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Running Riot with British Identity
Britain was last week gripped by riots which spread across its major cities. The aftermath has left the country both shocked and uncertain
Just why did so many people take part in the collective looting which was the hallmark of the 2011 riots and what will they mean for the country itself?
Why do some people riot? Or, more pertinently, why don’t most people riot? The British public have spent much of the past week grappling with such questions, forced to do so following a wave of violent disorder which swept through many of their major cities, including London. The police, hampered by the scattered nature of the unrest, were initially caught unawares by events and it took the drafting in of officers from other parts of the country, a hardening of tactics by law enforcement officials and a bout of miserable British weather to eventually get the looters off the streets, although not before they racked up hundreds of millions of pounds worth of damage. The mooted responses to the above questions have been both numerous and varied; poverty, institutional racism on the part of the police and social exclusion have been offered up by some sections of the British media, whilst others have plumped for an increasingly prevalent gang culture, a lack of discipline in schools and, especially, a generation of absent fathers. It is inevitable that such debates will continue in the UK for some weeks to come – Britain has such a long history of conducting post mortems into disasters that they almost appear to have become a national obsession; from the inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the 2003 Iraq war, which is still on-going a full eight years after the event took place, to the publishing of a report into the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972 which took ten years and cost an estimated £400 million, Britons do not seem to be able to escape long and collective soul-searching after any national crisis or disaster.
In some ways, this trait is a blessing as it allows the UK to react to problems in a considered and honest way and often gives closure to those who would not otherwise have gained it. Certainly, this was the case following the publication of the Saville report into the events of Bloody Sunday; many family members of those killed appreciated that they had been allowed to air their grievances in an open way and were rewarded for their persistence when Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, offered a public apology in the House of Commons. However, the British love for collective soul-searching is also indicative of another problem; the country has insecurities regarding its place in the world, and does not seem to be able to answer questions on its future direction. Should Britain be European or Atlanticist? Should it aim to be a socialist state or a truly capitalist one? Should it hang its head in shame at its colonial past or instead revel in its history as the country which gave America its legal system, India its railways and the world its lingua franca? Britons tend to never fully answer such questions choosing instead to avoid them wherever possible. Usually this works fine; the instruments of government in the UK are so well established that most people are never forced to confront such issues. Except, of course, when an event occurs which forces citizens to politicise and decide on how the country should progress. Last week’s riots were an event which did just this. Many who were not interested in issues of governance had no choice – the geography of many of Britain’s cities, in which rich and poor often live side by side in the same neighbourhoods, meant that the rioting often occurred on the doorsteps of many comfortably off citizens. The result has been a country that has begun to question not only why some of its citizens rioted, but instead its very sense of self.
There have been three areas where this evidence has manifested itself. First of all, Britons have begun to wonder whether the generous welfare provisions which have been the hallmark of the state since 1945 should come to an end. The fact that most of the looters were young and from inner cities was particularly problematic – had not this generation been the one which benefitted most from the high public spending undertaken by the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for almost 13 years? Certainly those administrations spent more on education and urban development than any others in recent memory and yet the scions of these years appeared hell bent on destroying society. Neither explanations from the left, which blamed planned government cuts (which are yet to bite), nor from the right, which muttered darkly about a benefits system which rewarded failures (in spite of the fact that many rioters were well-off and had opportunities) provided adequate responses.
Second, Britain has had to question whether its long attachment to its citizen- police, who do not carry guns, use baton rounds or water canon because they enforce the law with the will and support of the population, was at an end. As London woke on Tuesday to find that its exhausted and undermanned police force had been unable to prevent wilful damage of property in the face of unprecedented aggression by young people, many begun to demand that the British Army be deployed on the streets - an action which would have been unthinkable just a few short days before. As it was, this did not occur. However, the fact that it was openly considered by politicians highlights how unsure the country has become.
Finally, British citizens have begun to ask themselves just why so many people felt the need to go out and damage their own communities with such wanton aggression and violence. Several neighbourhoods will never be the same again following enormous building fires and many of those who lost their homes and businesses were not the fat cats rioters often claim to target (most well-off London areas were untouched) but rather local people, who risk losing their livelihoods in the aftermath of these events. That such acts were carried out has horrified many Britons, yet the fact that so many took part is perhaps most shocking. Some have openly wondered whether these riots are a sign of the social dislocation felt by swathes of young people across the country, whilst others have argued that prevailing youth culture has placed value on material possessions above all else and that the riots and lootings are nothing more than brazen criminality. Whatever the answer, expect long enquiries in Britain for months to come; it is, after all, the only way the country manages to define its sense of self.