Civil Unrest in London

For those who are not familiar with recent events in England I shall briefly give my understanding of what occurred in early August 2011. A person was shot and killed by armed police, the details of the shooting have not been entirely disclosed and so speculation on the specifics is not too useful although a police officer was also injured in the incident by a firearm, giving the police reason to use lethal force. This lead to a peaceful protest in north London regarding the use of weapons in the police force. This protest became a riot which then spread throughout the capital and then to other locations within England over the course of the next few days. The riots, although triggered by the initial protest were not in support of the protest, they were not organized and simply ended in a great deal of looting, vandalism and violence.

While the riots are deplorable and sadden me greatly due to the dimmer view I now have of my fellow man it is worth having a look at the social causes. People may take my arguments to mean I am allocating blame for the riots to the system and not the participants, however this is far from the case. Blame is not a tool that helps us achieve anything and proliferates hatred. Those who vandalized, assaulted and stole over these days should be held entirely accountable and served justice for their actions, it is no way to behave, regardless of the motives. I can certainly sympathize with those who feel forceful measures should have been employed earlier in preventing the riots, and to those also who feel an example must be made of those found guilty of participating.

The questions I wish to probe are what social conditions allow events like this to trigger, to which the answer is succinct and clear and that is that there is a lack of public respect for state institutions. The level of respect the public feel for those in government has been declining since the days of Margaret Thatcher, who was the last respected prime minister to hold office in the UK despite paradoxically being somewhat hated by a large proportion of people, even those who respected her. The media has mocked, belittled and manipulated politicians more in direct correlation with the decline in respect. High ranking officials and politicians have not helped them selves either recently with blatant dishonesty, accepting bribes, losing/divulging state secrets, suspicious wars, financial crises, expenses scandals and the cringe-worthy patronising of the public. The split coalition government need not have been a detrimental effect but in hindsight it certainly has not gained the government any respect and likely lost some too.

The police have lost some respect recently as an institution due to the wide publication of a few instances of police violence, likely facilitated by the internet as I am sure instances like this have always occurred. To retain the confidence of the public the police force needs to deal with violent officers severely rather than try and dumb the incident down or cover it up. For a police force to work the public need to be able to feel they can trust any uniform regardless of who is wearing it and a single incident that is not properly resolved can shatter this trust bond. To add to this there have also been a few fairly recent incidents of police using lethal force is questionable situations. This is mostly unfortunate, as it is very hard to operate perfectly under very stressful conditions, but the consequences are high. To avoid loss of public faith when the odd inevitable accident occurs I feel like the open and honest approach is the only available option which has not as yet been practised in this country in my memory.

Those from the generations during and just after World War II had pride and respect and camaraderie. Politicians were believed, the public got behind their ideas rather than picking them apart in cheap satire. In this period society thrived, it was not perfect but in the context of this essay it was solid. The best word to describe what has been lost from politicians and those in high office in England is integrity. I have given some recent examples to demonstrate this loss but I have not offered any explanation for why this loss has been observed. I suspect the answer is not a simple one but I do not know what it is. I speculate that it is largely due to social conditions and how they affect the voting public and those in positions of power. I would argue that our relative opulence with no social direction other than to redeposit it into the capitalist economy has a large part to play in the present social conditions. We are not fighting a war or competing in a space race, I am not advocating war as a positive, but nations, just like people, need direction, and winning a war is most certainly that.

I would also argue that the power balance has shifted away from governments and towards media outlets and big business. This power shift is obviously not in the best interests of society as media outlets and big business are interested in profits and not the state of the nation. In much the same way that middle management lackeys who tow the company line rather than stand for the well-being of the workers do not gain the respect of the workers, the politicians and officials who pander to large corporations lose the respect of the public. I am sure there are many other possible reasons that have contributed to a lack of respect for officials but I would strongly argue that it is this lack of respect that has brought about conditions suitable for rioting and social unrest.

All that is left to do with the assertion that a lack of public respect for the state will lead to riots is to suggest ways in which a state can gain respect. I mentioned honesty and transparency with information as good methods to deal with issues in the police force and the same applies across the board. People will generally assume the worst when they do not know, we are afraid of the unknown. I should like to see more genuine people in politics who spoke their minds and I should like to see the public more accepting of such people and voting for them. I respect the politician who admits they will raise taxes, I might not like the idea of paying more tax however and so the problem becomes clearer. Those who wish to avoid future riots may wish to consider their motives when they next cast their votes as there is more to politics than manifestos.

Steps have been taken to reduce the extent to which a single company can have control over media outlets in the country which is a great move to reduce the control they have over politicians. This is the most important industry to ensure has a lot of competition however not the only industry and so these steps are only the first that must be made in removing influence of individual interests in politics.

It is ironic that the main factor in curtailing the recent riots was not the efforts of those in power but the response of the non-rioting public who were appalled and wished to distance themselves from the rioting contingent of society. Social stigma is what saved the day so woe betide any government without respect who must deal with civil unrest with direction that has public support. In such a situation the government will fail, the only thing they are able to chose is the death toll. The best prevention for such a thing is to have the support of the people, which serves everyone's interests, the politicians and the public.