Understanding action and the News of them.
A young man dead, angry youth, and the establishment being blamed.
I’m not sure what set of riots I’m talking about anymore, all I know for certain is that the UK is the latest country to see a huge level of unrest in this year of 2011.
Well I say the UK but in fact, so far, it’s been a wholly English fling.
They began in London, spilling out of what was a peaceful protested over the shooting of young man by the police. He was under investigation for criminality, he was stopped, he shot at officers, he missed, an officer shot back, he didn’t miss. A wholly tragic, wholly local matter. These things happen as much as anyone would wish them not to, but an investigation was launched to look into as is the case in any shooting like this, and the young mans family had a vigil.
This is where things take there turn. Reports are few, and some conflicting, but some say the crowed turned violent over the, unconfirmed and possible just rumoured, attack on a young teen girl by police officers. Whether this happened or not I think is now a moot point, the fact is, the first spark came.
Sitting where I am, far away form the action, shifting though information though the web and being the newsaholic I am, I’ve sat and watched it unfold. I watched how the first night, as seeming out of no where riots happened. Then on the seconded night, I watched as the new anchors realised that it wasn’t a one night stand and there was more. And then last night I watched it spread outside of London, moving west, and north. And I have watched it with the same sense of detachment I watched the riots and movements of the Arab Spring. This after all happening in a far off foreign land, in places I have never visited or wished to visit, or have any connection to at all. So maybe that is why I have noticed the vast difference in approach the new, the politicians and even the rest of the public has had to these events.
Some people have, and will criticize my comparison of the two events. But I believe it is a valid one.
Here is a story of disenfranchised youth, no hope, no work, and no voice. They have been demonised and belittled for the sake of others, and are stuck in a country that’s in economic standstill teetering on the verge of freefall, with a government that they didn’t vote for making policy decisions that were never voted on. So why has the news taken the narrative that this is mindless pointless violent yobbery?
For the Arab spring, it suited the news, the western powers and the average public to see it as a battle of the people ageist a tyrannical unforgiving government. It suited our ideas, even if at first it through the media for a loop at first. We wanted to it to fit our idea that Muslims and Arabs lived in lands where they didn’t get a say, lands that had absolute rulers. It fitted in with our idea that they were/are some how evil and the bad guys.
So when it kicked off there, we of course through our lot in with the “people”. But was it all the ‘people’? Was it just that vocal violent minority that was as mad as hell and weren’t going to take it anymore?
We now all know how that played out, for better or worst. The Arab world is now a changed landscape, but many global problems still remain.
And these are the problems that have come home to roost in the UK.
The spark was fired, but it landed on kindling of uneasy unsettled angry will.
The anger that has built up over the past few years brought to the surface and pushed hard.
Many ‘local news agencies are not focusing on the why, but the now, showing the what has happened, and what is happening, but not asking why is it happening. Or maybe they are asking but then not reporting the answer, letting it all play out to the audience as mindless and pointless. The angel they have taken. They don’t try to explain why these actions are happening, why masses of youths have now decided to take to the streets and combat the police, but rather they’d want to leave it as unexplained event, something that boggles the mind of ‘normal’ folk. And so no explanation is given, and no one asks why. All so that the news can play the narrative ofBritain lost in mindless hopeless pointless chaos. A brokenBritain that fits the narrative they have used to explain youth over the past 10 years. And because they’ve never explained before, to do so now would not make any sense, it would leave the view confused as to why these problems had never been reported before, and questioning the validity of the News as a source.
That’s the narrative they want to present. But is it the true story? Well with all news it is and it isn’t. Would I say what is happening in Englandover the pass few nights is Mindless, yes. Yes I would. It has no drive; it has no will, political, social, economic or otherwise. It is by its nature, chaotic. Seemingly “yobs”, or as we in Scotland call them “NEDs”, part taking in acts of aggression with no over all structure or endgame. Yes I will give over that there is a lot, and I do mean a lot of criminal activity on the streets.
But is it pointless?
No action in and of it’s self is pointless. And this has a point. It has brought home and made clear the uneasiness that is the foundation of English society. How fragile this current civil peace is.
One has to remember, riots in the UK aren’t a strange unheard of thing. It use to be every year, the mayday riots would be bad, and bad in the “oh my god they’re burning it down” way. And that happened every year. Only has it been this past 10 to 15 years that is unusually quite. Lulled into a false sense of ‘everything is fine’ the public has gone about its business not even noticing the growing resentment that has festered underneath the surface. But now it’s time to face facts, theUK has been far from ‘alright’ for a long, long time.
But then, that is all I can see and tell as a foreign observer looking down south over the border, getting as much information form the net as I can.
Also I have my own social Biases.
