Sensitive Souls
The August 2011 riots that swept first through London, then Britain's other major cities, were a tremendous shock and a severe psychological blow to much of the population. They were not, after all, 'riots', in the political sense. They were in fact simply orgies of looting similar to what we saw on our televisions occuring in Bagdad in 2003.
In 2011 we watched and were transfixed by scenes occurring within our own country, faithfully recorded by the CCTV cameras that we'd installed for our security, as groups of hooded and masked youths rampaged through the streets with impunity, smashing, looting and setting fire to shops. We stared as they humiliated, robbed and beat anonymous citizens, all without protection or recourse to the law. And we watched the mobs rally and organize, coordinated by twitter, facebook and blackberry, with youths on bikes scouting out for opportunities.
And oh how we watched. For the the biggest psychological hit of the whole affair was the fact that it went on day after day, night after night, morphing from a weekend dust up into something that did not seem to want to end.
That was the biggest shock to the country. The fact that it lasted four days.
It was amusing to watch many of the liberals in the BBC or commentating in the Guardian change their tone as the chaos spread. The majority of journalists of course live and work in London, and thus it was more of a shock for them to see smashed glass and flames engulf streets that they recognised. It was dangerously close to the Latte-serving cafes that they patronised. And even more of a shock to them was to witness the Police, whom they had criticised for decades for their brutality, trying to police the mobs in a nicer, more consensual way, as they had been ordered to do so many times. And the mob just taunted them, threw things at them and looted shops in front of them. And the police simply 'held the line', rather than go in swinging their batons.
'The police must do everything in their power to restore order to the streets' the liberals cried, throwing their civil liberties arguments out of the window as they watched the mobs spread through their favourite city. They soon forgot their social justice arguments too as the youths were described first as 'the underclass', then simply 'yobs', and finally as 'vile scum'. For fear had started to take hold in places it had not been seen before.
And we who watched agreed with them. For most of us are liberals too, even those who claim (erroneously) to be conservatives, for we all believe in the sanctity of the individual, and the fear we felt was the fear of the individual, alone before the mob - and possibly its next victim.
And that is the problem of the liberal individual - extreme sensitivity. For the individual is alone, so of course one will be sensitive to one's own fears. They will be sensitive to the power of the State and the Police, in case that power is directed at one. And they will also be sensitive to the power of the mob (or the yob). And there is no paradox. Until you require one to protect you from the other.
Softness
Although Liberalism is a recognised philosophy, most people simply don't understand it or take its main tenets for granted, for liberalism has become, in the UK, the mainstream. The term 'liberal' has also become a euphemism for 'softness'. But the truth is, we have all become soft. Softness too is mainstream. And this is natural.
This is a prosperous society, and a liberal one. Prosperity and urbanization lead naturally to liberalism, for it gifts us with the chance to be free from small community norms and the culture of the twitching net curtain. We don't need to identify ourselves according to what group we belong to. The ties that bind us to our neighbours are loosened, giving us greater personal freedom. That is what liberalism means - freedom.
We embrace the prosperity and urbanization because it gives us pleasures. And the State protects our freedom to be consumers, to be single, to be gay, to be whatever we want. And while this does not always work out the way we want, it nevertheless leads to us being more able to relax. It leads to softness, for softness, mark you, is actually a sign of success.
It is the aim of any civilization to rise up to the stage where it can actually be soft, for softness is pleasant, whereas hardness is not.
Community
And herein lies the problem with a soft, liberal, atomized society. The majority of people watched or suffered in the riots without really knowing what to do. They were helpless. Softness was going up in smoke.
The Turkish, Kurd, Sikh and Muslim communities of London however knew exactly what to do. They didn't need 'social media' to organise. Their neighbours are right next door, and a phone call was sufficient to contact extended family members. Temples and Mosques served as simple rallying points. While other people flapped about, leaderless, shocked and struggling to comprehend, the asian ethnic communities - the only real communities in the UK today - were out in front of their shops and businesses with knives, baseball bats, hockey sticks and swords. They felt no sympathy for the 'underclass' and their social justice problems or their underpriviliged backgrounds. And they certainly did not suffer from guilt at the fact that most of the rioters were black.
No, the message from these tightknit communities was a simple one - 'If you come down here then we don't care whether you're a gora or a kalay, we'll break your legs.'
And in that strange week when it all happened, they received much praise for doing precisely that.
Assimilation
Over the years there has been much talk about immigrant communities not 'assimilating'. These stubborn people have held onto their beliefs, their cohesiveness and their suspicious disdain of liberalism. Their children are still pressured to conform to (small) society norms. Their girls are still under pressure to marry, and marry within the community or religion. The libertine freedoms that are not only celebrated, but actually encouraged and taught, in Britain are scratching against the conservative walls of these communities, eroding them but not yet overwhelming them.
During the riots however there turned out to be many people who were glad they hadn't assimilated. When the shit hit the fan, suddenly these kinds of people were needed.
What does this say about the UK today?
Are we really liberal? Or are we just soft? If liberalism means simply wanting things to be 'nice', is it really a 'value' any more?
If softness means that we don't actually consider any value worth being 'hard' about, then are we doomed to always hand over the mandate for our protection to whoever happens to be passing as soon as things become unpleasant?
If so, do we treasure softness and pleasure so much that we are prepared to barter liberal freedoms for protection? Are we not caught therefore in a dreadful paradox?
Is this the paradox that all successful civilizations encounter?
Are we Romans handing over first the leadership, then the republic, to the Germanic tribes?
