London’s Rioters Are Thatcher’s Grandchildren: Pankaj Mishra

[babsbunny]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-12/london-s-rioters-are-thatcher-s-grandchildren-commentary-by-pankaj-mishra.html

By Pankaj Mishra Aug 11, 2011 8:03 PM ET

I am often asked, when in the U.S. or Europe, whether I feel frightened while traveling through such obviously dangerous places as Afghanistan and Kashmir.

It’s hard for me to explain, and so I never confess, that I feel more insecure on the streets of Tower Hamlets, a London borough just south of Tottenham and Hackney, the epicenters of London’s riots.

Tower Hamlets, where I often go to work in a friend’s apartment, has among the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, overcrowding and crime in Britain. But it is not a ghetto. Segregation is more insidious, and inequality has shrewd disguises, in what is also one of London’s most diverse boroughs.

[Prophet 451]

1. I disagree only in one particular

Our welfare benefits are not high. The Tories (and their pet media) have long claimed they are to justify slashing them but the actual welfare bill is roughly similar to other West European nations.

The riots happened because you have a whole segment of the population which is frustrated and angry. They have no future and no prospects, they are either unemployed or minimally employed and Cameron's policies have been to punish the unemployed (seemingly under the illusion that if you whip them long enough, jobs will magically appear for them to take), slash public services to the bone and remove supports from some of the poorest areas in the country.

Now, imagine you're a normal teenager. You're young, frustrated and angry for reasons you don't have the education to articulate. You're unemployed so the press tells you daily that you're scum and you can't afford the stuff that the media tells you that you should have. Why noti/i] go out and riot? You have nothing to lose (or, at least, you didn't until the Tories followed their authoritarian impulses and started engaging in collective punishment and wildly disproportionate punishments).

[malaise]

2. Well said

Rec