Anarchy in the UK

The Sex Pistols song title has got to be one of the best lines to describe the recent situation in the UK. Well, almost. I say almost because life in most of London, and other parts of the UK, does continue as normal. People are still going to their offices, the tubes are running and I continue to be unemployed, so yes, normal. While for most people the situation is anarchist enough, for a select band of ‘intellectuals’, it is not. I seek to address the latter through this piece.

For years I have wondered if I should have a regular blog. I remember at least three occasions over the last four months when I was itching to write something but didn’t. After all, the internet is full of people gratifying their urge to say something without necessarily having something to say and I did not really want to join their ranks, so I gave up on the idea. However, seeing a few particularly ‘bright’ remarks on Facebook condoning, even celebrating, the London riots, something did snap inside me. It was probably my patience towards stupidity.

Yes, we all know there are problems in this country, just like there are in other countries across the globe. The armchair anarchist tells me, and I do agree partly, that the riots are manifestations of the general unemployment, dismal economic situation and race tensions. But to view the riots on the whole as a sign of the social and political empowerment of the deprived class and, more importantly, to justify it as such, is asinine. I have been in the UK for a couple of years now and I can spot a poor homeless bloke when I see one. However, what I saw on TV were not the poverty-stricken, impoverished have-nots but yobs in branded sportswear, apparently organising the riots through Blackberry, Twitter and social media. Pray tell, if you have a Blackberry, just how destitute are you?

What I am seeing is poverty of the human spirit and moral bankruptcy. Videos of an injured boy being helped to his feet and then mugged, and pictures of a passerby being stripped naked in the middle of the street by rioters are going to be the lasting legacy of this riot and no amount of justification is going to change that. In fact, can anyone ever justify setting fire to residential buildings with families and children inside? The answer is no, no matter for what reason. Please don’t say collateral damage because that term has been used and abused to the point that it has become a polite way of saying ‘lives don’t matter’. The fact of the matter is that the end does not justify the means at all. It is the means which keep defining and re-defining your end and in the process, you.

Let us assume for a moment that what UK has been witnessing over the last few days is not largely about vandalism and opportunism. In that case, what have you achieved? You vandalised a small flower shop run by your own community member who probably was keeping his business running in these hard times through hard work, ingenuity or maybe even dumb luck. Congratulations! You just brought down capitalism.

In fact it is very much against the armchair anarchist’s interest to bring down the social order as we know it. The grants he gets for his academic conferences, the grants for his PhD, the University he studies in, are all funded by a combination of the bourgeois government he loves to criticise, public funds generated through the current social system that he hates, fees of students either paid by parents who work in this ‘abhorrent’ system or generated through bank loans (yes, the detestable ‘B’ word), not to mention direct funding by the ‘contemptible’ capitalist companies. Yet, he believes he is above and beyond society and cannot help but view it with a ‘holier than thou’ attitude.  Yes, one of the finest characteristics of a true democracy is that you have the right to criticise it to the point of being opposed to it. That is how it should be. I do hope, comrade, that if and when your revolution succeeds, and you ever choose to criticise it, you have the same amount of freedom to do so as you do now.

Of course our armchair anarchist, who loves bashing authority figures, would love for the rioters to gain a few more victories over the police. I know everyone loves criticising the cops in their own country. But for once, I am going to side with the cops, the reason being that I have had a few close interactions with the cops in the UK, which has really given me the opportunity to observe their general behaviour. They are on the whole courteous and polite, which is a refreshing change. Now, I don’t even want to compare them with the Indian variety, but the only time in my life I have felt that I could have a reasonable conversation with a cop is in the UK. I am sure they, like all humans, have their vices. Could they have handled the riots and the events leading up to it a bit better?  Yes, no doubts about it. But for the first time in your lives, step back and try and see it from the policeman’s perspective. At least in the UK, there are strict procedures which ensure that the cops operate within a given set of rules at all times. This is how it should be for law enforcement agencies in any civilised society.  However, do try and imagine their predicament as they are trying to fight people who have no regard for rules while being bound by rules themselves. This cannot and should not change because law enforcers cannot be law breakers but it does make their jobs a lot tougher. Given that it is largely a thankless job anyway, I do sincerely empathise with them at this point.

What really made me realise how we tend to take the cops for granted was a little hypothetical situation I just happened to think about. Given the recent situation I was wondering what if I am walking with my girlfriend back from the station at 11 in the night and happen to bump into a group of ten people. In such a situation who would I prefer them to be: a) rioters b) gang members c) cops.

Don’t know about you, but I will take my chances with the Bobbies any day.