The riots that scorched England’s cities and shaken the country to its core last week raise questions its political leaders must address.
Yet, while there is value in this widely held perspective, there remains a far greater truth that cannot be ignored: These riots, with their casual cruelty, random viciousness and brazen defiance of a democratic nation’s laws, pose questions the rioters themselves must answer.
Such as: How can being out of a job justify torching the homes of your neighbours in Tottenham? How does being poor give you the licence to run a car into and kill three British-Asian men whose only fault was that they were trying to protect their Birmingham community from looters?
How can your lack of an Oxford degree excuse you for trashing the shop run by the little old woman down the street or robbing a man who has just been beaten to a bloody pulp in east London? And how can the inalienable rights and humanity of your fellow citizens be subordinated to your lust for a free pair of shoes?
England has its warts as well as no shortage of critics who will point at them. Its green and pleasant land is cratered with social and economic disparity. It has too many people without a job or the tools to find one.
Even so, Britain’s current unemployment rate of 7.7 per cent is comparable to Canada’s and far below the double digit levels of earlier decades. Moreover, in the past three months, the number of unemployed Britons aged 16 to 24 has actually fallen by 42,000.
And don’t forget: England is a mature democracy where governments make laws at the pleasure of the people. It provides its citizens with free health care, a free public education as well as housing and an income for those who need it.
Perhaps this explains why hundreds of thousands of people from around the world try to migrate to England every year.
No, you might not get rich living on the dole. But the welfare rates don’t appear to be so pinched that they can’t cover the bills for the BlackBerrys that many of the rioters used to plot their crimes.
So why have the great-grandchildren of the people who saved England’s cities from being burned by a foreign foe in the Second World War decided to set those same cities ablaze today? Why, in this epochal year when youth across the Arab world have risen up, mainly peacefully, in a courageous bid for democracy have so many youth in England risen up against their democracy?
The full answer will be known only after the more than 1,000 people arrested in these riots have been tried.
But even now, it is absolutely clear that while the shooting of a black man by police preceded the chaos, it did not precipitate it. The rioters are not resisting racism. They are not making a political statement — or if they are you can’t hear it because their features are concealed by scarves and hoodies.
Nor do they have any agenda to advance.
They are smashing and looting — unprovoked — because they feel entitled to do so and because their smartphones give them a sense of immunity while helping them organize their depredations.
They are not out to change the world. They are mostly between the ages of 20 and 12 and blighted with a sense of entitlement as well as a greed for consumer goods that belong to someone else. And the primary responsibility for their crimes lies with them.
Do not mistake the victim with the victimizer here. And do not doubt that in this struggle between order and anarchy, order will prevail. The English have fought, and won, this battle before.
An editorial from the Waterloo, Ont., Region Record.