Riots...

[fajrdrako]

" ... Just last night, all over London places are aflame and some guy - some photographer - got a lovely picture of a rioter and he's standing there full of indignation with a stolen tape deck in either hand and he's irate. He says, 'I'm doing this because they call us criminals.' And so when people come out with that in real life, I hardly ever

Comments

[erastes]

The local paper's headline today was:

"Who do you want to run your police force?"

My immediate thought was "Sam Vimes!"

[fajrdrako]

Sam Vimes! Yes - if only we could have him!

[auriaephiala]

Given that Pratchett has based a lot of Discworld on 18th century Britain AND that Britain at that time was quite violent -- including a notable number and frequency of riots, some of which were instigated for political reasons -- that's more apropos than you might think.

[fajrdrako]

Oh, absolutely. We even have scenes of Vimes preventing and quelling riots. I like that!

[silverwhistle]

2. In the UK particularly, too many years - a generation, now? - of mostly right-wing government.

Since 1979, in fact. 'New Labour' was basically Thatcherism-lite.

1 & 3: No, I don't think so. Gang culture had a lot to do with it, though, and the fact that multi-generational unemployment has created ghettoes that run on crime and drugs.

Interestingly, despite similar pockets of urban deprivation, Scotland, Wales and many other English cities were unaffected.

[fajrdrako]

I haven't had a lot of close observation of riots, thank goodness. But I do think they are happening more often, and and in more places, than they were a few years ago.

Figuring out what to do about it is probably more important than figuring out why it happened, though sometimes the two concepts go together.

[aeron_lanart]

The riots in Liverpool were in the same place as the riots in 1981, traditionally a hotbed of discontent for various reasons. Having said that I don't think there was a specific reason as such this time round it seemed they rioted just because they could.

[fajrdrako]

Maybe that's the answer to it all: they rioted because they could. Seems to be happening more lately... But not necessarily for any good reason. Sometimes a hockey or football game is reason enough.

[auriaephiala]

Why do people riot? I suspect the reasons are complicated and not the same for everyone and sometimes difficult to identify -- and sometimes as simple as greed and being able to get away with it.

But I really do think that widening gaps in social status and in incomes has a lot to do with it. And lack of respect for those at the bottom of the income or status scale from the those at the top. Having your dignity challenged constantly -- even in little ways -- can be incredibly corrosive.

It is interesting that the riots in Paris and in London were both in the poorer sections of those cities.

[fajrdrako]

I wasn't so much thinking "why do they riot" but "why are they rioting now"? Not that this rephrasing makes it any more clear.

[auriaephiala]

When the UK Tories came in last year, they made a lot of cuts in government programs, including proposed (I don't know if they went through) cuts to libraries. A lot of nasty cuts to theatres and other arts programs.

So certainly people in poorer areas could see that some of the programs they depended on like libraries and social services were being cut and their needs didn't mean a hill of beans.

[fajrdrako]

I'm afraid of that happening here.

[neeems]

I tend to agree about the climatic change thing. I've been studying the events of the Saint-Barthelemy a while ago at university and our professor told us that it wouldn't have probably been this violent and gory if the weather hadn't been this hot. I think a lot of people naturally tend to be more violent when it's very hot.

But at the same time, some riots happen for no particular reason. Apparently, the rioters in London didn't have any specific claims, and it was basically the same thing in Paris in 2005. It lasted several weeks, the city was a mess, but at the end it was just violence for the sake of it. Creepy.

[fajrdrako]

I think a lot of people naturally tend to be more violent when it's very hot.

Yes, especially when they aren't used to it.

Violence for the sake of it - and pointless violence triggering more pointless violence - that, I can more or less understand. It's why it's happened so much this year that had me wondering.

[takhys]

Caveat: Studying this sort of thing is what I do and I have Opinions (TM

[neeems]

While I agree with the loss of legitimacy of the government in the eyes of most people, I think there's always some other ways of showing your disagreement, at least in democracy. I'm French, and there's not a year here without massives srikes against new laws or something else. You can always show your disagreement by strikes or demos that don't necessarily have to be violent or turn into riots. However, I've never seen a long strike without violence, but then, the rioters just destroy shops or cars because they're bored or they find it 'funny', in a way, and most of the time, they don't belong to the groups of people actually fighting against a law or for an ideal

[fajrdrako]

We've had long strikes lately, too. The transit system last year, the post office this year. Without very satisfactory outcomes in either case.

I am not sure why people riot, but I find it interesting that discontent seems to be taking a more chaotic shape than usual.

[fajrdrako]

I didn't mean to give 'one answer' answers, it was meant to be a 'three-answer' answer. Yeah, simplistic, I know. And this sort of thing happens fairly often, I know. I was in Paris during the strikes last autumn.

Lots of power imbalances, yes.

Everyone I know votes, which is just a reflection, I suppose, of the type of people I hand out with. And everyone I know tends to think that they people they vote for 'never get in', which was true for me till I moved to Ottawa Centre.

Why do you think it's happening more now than, say, five years ago?