"The riots were not about the cuts"
When David Cameron declares that the recent riots were not about cuts to public spending, he is undeniably right. Having heard, as so many have, the interviews in which young people gave their reasons for taking part, I was unsurprised to learn that they were incapable of producing a coherent answer, place their actions in the wider context of economic crisis and public thrift, or even with any certainty identify the parties at the helm of the government of this country.
The riots were not about the cuts. Of course not! How can people be expected to stage a protest against something they so completely fail to understand? The cuts, along with government policy more generally, fall so utterly outside of their phenomenally limited frames of reference, it would be a wonder if they were able to string together a single simple sentence including the words 'government', 'cuts' and 'bollocks'.
No, the riots were not about the cuts. But this simple statement, when so much prominence is given to it in a Prime Minister's speech, constitutes a subtle linguistic trick. The riots were not 'about' the cuts. There wasn't a message that the rioters were passionately trying to convey. But saying that the riots are not 'about' the cuts suggests, erroneously, that there is no connection whatsoever between the riots and the cuts, that the cuts are a totally separate fact.
That the rioters were not morally and intellectually equipped to stage any kind of meaningful protest 'about' anything does not mean that the reduction in public spending was not a factor which led to the eruption of chaotic, criminal, empty-headed civil disobedience.
Ill-educated, devoid of realistic aspiration and socially excluded to the point of absolute indifference to society because of the chronic failure of our various institutions to provide them with good education, a realistic chance of success and an investment in our society, this 'underclass' represents a long term problem, certainly, with multiple roots, but it does not take a superhuman intellect to see that cuts to the provision of services to this wretched layer of society will lead to their continuing degeneration, disillusion and depression.
To take a blindingly obvious example to illustrate a maddeningly obvious conclusion, consider the educational maintenance allowance (EMA). On Sunday, on the radio, the abandonment of this scheme was considered and rejected as motivation for the looting, as if the purpose of the scheme had been purely to address the political grievances of the disadvantaged youth, rather than to address their ignorance. But schoolchildren were not being paid not to riot; they were being paid to learn. The reason the EMA might contribute to better social cohesion is not that it removes an excuse to riot, but because it incentivises and encourages education, which is the best way to provide children with a stake in society. This kind of policy admittedly needs more support from kindred policies for younger children. By the time young people were eligible for it, in many cases it was already too late. Not providing that support was negligent, but withdrawing the EMA itself was vandalistic.
This is not to say that other factors such as poor parenting, excessive reproduction and insidious pop music did not also play their parts in bringing about the recent sacking and pillaging of English cities by their own inhabitants, but to discount the cuts and ascribe this very serious event to bad manners on the part of the rioters, who deserve a very hard slap on the wrist, is deliberately crude and false and can only be a calculated effort by Cameron to provide the press with a convenient and simple lie, to serve as an excuse for deeply reactionary, regressive policies.
The riots were not about the cuts. Of course not! How can people be expected to stage a protest against something they so completely fail to understand? The cuts, along with government policy more generally, fall so utterly outside of their phenomenally limited frames of reference, it would be a wonder if they were able to string together a single simple sentence including the words 'government', 'cuts' and 'bollocks'.
No, the riots were not about the cuts. But this simple statement, when so much prominence is given to it in a Prime Minister's speech, constitutes a subtle linguistic trick. The riots were not 'about' the cuts. There wasn't a message that the rioters were passionately trying to convey. But saying that the riots are not 'about' the cuts suggests, erroneously, that there is no connection whatsoever between the riots and the cuts, that the cuts are a totally separate fact.
That the rioters were not morally and intellectually equipped to stage any kind of meaningful protest 'about' anything does not mean that the reduction in public spending was not a factor which led to the eruption of chaotic, criminal, empty-headed civil disobedience.
Ill-educated, devoid of realistic aspiration and socially excluded to the point of absolute indifference to society because of the chronic failure of our various institutions to provide them with good education, a realistic chance of success and an investment in our society, this 'underclass' represents a long term problem, certainly, with multiple roots, but it does not take a superhuman intellect to see that cuts to the provision of services to this wretched layer of society will lead to their continuing degeneration, disillusion and depression.
To take a blindingly obvious example to illustrate a maddeningly obvious conclusion, consider the educational maintenance allowance (EMA). On Sunday, on the radio, the abandonment of this scheme was considered and rejected as motivation for the looting, as if the purpose of the scheme had been purely to address the political grievances of the disadvantaged youth, rather than to address their ignorance. But schoolchildren were not being paid not to riot; they were being paid to learn. The reason the EMA might contribute to better social cohesion is not that it removes an excuse to riot, but because it incentivises and encourages education, which is the best way to provide children with a stake in society. This kind of policy admittedly needs more support from kindred policies for younger children. By the time young people were eligible for it, in many cases it was already too late. Not providing that support was negligent, but withdrawing the EMA itself was vandalistic.
This is not to say that other factors such as poor parenting, excessive reproduction and insidious pop music did not also play their parts in bringing about the recent sacking and pillaging of English cities by their own inhabitants, but to discount the cuts and ascribe this very serious event to bad manners on the part of the rioters, who deserve a very hard slap on the wrist, is deliberately crude and false and can only be a calculated effort by Cameron to provide the press with a convenient and simple lie, to serve as an excuse for deeply reactionary, regressive policies.
Comments
Post a Comment