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Riots
There were rumours of disturbances in Coventry, but thankfully they seem to have been just rumours. Violence in Birmingham is a bit alarming, though. I hope all my friends in London (and elsewhere) are OK!
There's always a danger in commenting on ongoing events, that your comments end up a hostage to fortune. Still, much of what I've seen written so far has been rather unsatisfactory. In particular, it seems to me that whilst just dismissing the rioters as mindless thugs and suggesting the army should be called in is unsatisfactory, it also won't do to tell someone terrified by the violence that this is all about the uprising of a repressed underclass. I don't claim to be able to manage anything much more sophisticated here, but I think we need (regardless of our political persuasion) to resist narratives of these riots that suggest the cause is straightforward to explain[0].
I think it's fair to say that the causes of the rioting include: the shooting by police of Mark Duggan; the recently-exposed corruption in MPs, journalists, and the police; a feeling that the rich (bankers) caused the current economic woe and yet are escaping the hardships that result; a feeling that the government is systematically undermining the support for the poor; the enormous inequality in British society; herd behaviour; the feeling that the police are powerless to stop one looting shops; warm summer evenings; boredom.
If I'm even remotely correct, then we need to be able to both condemn the violence, and consider how some of the proximate causes of it might be addressed. Politicians will want to do what Maggie Thatcher did in the 80s, and dismiss the rioters as "simply criminal" and avoid looking hard at where society might be going wrong. They must rise above the easy rhetoric, but so too must those who would assign political motives to the rioters and ignore the unpleasant criminality that has been seen on the streets recently.
[0] I found myself, while writing this, continually trying to frame a theory of my own. Like many people, I want to make sense of what has happened. I want to talk about gross economic inequality and how we should address that; but I think that's for another post.
There's always a danger in commenting on ongoing events, that your comments end up a hostage to fortune. Still, much of what I've seen written so far has been rather unsatisfactory. In particular, it seems to me that whilst just dismissing the rioters as mindless thugs and suggesting the army should be called in is unsatisfactory, it also won't do to tell someone terrified by the violence that this is all about the uprising of a repressed underclass. I don't claim to be able to manage anything much more sophisticated here, but I think we need (regardless of our political persuasion) to resist narratives of these riots that suggest the cause is straightforward to explain[0].
I think it's fair to say that the causes of the rioting include: the shooting by police of Mark Duggan; the recently-exposed corruption in MPs, journalists, and the police; a feeling that the rich (bankers) caused the current economic woe and yet are escaping the hardships that result; a feeling that the government is systematically undermining the support for the poor; the enormous inequality in British society; herd behaviour; the feeling that the police are powerless to stop one looting shops; warm summer evenings; boredom.
If I'm even remotely correct, then we need to be able to both condemn the violence, and consider how some of the proximate causes of it might be addressed. Politicians will want to do what Maggie Thatcher did in the 80s, and dismiss the rioters as "simply criminal" and avoid looking hard at where society might be going wrong. They must rise above the easy rhetoric, but so too must those who would assign political motives to the rioters and ignore the unpleasant criminality that has been seen on the streets recently.
[0] I found myself, while writing this, continually trying to frame a theory of my own. Like many people, I want to make sense of what has happened. I want to talk about gross economic inequality and how we should address that; but I think that's for another post.
no subject
I think it's fair to say that the causes of the rioting include: the shooting by police of Mark Duggan; the recently-exposed corruption in MPs, journalists, and the police; a feeling that the rich (bankers) caused the current economic woe and yet are escaping the hardships that result; a feeling that the government is systematically undermining the support for the poor; the enormous inequality in British society; herd behaviour; the feeling that the police are powerless to stop one looting shops; warm summer evenings; boredom.
Fine, except I wouldn't call anything that happened after Saturday night a riot. The people who were out on Sunday, last night, and if reports are to be believed, this afternoon in Salford and other places, are not rioters, they are kids who are copying what they've seen on the interwebz.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14467588
Groups of younger teenagers don't knock over a bottle shop because they are bothered about bankers or MP's expenses or whatever. They do it because they think they're hard. They do it because they think it's cool. They do it because they have no concept of the consequences, either to their own criminal record or someone else's livelihood.
Continuing to call this behaviour rioting is to bestow on it some kind of legitimacy when there is none.
I'm pissed off with the bankers and the MPs and the constant lambasting of public sector workers as being overpaid and having wonderful pensions. I'm sick to the back teeth of being unable to do my job properly because of continuing cuts in public sector spending while the politicians change the goalposts relating to my direct job on an almost weekly basis. But I paid for my new phone and my new telly and can't afford all the other things I want. I know there are jobs for young people who want them because I've put up a dozen vacancies in the last month. I'm constantly giving excuses to employers about why they aren't getting any applicants for these jobs.
So, yes, some people had a right to be hacked off with the police on Saturday, but since then, the people who have been causing willful destruction of property and danger to others are just thugs, whatever their motivation.
no subject