London Riots

Often media in the form of gaming and motion pictures provide us with a mirror into the issues of our own society. Increasingly we are seeing that the scenes which were once projected onto a screen are being projected into our very reality. The West has often labelled the Third World as the source and setting of violence and has used the media to maintain this image. However, from the 6^th to the 10^th of August it wasn’t the Middle-East or Africa where violence made the news, but in Great Britain itself. The London Riots, which were not just isolated to London, also broke out in several other areas, namely Bristol, Midlands and North West England. This incident lead to shock and surprise as the British tried to figure out how they had gone from once having the world’s largest empire to stealing and squabbling amongst themselves.

A line from the Dark Knight’s antagonist; the Joker, that when you, “Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos...Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair!” rings true here. As if there is one thing about chaos it’s impartial in who gets targeted, this was certainly the case in the London Riots. But in terms of our understanding of fairness, it is not fair that the young and the old are exploited due to being unable to defend themselves. 

The concept of fairness is one that is often used in Western Society. Religious ideas of fairness, such as karma and “reaping what you sow” are often embraced as they connect with our worldly wisdom. Likewise when life presents us with challenges, we begin to question what we have done to deserve this. Our views of justice are influenced by our perceptions of equality and equity. But frequently we use the terms interchangeably, when they have very different ramifications. Equity refers to the qualities of justness, fairness, impartiality, while equality is about equal sharing and exact division between people. Or in other words equality equals quantity, whereas equity equals quality.

The relevance of equity and equality is evident in the London Riots, as Zygmunt Bauman states in his article, that "these are not hunger or bread riots. These are riots of defective and disqualified consumers." He alludes to the great divide between the wealthy and the poor which has stimulated social inequality. The footage that was taken of the riots echoes his earlier statement, as luxury goods were looted instead of the most basic ones. Zygmunt claims that “looting shops and setting them on fire derive from the same impulsion and gratify the same longing”, which is to be equal citizens in the consumerist culture. 

Likewise anthropologist, Rene Girard has attributed “mimetic rivalry” as the cause of these acts. Mimetic rivalry has resulted from a “consumerist culture in which self-worth is measured by material gain and identities express through brands”. Through this belief a fallacy has formed that “the fullness of consumer enjoyment means fullness of life”. Instead of the truth that being part of a consumerist culture means that you too become a commodity to be consumed.

Luke Bretherton’s mentions in his article that “we are a society that rewards one “pocket” of self-interested risk takers for privatising profit and socialising the cost but is busy incarcerated another “pocket” for the same actions”. His point being that we encourage ingenuity when it comes to maximising profit, but we don’t recognise that this has the same impact as stealing. The old proverb that ‘one man’s loss is another man’s is used to justify the richer get richer, while the poorer get poorer. Can we really blame the people for acting their frustration when the justice system fails to recognise the victims? Why don’t we point the finger at the grand puppet masters; the “bankers, politicians, the police and journalists who think they can bend and break the law, acting with impunity and with no regard for the common life we all share and on which themselves depend”?  Have we forgotten that the Pharisee’s were at the brunt of Jesus’ condemnation and not those who were marginalised by them?

Bretherton notes that “Scapegoating seems to shape the government’s whole response to the riots. But in scapegoating particular groups, we see to avoid taking responsibility.” We need to first take responsibility for our own actions before we can change anyone else’s. As Confucius once said, “To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right”.