Debate: London riots

Binod Singh

The West has to rethink its future

The unethical journalism of News Corp had not yet unfolded fully when another law and order problem gripped the capital of the country where common law originated.

It all began on Aug 4 when police fatally shot 29-year-old Mark Duggan in Tottenham, about 11 kilometers north of central London. But the real trouble started when family and friends organized a peaceful protest against the shooting which turned violent. The news of Duggan's death and the subsequent outrage in his community spread quickly across London, triggered riots, which spread to other cities. Technology played its part in fanning the unrest, and intensified when probes revealed that Duggan had not shot at police first, as was initially alleged by the law enforcers. The riots have claimed several lives across Britain, and hundreds of youths have been arrested

The view of the elite is that the riots have nothing to do with the death of Duggan. They have nothing to do with rising unemployment, and reductions in government funds to education and youth centers, either. The youths involved in the unrest have been labeled simply as mindless thugs crazy for plasma and LCD TVs and the latest mobile phones. But such "civilized views" are propagated whenever the deprived and poor people proclaim their rights. And police will use such views to justify their crackdown.

"Economic violence" is the term that comes to mind while analyzing the unrest to find its cause. There is no doubt that education and economic programs are to be blamed for the riots. The riots were not just free-for-all looting by misdirected youths. What lies at the heart of the problem is the fact that a handful of people hold most of the wealth in Britain and, in the words of many Britons, the decades of oppression of the under-privileged communities. But the elite and ruling class are trying to sweep the real causes of the riots under the carpet.

The Conservative Party, which heads the coalition government, has issued many policies that have hurt young people, especially from the middle and lower classes, the first of which was raising of tuition fees across the country's universities.

But British youths are not the only ones to suffer. Across Europe, youths are worried about their future, their welfare and their job prospects. Protests and attacks against governments have been seen in France, Italy, Greece and other European countries.

The question now is who will save Europe from the European governments?

The youths may not have a political agenda or organized ideological movement, but they have their own way to vent their anger and frustration. They should not be seen as just groups of people creating trouble, because they are a community disillusioned and disenchanted with the Westminster-type of governance in which there is no justice for the poor and unprivileged.

What Dr Martin Luther King said decades ago is still relevant: "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."

Whatever triggered the violence in London that spread to other British cities, later developments do not accord with acts of hooliganism or emotional pangs of unbridled youths. Instead, they appear to be an outburst of accumulated humiliation, deprivation and agony inflicted on some "communities" for decades.

But violence in any form should be condemned no matter where it takes place. British youths should realize that violence cannot be justified. Therefore, they better organize into a political, nonviolent movement to get justice and right the wrongs in their system and laws.

The riots in Britain have given enough reason to leaders in the Middle East and North Africa who have been attacked by the West for suppressing their own youths. They have maligned the image of British leaders who questioned their credibility. And they should teach Western leaders not to meddle in other countries' affairs when their own house is not in order.

The crisis, signaled by the debt crisis and reaffirmed by the riots, shows that Western capitalism has failed in Europe and the welfare state model has met with a fatal crash from Greece to Ireland and Portugal to Italy and finally to the first symbol of capitalism, Britain. It is time the West applied the moral and political lessons they have been preaching to others in their own backyards.

Europe may rise again from the economic and political mess it has pushed itself into, but it will not be the same Europe.

It will cease to be a role model for good governance and justice, and the Westphalian model will have its final chapters written to include the rise and fall of the West.

The author is an Indian teacher at the School of Asian and African Studies in Beijing Foreign Studies University.

(China Daily 08/15/2011 page9)