the recent uprisings in the Arabic countries. But this comparison is methodically wrong, because there we had educated students initiating the protests, especially in Tunisia. They have clear democratic visions and a high comprehension of political issues what you can see from ongoing protests and complains about the poor implementation of the promised democratisation. But the rioters in London are uneducated without clearly defined political visions. So another cause adding to the already mentioned is that these young people have no intellectual leader to guide them for a controlled, moral and value driven, visionary protest movement. As far as I could follow the events, there was no role model or institution as a voice for them, telling them that looting and vandalising is the wrong direction, giving them a political orientation. What this lost youth in this modern working classes of western societies is a modern Marthin Luther King a Malcom X with a political attitude and visions appropriate to the given grievances.