Sustainability and the Sociology of Civil Unrest

26 Aug 2011 – Clive Bloom

Last week we heard Clive Bloom – Emeritus Professor of English and American Studies at Middlesex University and author of Violent London: 2000 Years of Riots, Rebels and Revolts – commenting on BBC Radio 4 about the systemic issues that underpinned the devastating riots in London this month. With many now searching for an explanation of the sudden and surprising violence that spread across London and other parts of the UK, Bloom argues that sociological factors – chiefly endemic poverty and the alienation of consumer culture – are the real culprits, and further, that failing to address the fundamental issues and resentments of the communities that spawned the riots will only guarantee their repetition. The point is essential as we face the likelihood of wider and more frequent social disruption in response to economic, social and environmental stresses in the decades ahead. The following guest essay by Professor Bloom sheds valuable light on both present and historical circumstances of unrest, in hopes we may find the will and the way to mitigate future ones.

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The evident breakdown in various communities in England during the recent disturbances has shown up the chronic drip of social decay. These riots were caused, not by recent economic cuts, but by an accelerating economic and moral decline within communities unable to restore their social balance since the violence of thirty years ago. Economics replaced racism as the main factor in those very areas that most of us thought had been sorted out. Instead of real social improvement there had been only the apparent action of remedial social reform where underlying resentments had been left intact. The very same places exploded as they had in 1981 and 1985.

The symptoms were different, but the underlying causes remained the same: entrapment in poverty, lack of self-worth because of lack of improvement and the alienation of consumer society where having the right clothes and mobile phone represents ‘real’ self-esteem. These things are the exact opposite, in fact, of what caused the student riots where those children had the luxury to reject the cultural advantages of their (middle class) parents.

The riots represent something historically very interesting. They certainly hark back to a pre-police past. I recently wrote in the Irish Times that,

‘The current aspirational rioting, where young people go to their favourite shops, choose the latest street-cred goods and scarper, are little different from the numerous apprentice riots of the eighteenth century which were also the domain of young, single men, out to cause trouble, to steal goods, to break windows and to set light to the houses of those that they didn’t like, in the knowledge that there was no authority bar the army which could disturb them. These apprentices also came from the deprived area of town and spilled into the city centres, called together not by Blackberrys but by fire beacons, the ringing of church bells or the simple act of fly posting. You do not need modern technology for social networking.’

Indeed, the number of CCTV cameras played no part whatsoever in deterrence, their use being purely punitive, that is, retrospective. Their role in public reassurance fails in extreme cases such as rioting where they are useful only after the event.

But there is an interesting twist, such pre-industrial rioting is also post-industrial, a peculiar pastiche of consuming and shopping driven by the very mechanisms of the consumer industry the looters abused. The image is everywhere and everything. It is self-affirming to project the correct image, even (or especially) on surveillance machines. The self is no longer an inward attribute, but is worn on the outside like an exoskeleton.

This is of importance, because the more middle-class educators look to reaffirm inward values the more the ‘underclass’ affirm external values. The values of environmentalism, non-exploitation and global sustainability (essentially and primarily inward moral values) are eschewed by a generation fed on the contrary values of over consumption, external extravagance (‘bling’) and extravagant waste.

What are we now to do in order to stop rioting of this type in England again? The government has set out various policies and suggestions; the mood is one of punishment and retribution, possibly right for now, but no use long term. The current heavy sentencing is both a deterrent and a warning by the establishment. For the most part, heavy sentencing is in line with the seriousness of the disturbances: incitement to riot and looting should not expect the same sort of punishment as inciting political protest or mere burglary. Indeed, one of the problems is how to effectively sentence those under age or those who were looting, but for whom only a sentence of aggravated burglary is possible, there being no crime of looting on the statute book.

If we must punish, we must also take responsibility for rehabilitation, but we have no facilities in which to do so. Ordinary prison will only put people in the way of nastier criminal possibilities. We have long given up the harsh regimes of the borstal era, but young offenders need both a sense of discipline as well as a sense of community and responsibility. Jonathan Aitken, talking on Sky News, no stranger to prison life himself and now involved with Christian Solidarity Worldwide, put forward the military prison in Colchester as a proven model for the successful engineering of social rehabilitation; a regime of authority and discipline and team building. This is a bitter pill to swallow in those of us who baulk at the boot camp approach.

Such militarised solutions scare liberals, but they may, despite everything, give back a sense of purpose and moral compass to the worst offenders, who have been in and out of court all their lives, getting away with petty crime, and these disturbances are (despite the four potential murders, all of which have their specific circumstances) just petty crime on a very large scale. Indeed, pilfering, burglary, mugging and burning cars have been the staple of crime in Tottenham, Hackney and estates across England for over twenty years. In the next few years, if nothing changes, this will again be the pattern, only to spill out of the ghetto at inconvenient intervals. Indeed, there have been two gang related murders within a week of the riots, one in Ilford and one in Enfield.

I do not know if a prison regime would restore the dignity that the offenders have forfeited. I would prefer to see large scale community work for most, but observing this in practice is disheartening, the results poor. Could such groups regenerate their neighbourhoods by such work? The answer just might be yes if those who live and offend on these estates are asked what needs to be done to improve their lives and give back a sense of ‘family’ beyond the confines of the gang.

But are we ready to ask criminals their opinion on anything? To gain a voice, that is not simply violent or destructive, may indeed restore a sense of self respect in community. To get the inarticulate to talk by their deeds may be therapeutic and anger releasing, I do not know, but they cannot be left the passive recipients of other people’s attitudes. To get such people to act in concert (in their peer group if not in their actual gang group) for the good instead of the bad may have lasting effects. The point being that we have to work within the current structures of ghettoised life before we can move on.

Such offers little consolation to the victims and without economic and infrastructural support will soon be valueless, unless there is the highly problematic added incentive of visible extra policing and public authority beyond the confines of the community (of whatever kind).

The actual police are distrusted by many communities, but self-policing will exacerbate criminality and give carte blanche to criminal behaviour. The psychological no-go areas have to be expunged as do the police trade-offs with gangs that have escalated into intra-community violence and teenage knife and gun crime, as was recently exposed by Paul Mason on Newsnight. The secrecy and inwardness of these communities needs to be broken, but the consumer tastes in trainers, electronic goods or mobile phones does not. We are all materialists.

A new type of policing has to be developed. Of course there is the straightforward possibility that the testosterone of teenage boys will simply diminish as they age, a point well made by Anthony Burgess in Clockwork Orange, his book recounting the social disintegration of the 1950s.

Adolescent rebellion has, of course, happened before. 2011 sees the centenary of a wave of school strikes across Britain and even those rebellious activities were an echo of disturbances in the 1889. The condemnation of the actions in 1889, were similar to those who argue the reality of ‘broken Britain’ today.

The Educational News of October/November 1889 declared,

‘Schoolboy strikers . . . are simply rebels. Obedience is the first rule of school life . . . School strikes are therefore not merely acts of disobedience, but a reversal of the primary purpose of schools. They are on a par with a strike in the army or navy . . . They are manifestations of a serious deterioration in the moral fibre of the rising generation . . . They will prove dangerous centres of moral contamination.’

Do we have the economic, environmental and social resources to curb the trouble from a ‘lost’ generation who belong to an underclass (sometimes self-defined) which is resentful and alienated, but also consumerist and egocentric, sharing many of the traits of the wider society, but in distorted form? We can deal with certain issues now, but rehousing the ghetto in decent accommodation, proper welfare support which no longer requires a model of the family to propel it, a clear indication that a cash culture backed by violence is not preferable to a salary, home and hobbies is going to be hard to sell to a generation whose corrupt attitudes are apparently replicated by the social betters, bankers, politicians, media people and policemen who are, nevertheless, immune from the punishment of the poor.

This latest set of disturbances may be an aberration, but we are likely to see more not less low-scale disturbances as the economic downturn continues and as the authorities ramp up security towards the Olympics and after, but have less resources. Unexpected threats will continue, especially from virtual space (the political arena) and actual space (violence on the street). The classes involved will be different however. Large scale unrest comes from smouldering disaffection and an immediate flashpoint which may not be related. The current circumstances show that clearly. The disaffection was not directly related to the death of Mark Duggan. Relative poverty has been shown to be more dangerous than absolute poverty.

The solutions to the two-fold threat of cyber-attack and actual looting remain related but different. Cyber-attack is much more likely in institutional, infrastructural, banking and business organisations, with street attack more likely in clothing, gambling and electronic retail – the poor stealing what is easily sold or they cannot afford, the rich undermining the resources that underpin businesses they consider corrupt. As such the real threat is from those with a political motivation not a pecuniary one.

Clive Bloom, August 2011
Clive Bloom is the author of Violent London: 2000 Years of Riots, Rebels and Revolts.
www.clivebloom.com