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The PDC have long been associated with the Muslim Boys, but for what?
The term Muslim has been applied by the media to a south London street gang - the PDC, formerly Peel Dem Crew, now predominantly known as the Poverty Driven Children to be more reflective of its more positive ways of late. By labelling the PDC as the "Muslim Boys" (as well as frequently confusing the PDC with a Myatts Field gang) the media are adding myths and stereotypes to the PDC.
The only facts ever stated about the "Muslim Boys" were that some of its members had converted to Islam and some of them had previous convictions for firearms and drugs offences.
Sensationalist media coverage of the "Muslim Boys" has meant each time a gang related murder occurs in or around Lambeth the journalists will etch the initials PDC (for example a number of papers wrongly linked the Billy Cox and Michael Dosunmu murders to PDC).
The media has tapped into the fear and anxiety about Muslims and Islam to bolster the gangs stature and status, at the same time, the media is further articulating fears and anxieties attributed to young black males. It has been alleged the "Muslim Boys" are a gang of black teens who practice 'forced conversions' at gun point - it was also alleged that Adrian Marriot was an unwanted consequence of such a conversion.
One of the recurrent themes in the media is that the "Muslim Boys" are religious extremists with suggestions that they are linked to worldwide terrorist organisations and act as a criminalised front for terrorist extremists.
Even Detective Chief Superintendent Coles (of Operation Trident) stressed that there was no evidence WHATSOEVER of terrorism links yet it failed to abate the media pursuit of such links, one such report in the MIRROR running the headline about the Muslim Boys with "The jail run by al-Qaeda" alongside an image of Osama Bin Laden.
The gap between reality and fiction of the "Muslim Boys" in the media is massive - the "Muslim Boys" IS nothing more than an extremely localised STORY that has been glamourised and distorted in British media (the Sun, the Mirror, the Evening Standard, the Guardian, the Times - broadsheets and tabloids alike both guilty of it!).
Further to this the impact of these stories has been intensified by the events of 9/11 and 7/7 - Muslim communities and young black males have been criminalised in these reports creating two equally dangerous sets of stereotypes , those of radicalism, violence and terrorism (Muslims) and criminality, violence, and gangster culture (young black males).
Stuart Hall said in the 70s that race had come to signify the crises, or moral panic, in society - it seems now that race, augmented by religion is providing todays moral panic.
The "Muslim Boys" or PDC do not present the size or scale of threat that is or has been suggested.
COPYRIGHT (2006) CHRIS ALLEN - extracts from (Muslim) Boyz-n-The Hood
The real PDC:
Back in the 1980s a street gang (nothing more sinister than local hoodlums involved in drugs and acquisitive crime) existed in Brixton known as the 28s. A group of younger children on the estate became known as the Younger 28s.
The Younger 28s grew up around their base in Angell Town, Brixton. A member of an associated clique gave the group the name Peel Dem Crew, peel dem meaning to rob, as it described the extent of their activities at the time.
Today the initials PDC refer more commonly to the Poverty Driven Children and Pray Days Change to reflective on its now more positive energy.
To read the entire story of the PDC and the true events buy the book Street Boys by Tim Pritchard
The newspapers dont put the real stuff out. They dont ask us really what happens. They just find one of their like, one of their co-workers, sons or something, put him in the paper with a couple of knives posing and that so they can sell copies and go, 'Yeah, its a bad gang, the PDC'.
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