The tone deaf UK government and London authorities are trying distort reality with the London riots. It isn’t about people simply wanting to loot and steal. They are striking out against a state that cares little for their neighborhood—that is, until the consequences of the neglect come knocking on their door.
[Photograph: Dan Istitene/Getty Images]
The UK government and London authorities are fixating on the looting, the theft, the arson—they are tone deaf about the causes of it all: poverty and inequality.
In the modern, Darwinian and psychopathic version of capitalist democracy, or corporatism, to speak of the poverty and inequality in certain neighborhoods is to elicit an arrogant and sociopathic response: there is no such thing as the poor and marginalized, only a collection of people who simply refuse to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
What we’re seeing in London—and one needn’t be there for this reality to become apparent—is the result of an economic system that vacuums wealth up to the highest rungs of society, leaving the rest to scavenge and fight for the scraps. The results? Crime in the form of theft, drug dealing, the black market, etc.
Government presupposes the idea that men and their property must be protected from one another—that we are too brutish and selfish to fully embrace our free will.
And it is there that those firmly entrenched in the government (the upper and elite classes in England) acquire their tone deafness. They cannot fathom how a group of people—in a system that renders them powerless, at the whim of the ruling classes—could go about rioting. They cannot fathom that their unwillingness to let others share in the plunder of capitalism could create such mayhem.
They might be appalled at the response to Mark Duggan’s death, but with all of the confusion around the Metropolitican police investigation into the shooting, what did they expect?
Duggan’s death was only the catalyst to the reaction, and it revealed something deeper about the social ills of England and, indeed, the world. It confirms what was already revealed in North Africa and the Middle East: that there are masses of people in the world who are pissed off with the current state of authority and economic realities, even if the exact reasons haven’t crystallized into a distinct movement or philosophy.
Perhaps if a more fair economic system were created, in which the marginalized were engaged, there would be no match (such as Mark Duggan) to set alight a socio-political firestorm.
There are two realities in the predominant form of capitalist democracy at work here in London (and abroad): 1) It cannot do what it claims—create a fair system for all, and 2) Intransigence is its defining characteristic, which will not allow things to significantly change. The idea that the people are governing allows the government to maintain the status quo by whatever means necessary.
It works well enough that the majority are content, or, more precisely, there is the perception that people are content.
But ask the people of London what they think given the UK Uncut and labor protests, the spying on anarchists, the equating of protesters with terrorists, pre-crime arrests (see: Charlie Veitch) and now the London riots, and they will tell you that people are not content.
We don’t need to hear it from them, though—it’s there for all to see in technicolor.
The UK government and ruling class are looking at the same imagery but with the sound muted because they don’t want to face the reality they’ve created; they just want to erase it under the boot heels of 16,000 officers on London’s streets by Thursday.
It’s as if Lord Scarman’s Report (which detail many of the aforementioned thoughts) on the 1981 Brixton Riots has been rattling around in a vacuum from which it’s never escaped.
August 09, 2011 at 4:25 pm, Mandy said:
A young Londoner talks about the riots from her perspective http://t.co/wuxhdyR
Something ELSE is rotten in the UK press (& the US too).
August 09, 2011 at 6:55 pm, Guest said:
Still doesn’t excuse people for looting and promoting violence.
August 09, 2011 at 8:16 pm, D. J. said:
Did I excuse them? Read the article again.
August 10, 2011 at 1:57 pm, Giluxis said:
I will stipulate that times are tough and that governments dedicate far too little resources currently to be able help. I will also stipulate that there is ‘tone deafness’ from the ruling parties.
What I will not tolerate is an apologist for the thuggery and morally bankruptcy. The perspective; ‘they feel like they have no other option but to steal that flat screen TV’. I heard the same cry during the OJ and Rodney King riots in LA. “I couldn’t afford it, but I wanted it, so I took it”. This is nothing more than an excuse for bad behavior. A call to suspend social order and forgive the less fortunate because they have no other options. There are always options better than forming a raging flash mob. Society must have rules or we all live in fear.
Why are they stealing toys and trinkets? Why not food and resources? Why are they destroying the economic heart of their own homes? Burning out their neighbors who happen to work hard enough to be able to start and run their own business’. To be able to create a better world for themselves and their families?
“Government presupposes the idea that men and their property must be
protected from one another—that we are too brutish and selfish to fully
embrace our free will.”
This statement belies the facts in evidence. These young men ARE too brutish and selfish to be allowed to wander the streets in organized packs extracting what they want from any defenseless citizen unlucky enough to be trapped in their path. This is a game to them. An evenings activity, distracted from their otherwise dull existence. There must be retribution.
Government IS created to protect property rights and to impose public order. That is its primary purpose all other constructs are secondary. To deny this; denies that human beings still have an animal nature that they will, given the opportunity, entertain.
Your Anarchistic utopia would create a world where the dominant law would be survival of the fittest. Everyone else be damned.
August 10, 2011 at 6:40 pm, Jxv605 said:
Riots only destroy neighborhoods and property of others…they dont solve social issues. people solve social issues by acting and being civil to each other..than they can talk and come to agreements that would be a benefit for all. There is no denying that there are small groups of people i.e. gangs, anarchist, anti establishment types who can never be satisfied with civil ways of justice…they must to rooted out, made irrelevant and shown a better way.
August 13, 2011 at 10:22 pm, smcca52 said:
Poverty, inequality, discrimination, lack of opportunity, growing violence, growing unemployment have been on the rise while anger & lack of hope have been brewing in London’s poor neighborhoods for years. These same conditions exist in the US and are rising…