A section of the media, in
particular The Guardian and The Independent had caught a section of the
Conservatives gloating. Were the riots an inevitable offspring of David
Cameron’s 'broken society'? The morning after rioting had subsided Cameron
stood sullen in the presence of gathering microphones and cameras, his skin
still glinting of the Tuscan sun. I turned off the sound on my little
television set and tried to recall the first few verses from a Rudyard Kipling
poem.
IF you can keep your head when
all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it
on you,
If you can trust yourself when
all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their
doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired
by waiting,
Politics is a waiting game. The
nature of democratic politics lies in the art of making the impossible
possible. The possibility of achieving the impossible is the ultimate lure for
the egotist entering this arena. Yet, this impossibility could only be possible
under the right conditions and with a degree of persuasion. The cynic would
call it coercion. Dictatorships reek of the bitter pungency of forced
imposition. The cynic would add that there is no need for even the subliminal
coercion through propaganda when at the height of one’s political power,
whether for a dictator or Blair.
I am not a cynic but a student of
the human condition. There is no room for doubt in conservatism. Arguably, the
London rioters have vindicated Mr Cameron’s assessment of the nature of man.
Man meanders through a constant flux of aggression and self-interest. This
lawlessness or ‘state of nature’ is nothing to be frowned upon yet it
necessitates control. The early modern answer to this state of nature with the
state still at its infancy, gesticulating through dictatorial monarchs,
required the likes of Thomas Hobbes to argue for an absolute sovereign. To
realise the potential of possible freedom within human society there needed to
be a limit to the extent of that very freedom. Hobbes thought of it not as
constriction but as ‘self-interested cooperation’ that could be achieved
through a ‘social contract’ between the state and its citizens.
But Hobbes’ assessment of human
nature is uncannily pessimistic. Perhaps, this pessimism could be attributed to
the chaotic years of the English Civil War with the King and Parliament
wrestling for absolute power. The notion of popular power propelling the state
into the modern phenomenon that it is today was centuries away. Yet, the
carcass that we have inherited today from those early notions of the political
state contains the basic tenets of Hobbes’ social contract. The citizen as a
member of civil society remains free to act in a way that is not forbidden by
law. The sovereign state protects its citizens by limiting freedom when it
comes to the forbidden. In three hundred years of Political Philosophy,
protection and freedom have fallen in love, consummated, wedded, argued,
separated and finally divorced. That is the state we are in.
David Cameron is of course not a
direct philosophical descendant of Hobbes. Modern Conservatism has its roots in
18th century Whig politician and philosopher Edmund Burke’s idea that property
is essential to human life. This singular conviction instills a necessary
desire in people to be ruled and controlled. Burke anticipated that social
changes brought about by the possession of property as the natural order of
events should be taking place as the human race progressed. The division of
property naturally leads to a convenient but altogether natural class system.
This forms a social agreement and the setting of persons into different classes
is the mutual benefit of all subjects.
What was a mere anticipation for
Burke had led to a different reality centuries later. Burke understood conflict
but seemed to have had little interest in the possibility of class conflict.
Not all men are aggressive but some are so because of a ‘moral decline’ rather
than any basic sense of inequality in society.
August had been a chance to shine
for former and incumbent prime ministers. Tony Blair, an unlikely defendant of
the chaviosa had been countering Cameron by stating that the riots should not
be blamed on 'moral decline'.
What is this state that we are
in? It would appear that our politicians are omniscient as well as possessing
all the other qualities that hoist them into high offices of state. If politics
is a waiting game laws are usually passed to reflect what had gone on before.
After all, what is the point of burdening the statute books if there is no
social need for a piece of legislation? The very nature of democracy is such
that popular power can only come from populist laws, which more often than not,
end up being short term containment and appeasement rather than dealing with
the real symptoms of the disease. Politics is all that Kipling, inadvertently,
warned us of,
Or being lied about, don't deal
in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to
hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor
talk too wise:
Cameron's assessment of the
broken society would at once seem different from what Blair had countered. Yet
the moral stance is identical. Blair had affirmed his centre ground political
stance once again; the 'left's reasoning for the riot is apparently
concentrating on social depravity whereas the right is falling on the age old
argument over a lack of personal responsibility'. Has Blair identified the real
reasons for rioting? There is a 'group of alienated, disaffected youth who are
outside the social mainstream and who live in a culture at odds with any canons
of proper behaviour.' The former prime minister consoles us in stating 'that
sort of improper behaviour is not endemic to British society but is common in
the majority of developed western nations'.
Realpolitik always ignored what
politics should really be about,
If you can dream - and not make
dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make
thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and
Disaster
And treat those two impostors
just the same;
The casual commentator, whether
left leaning or right-wing might not question the veracity of Blair's
assessment. I believe that David Cameron had identified the very same yet much
of his real concern had been lost somewhere in between the machinery of press
briefings and news conferences.
So if we have identified the
perpetrators and highlighted the reasons for riots, surely, this is time to
learn our lessons from the rioters and not take advantage of a situation to
hand out instant justice. Instant justice smacks of instant rioting.
The right had been calling for
more visible police presence for years. Yet the cuts in police budget, in real
terms, would undermine that very demand. The Conservative led coalition seem to
have concluded that increased police presence in our streets would be
preventing future riots. The same argument had been used when CCTV cameras
first reared their ugly grey heads, beady eyed, watching our each movement in town
centres across the land. The effect of increased police presence certainly
reassure many residents, however, such presence often shift the crime scene to
where there are no cameras or uniformed police standing guard. More
importantly, CCTV cameras do not prevent crime and even their usefulness as an
investigative tool could have been questioned until the rioters were caught on
camera.
Democracy, when based on popular
power can stifle the fringes. Popular voice resonate through the mirrored walls
of Versailles and the echoes drown out the squealing insects caught up in the
cobwebs around the thin joints between those polished mirrors. Yet it is the
fringes that colourfully define the state we are in and remind us of the
necessary truths however unpleasant those truth might be.
If you can bear to hear the truth
you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap
for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your
life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with
worn-out tools:
So what of the angry alienated
youth and his morally declined rioting ways? Instant justice had been demanded
by a hysterical right-wing. Magistrates had processed criminal cases one after
another like a supermarket checkout. It is that very term processed I find so
distressing. The purpose of the justice system is not to process criminals but
to provide an impartial platform for defendants to argue their case in light of
clear evidence linking them to a crime. Public opinion has no place in the
execution of justice although, it does unfortunately play a major part in its
conception. This is the primary model of social contract based on popular
democracy that had upheld the modern political state since Bastille.
If you can make one heap of all
your winnings
And risk it on one turn of
pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your
beginnings
And never breathe a word about
your loss;
If you can force your heart and
nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after
they are gone,
And so hold on when there is
nothing in you
Except the Will which says to
them: 'Hold on!
Almost two decades ago the Rodney
King riots in the US had a racial origin. The London riots might have started
out as a protest by the Afro-Caribbean community around Tottenham against the
police treatment of young black men, however, the criminal looting carried no
echoes of civil rights movements from the past. The disturbance followed a
trend all too known to the basest instinct in human nature, opportunistic
greed. The civilised and environmentally conscious world we live in has no time
for historical references. Julius Caesar, the Roman conqueror turned dictator
called Rome the mob. Rome had always been the mob. In each mob there is the
potential for senility. Public gatherings are the first to be banned by
dictators in times of political unrest because the mob could turn violent at
any moment. The equivalent in Britain would be the fees protest gatherings in
the winter of 2010 as well as G20 protests. In both instances we witnessed how
little provocation is required for events to turn nasty. Only the supremely
charismatic leader, the likes of Mahatma Ghandi in colonial India or Nelson
Mandela is South Africa could exercise a minor degree of control upon such
mobs. The rest are doomed.
If you can talk with crowds and
keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose
the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving
friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but
none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving
minute
With sixty seconds' worth of
distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything
that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a
Man, my son!
Is it moral depravity or criminal
intent that drives the modern man? Neither. Not all of us are men. We could not
be men ignoring the abject social conditions that we live through.
© TTR
