Conclusions we can’t draw about London’s riots
By Anne Applebaum,
WashPost
Published: August 10
Riots in the British capital have hit inner-city Tottenham, suburban Ealing, gritty Hackney, chic Notting Hill. Windows have been smashed, video cameras stolen and cars set ablaze. Young men in hooded sweatshirts congregated on street corners and charged the police. “Copycat” riots have followed across the country, from Bristol to Nottingham. And nobody really knows why.
Scan the comment pages of the British press and you will find a wide range of explanations. Read the center-right Daily Telegraph, and you will learn that the riots were caused by a weak and cowardly police force, absent fathers, welfare dependency, multiculturalism and the tolerance of gangs in schools. Read the center-left Guardian and you will be informed that police brutality, social exclusion, cuts in welfare spending and the widening gap between rich and poor are to blame. Some are convinced that high levels of immigration are at fault. Others believe the problem lies in British intolerance of immigrants and minorities.
There is a reason for the discrepancy: The rioters themselves do not wave signs. They do not chant. They weren’t protesting any particular government policy, as were student demonstrators in London last winter. They have not sought publicity for their views, if they have any. They hide from cameras and dodge journalists. And thus have they become the inkblot in a kind of national Rorschach test: Everyone sees in them the political issue they care about most, whether it’s welfare dependency, budget cuts, the decline of public education or — my personal favorite — the rise of a vulgar and amoral public culture.
And yet it is their lack of politics that most clearly defines them. If the Egyptians in Tahrir Square wanted democracy, and the anarchists in Athens wanted more government spending, the hooded men in British streets want 46-inch flat-screen HD televisions. They aren’t smashing the headquarters of the Tory Party; they are smashing clothing shops. Instead of using social media to create civil society or cyber-utopia, they are using social media to steal. Someone circulated a text message on Monday night, calling friends to central London for “Pure terror and havoc & Free stuff. Just smash shop windows and cart out da stuff u want!”
(More here.)
WashPost
Published: August 10
Riots in the British capital have hit inner-city Tottenham, suburban Ealing, gritty Hackney, chic Notting Hill. Windows have been smashed, video cameras stolen and cars set ablaze. Young men in hooded sweatshirts congregated on street corners and charged the police. “Copycat” riots have followed across the country, from Bristol to Nottingham. And nobody really knows why.
Scan the comment pages of the British press and you will find a wide range of explanations. Read the center-right Daily Telegraph, and you will learn that the riots were caused by a weak and cowardly police force, absent fathers, welfare dependency, multiculturalism and the tolerance of gangs in schools. Read the center-left Guardian and you will be informed that police brutality, social exclusion, cuts in welfare spending and the widening gap between rich and poor are to blame. Some are convinced that high levels of immigration are at fault. Others believe the problem lies in British intolerance of immigrants and minorities.
There is a reason for the discrepancy: The rioters themselves do not wave signs. They do not chant. They weren’t protesting any particular government policy, as were student demonstrators in London last winter. They have not sought publicity for their views, if they have any. They hide from cameras and dodge journalists. And thus have they become the inkblot in a kind of national Rorschach test: Everyone sees in them the political issue they care about most, whether it’s welfare dependency, budget cuts, the decline of public education or — my personal favorite — the rise of a vulgar and amoral public culture.
And yet it is their lack of politics that most clearly defines them. If the Egyptians in Tahrir Square wanted democracy, and the anarchists in Athens wanted more government spending, the hooded men in British streets want 46-inch flat-screen HD televisions. They aren’t smashing the headquarters of the Tory Party; they are smashing clothing shops. Instead of using social media to create civil society or cyber-utopia, they are using social media to steal. Someone circulated a text message on Monday night, calling friends to central London for “Pure terror and havoc & Free stuff. Just smash shop windows and cart out da stuff u want!”
(More here.)
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