The numerous rioters, who engaged in the riots in England in the early part of August, 2011, clearly didn’t realise what it means to upset the Establishment. If they had studied English history in school, they might have sought ethical and skilful means to release their frustration.
The rioters torched shops and set cars alight in London, Croydon, Birmingham, Manchester and elsewhere. They looted countless stores and small shops run by families struggling to make ends meet while a small number engaged in the repugnancy of violence on the police and pedestrians. Three murder also took place on the streets.
The politicians and journalists have been falling over backwards to explain the widespread riots in England (no such riots in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland).
- Aimlessness
- Desire for goods, even cheapest goods, and the thrill of the riot
- Dispossession of the poorest from the consumer economy
- Lack of father figures
- Massive spending cuts that hit the poorest most
- Opportunism
- Personal entitlement and something for nothing thinking
- Police attitudes to people of colour and the underclass
- Rage against the rich and powerful
- The violence in the lyrics of rap music
- Unemployment, boredom
The rioters should have paused for thought before embarking on such mindless stealing and destruction. The Establishment has always preferred harsh punishment towards the poor, young and powerless who break the law while only offering rhetoric about responsibility to the rich, old and powerful whose criminal exploitation has much more impact on society.
This is England.
English rulers have led the country into more wars and subsequent destruction than any other country on Earth in the past 1000 years. It currently contributes to destruction and death on the streets of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
Imperialists from this country built the British Empire which once covered a quarter of the world.
England built its powerful economy on the slave trade. The USA (formerly British citizens) sustained the policy of free labour or cheap labour for as long as possible. Cheap foreign labour stills ensures economic growth.
England judiciary sent into penal servitude countless thousands of its own citizens, adults and children, to Australia and other colonies, for the most minor of offences such as stealing a loaf of bread.
English colonisers robbed numerous colonies of their treasures. There are more than seven millions items in the British Museum alone. Colonisers stole many of these items, smuggled them out countries or bought them on the cheap.
London bankers plundered the economy in recent years. If the government taxed the super rich and the wealthiest corporations around taxed 5% of their total wealth, it would have paid off the national debt. No. Instead the government make the poor pay through unemployment, no interest on modest savings, inflation and widespread cuts in services.
Hundreds of Members of Parliament increased substantially their annual income through false claims. The public had to pay for their self indulgent financial gains, their purchase of goods, utterly unrelated to their jobs as servants of the people. and for their second home scams. Three or four MPs got sent to prison while the rest patiently waited for the furore to go away.
From August 6- 9, 2011, a small percentage of the young and poor engaged in widespread pilfering and looting. It was grossly self indulgent, frightening for many citizens living in these areas and the looters showed an utter disregard for their families and communities – just like the government, corporations and bankers who continue to show a disregard for citizens living on poor housing estates.
Retribution
Two weeks after the riots police in England have recorded more than 3,000 offences. Riots in London alone led to more than 2000 arrests compared to less than a handful of corrupt politicians, bankers, and media moguls who exploited and ripped off vulnerable citizens.
The police devised a policy of holding all people arrested on riot-related offences in custody and recommending that the courts also refuse bail after they were charged. This amounts to unlawful arbitrary detention of many people.
- Two men got four year sentences for trying to incite a riot in their home town on Facebook. Nobody on Facebook turned up at the venue named.
- A London man received six months in jail for stealing a case of water worth $5 from a looted supermarket.
- A mother of two in Manchester who did not take part in the riots, was sentenced to five months for wearing a pair of looted shorts her roommate had brought home.
Most of the convicted suspects have been sent for sentencing to higher courts which have the power to impose longer terms of imprisonment. The majority of the accused have not been granted bail. It is usual for the police to give a warning for the first office such as stealing water or knicking shorts but the rioters threatened the Establishment, as well as causing much anguish to local citizens.
The 16th century proverb still rings true: “A fishe beginneth first to stink at the head” so does the 20th century proverb “The stinking fish smells everywhere in the kitchen.”