I lived in the UK for about a year and in my time there, it was clear enough that the riots we saw this week were something of an inevitability. Given the “Arab Spring” cases we witnessed earlier this year, it is quite predictable that social networking - Facebook and Twitter, in other words - will cause something like this. Just today, for example, [the world’s atheists ganged up on the Montreal police, bombarding them with emails to deal with death threats from a Christian fanatic who cannot tolerate evolutionary scientists.](http://www.montrealgazette.com/mobile/iphone/story.html?id=5238610). So the Internet is now a force to be reckoned with in the political arena. This is not, in itself, news; after all, China has long since run strict firewalls to prevent all anti-governmental politics from reaching its citizens. For example, in China, if you search for Tiananmen Square, you merely get tourist information; no pictures of tanks approaching protesters. But what’s new about social networking in particular is the speed with which the information, and the incitements, propagate. In the recent riots, it is reported that the BlackBerry phones’ instant messaging service - was key in orchestrating the actions, too.
But why do I say that these riots were something of an inevitability? Well, if you couple instant messaging, social networks, and disaffected parts of society, who have been marginalised for various reasons, it is unsurprising that it would reach a boiling point. More on this further on. Let’s stick with the technological question first.
The UK government has now drafted a response to the riots. According to the [BBC](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14485592), the government is considering a range of actions, including but not limited to:
- Banning hoodies and face masks
- Giving police powers to remove disguises
- Compensating victims and shop owners
- Giving landlords and councils powers to evict perpetrators
- and on the technological front, locking down social networks when an issue starts
I have a big problem with some of these. For example, if you evict a council house tenant, do you really think that will stop him engaging in criminal actions, or do you think it will make him more desperate and more likely to so engage?
Then, as for censoring Facebook/Twitter, as the BBC article points out, you will unavoidably inconvenience the innocent. But there’s a much more serious consequence to censorship. You stop legitimate protests and descend into fascism. Would Hosni Mubarak, for example, still be in power if the Egyptian government had had the opportunity to block Facebook? Quite possibly. The kind of mass-mobilisation, or, for want of a better word, blitzkrieg, that Facebook and others can muster, is required in order to topple a fascist state. But Britain is, at least in practice, a democracy. These riots were not about getting democratic freedoms. All the rioters have the vote, and a place to live (or at least, their parents do - some of the rioters were 11 years old). But is censoring the internet justified in this case? I don’t think so. [It will curtail civil liberties far too much](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14493497), and bring Britain right into the camp of places like Zimbabwe, China, Cuba, Syria, and so on. Practically speaking, it’s not possible to do censor the internet anyway. You can’t stop the information once it’s already in the wild. You can’t foretell when someone is going to write a post on Facebook saying “Hey, let’s do a flash riot!” You can only mop up afterwards.
But this brings me to the part that really bothers me. The UK is ignoring the elephant in the room. Why is the government saying nothing about the _real causes_ of the riots? They’re saying a lot about what they’ll do in future - slap the perpetrators on the wrist, and remove their hoods, and not muck with the budget for policing. But why is the UK government not asking where the problem came from in the first place?
Many of my compatriots have said some rather [harsh and unsympathetic things in response to the riots.](http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/uk-sa-facebook-users-unsympathetic-1.1115676). For example, some charge that it’s a result of neglecting the council-housed, angry and violent lower echelons of society. Others say it’s suitable justice for meddling in other nations’ affairs. After all, every time there’s social unrest in an Arabic state - or an African one, for that matter - the UK, the UN, and NATO all seem keen to step in with an army. So, my compatriots argue, this is poetic justice. [Shall we send peacekeepers?](http://www.hayibo.com/africa-to-send-troops-food-parcels-to-uk-as-riots-spread/) - they ask, tongue firmly in cheek. But even the UK government admits, in the BBC article cited above, that they didn’t have it under control. Some of my acquaintances even humorously quipped that Syria might be able to send some tanks to help out, since they seem to manage their protests quite well. Of course, all this is intended as wry humour, but it makes a point: the UK is quick to condemn social injustices in other countries, but doesn’t seem that keen on sweeping its own back yard.
But is this criticism fair? I’m not so sure. Having lived in the UK, it is apparent to me that there’s a substantial difference between the Arab Spring riots and the UK riots. As my acquaintance further jibed, “Sure, we want democracy and all that stuff that the Arab guys want, but we also want free electronics!” I think the UK government’s view - that it’s the actions of a bunch of criminals - is largely correct. However, what is disturbing is that they’ve not commented on why such a large percentage of the UK population are evidently criminally inclined, and more specifically, are not so poor as to be unable to afford BlackBerries. Surely if you can afford a SmartPhone, you’re not sufficiently desperately poor to really be able to justify looting stores? Well, apparently not. Some of the protesters, when queried by the BBC, have explicitly said it’s a poke in the eyes of the “rich guys”.
So what is really going on here? One of the diagnoses I saw in our local press is that it has to do with the disaffected or marginalised communities within the UK. One can make up all sorts of excuses, such as that they may be suffering from religious or racial discrimination - but a large proportion of the looters were not from minority backgrounds. So that excuse won’t work. Granted, the gunning down of one of their number - Mark Duggan - is sufficient reason to start some political protests - think of the Rodney King case in Los Angeles. But why did the riots persist after that, and in completely different communities? Why did the riots not take the form of picket protests? Indeed, why did a number of middle-class people join in?
Part of the explanation has to do with the psychology of mass hysteria. People lose their sense of accountability in large groups. This is why, for example, England is also notorious for football hooliganism; in a crowd, no-one can see you.
But from a foreign point of view, it looks like this is the inevitable product of the UK’s welfare system. It encourages certain segments, who live relatively comfortably, to not feel obligated to contribute to the economy. The dole, in other words, is, I believe, a large part of the problem. “What else could we do? They have a right to live!” I hear you protest. That’s true. People do have a right to live. But I don’t know if that means that someone ought to provide people with their livelihood on a silver platter. Karl Marx argued that creativity is the key to a meaningful existence, and in particular, a sense of ownership of the economy, of being a useful human being. Anger and resentment, sociologists argue, are a result of feelings of alienation. So where do these feelings of alienation come from?Perhaps if the categories of people who qualify for social grants, were conscripted into social employment of some sort, they’d feel that their lives had more purpose, and not feel compelled to fill a void with anger and plasma TVs looted from the nearest Maplin. It has nothing to do with democracy. It has everything to do with a misguided welfare state. Remember “Happy Slapping”? Where kids would run round filming people being assaulted by them, on their mobile phones? Another charming UK hobby, and directly related to these riots, I believe. I have personal experience of this. I was, on one occasion, mere entertainment for some hooded teens with brass knuckles. It is this lack of a meaningful existence, a kind of ennui, that pervades the lower echelons of British society, and which the government really needs to address, if they want to ensure that these riots don’t recur. The alternative is George Orwell’s 1984. Or the scenario we see in “V for Vendetta”. And judging from the government’s response thus far, it looks like they’re leaning towards Orwell.
Bear in mind that this criticism is not saying that the UK government had any alternative system that they could have deployed. Most European states have some kind of welfare system. However, for some reason I cannot fathom, the UK seems to have gotten it wrong. That’s also not to say that South Africa, for example, has it right. The impoverished citizens of South Africa, or India, for that matter, who really do have something to complain about, do not go on massive looting riots like the ones we’ve just seen in the UK. That is despite the fact that South Africa and India do not have a proper welfare state, nor do they provide adequate services and support to their poor. But they don’t see this kind of behaviour on this kind of scale, despite a much greater disenfranchisement problem. It is apparent that the UK government is turning a blind eye to a problem they effectively created. And no, giving more free money, or redistributing wealth, doesn’t work. Cuba, Russia, and Zimbabwe are proof of that.
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