“Keeping people safe is the first duty of government,” said David Cameron in the House of Commons after recalling parliament. Not a particularly surprising statement coming from a true conservative. But put into context, where what the prime minister is really saying is that the government’s main task is to protect one part of society from another, it not only explains to some degree how we ended up in this situation in the first place, but also expresses the idea of an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ which could lead to further segregation and unrest.
Cameron went on to say that the riots were “not about politics or protest – it was about theft,” and that “in too many cases, the parents of these children, if they’re still around, don’t care where their children are.” In other words, don’t blame the government – blame the parents. Which parents? Those in the ghettos, who don’t belong to ‘us’. Those from whom the government will protect you.
It’s easy to fall into the mindset of anger and vengeance and agree with Cameron. We’re all angry about what’s happened to our city: the amount of people who have lost their homes and livelihoods; the amount of taxes required to recover from this; how many of us suddenly no longer feel safe in our own streets. These crimes are inexcusable, so why pretend they’re justifiable?
They’re not, of course. This kind of deliberate destruction is never justifiable, be it in London or in Norway or in Iraq. But that doesn’t change the fact that it feels a bit as though a rhetoric comfortably suitable to the boys in charge – and I’m talking about the government here, not the rioters – has been shoved down our throats and we’re too angry to question it.
There’s an inherent flaw in the argument that these people are mindless scum and hence the whole thing is apolitical. Aren’t we suggesting that they’re too ignorant to see what they’re doing to their own communities? Aren’t we saying that they’re mindless enough not to care? Well that, people, is politics.
If thousands of young citizens are convinced that there’s no place in society for them, if they’re so disconnected from their own city that they feel like they have nothing to lose and it makes no difference if they go and smash it to bits and burn it down, then we’re failing somewhere.
It could be the British class system and the segregation, or perhaps the increase in higher education fees and slashing of means-tested grants. Perhaps it’s the sometimes completely unjustified stopping and searching of certain groups of people (intended to keep other groups of people safe, I guess). Maybe it’s a cocktail of all of the above, along with a long list of issues which I, as a middle-class creative in Crouch End, don’t even know exist.
Then there’s the added complication of the fact that peaceful protests don’t work, that people came out in droves to show their dissatisfaction with the suggested increase in higher education fees and were ignored. Some would say that the government lost its mandate right there and then. Those rioting in the streets of London and other cities may not have had a political agenda in mind, but we’re not exactly encouraging them to either: it’s pretty clear that the politicians don’t want to listen to them. That politicians, on top of that, show a complete lack of respect for public funds by abusing the expense system probably doesn’t help.
We’ve got to dare to ask ourselves what went wrong that led to these riots, and in doing so we have to admit that these people are real citizens who have to be a part of society. The right-wing rhetoric of making the rioters into mindless monsters may fit very well in with an ideology that insists that a certain level of unemployment is necessary as an incentive for people to work hard, but it’s not only proven wrong by the events in Britain over the past week – it’s also exactly the kind of talk that confirms to these people that they don’t belong and that society doesn’t want them.
Cameron wants to protect one part of society from another, the one outside of it. On Twitter, another suggestion came up: how about social justice and equality instead?
