Oh, THAT’S Why You’re Rioting ….
First things first. I am not a hugely political person. Although I believe there should be a law, and there should be equality, I passionately believe that politics and religion are the root cause of all our troubles in the world. So usually, I avoid discussing them like the plague. However …
This week, Britain has been rioting. Well, they call it rioting. Helping yourself to stolen goods might be a better description. And what’s so interesting about it is that there is no good reason – political or otherwise – why they are doing so. Root cause this time seems to be a combination of boredom and why not ?
Let’s look back – history is littered with protesters who strove to either make the world a better place or raise awareness of a cause. The suffragettes changed the world for women. The miners tried to make the world a better place by removing Thatcher. Even the last lot of riots, when Charles & Camilla got a little rattled, had a PURPOSE.
Ostensibily, this started as a protest because a London gangster had been killed. As usual, someone then took it a stage further, and before Tottenham could blink, it was on fire, engulfed in turmoil, noise and world focus. Within the hour, the news spoke of what was being looted rather than what the rioters stood for – and who can blame them ? Truly, who amongst us has the foggiest what any of these rioters stand for?
The looters – let’s not call them rioters, they are thieves, pure and simple – trashed any shop or business that could provide them with cashable goods. Why is that ? Oh yes, cos they are too lazy to get off their arses and get a job. Why, sorry ? Oh yes, because all their role models in life haven’t got a job, sponge off the state, and are too thick to understand the irony of destroying the country they still expect to pay their benefits and keep them in council accomodation. Generalisation ? Undoubtedly. But within 2 days, all the interviewed looters in Manchester were answering that their reason was “why not? If there’s stuff to be nicked, why shouldn’t I have a share of it ?”
It’s so hard not to be cynical, judgemental and all Daily Mail about it. Even more importantly, it’s hard to have any sympathy or understanding for why these people are doing what they’re doing. Because they have no reason, they have no political cause. Because they have no political cause, they have no mouthpiece. Just as well, because the country doesn’t have a rebuttal anyway. When the looters were looting, our Government was a vacuum. When the looters were looting, our police forces did not have a unified leg to stand on – possibly because Rupert Murdoch has caused most of them to resign (now there’s a conspiracy theory for you).
There’s a lot of talk about how we got “here”. At least 2 decades of social disintegration and declining educational standards (not to mention discipline, with children over-protected by namby-pambyism) has a big part to play. You could argue the recession or excessive immigration is a factor, but that would presume that these looters wanted to work in the first place, which they don’t.
What is most striking to me is that this is all about NOTHING. The looters believe in nothing because their lives revolve around nothingness - no family, no structure, no work ethic, no ambition of a better life. Pure and utter nothing. That is why their voices are so quiet – because the only thing you can say about nothing is … nothing.
And I’m going to end where I began, just before I started typing this post. We have people throughout history who have died for something they have believed in (like the suffragettes); we have people who have put their lives before others (family members, the NYFD on 9/11) and we have our soldiers, not just now but throughout history, fighting battles where the outcome of winning is undefined and unsupportable, yet they do it anyway, putting their lives on the line every single day …
And our looters? Our brave, political, enfranchised, vocal looters ? Oh tonight they’re at home, sheltering from the rain.
Their nothing is not only not worth dying for; it’s plainly not even worth getting a little bit wet for.
And that’s the value and the work ethic of Nothing.