On Designer Riots and Designer Wars

The Central Environmental Authority, as part of celebrating its 30^th anniversary, held a seminar at the ‘Water’s Edge’ on Thursday, August 18, 2011.  During the discussion, a man called Elmore Alles, who described himself as a ‘naturalist’, observed that the recent upheavals in London could be described as ‘Designer Looting’. 

Although a certain randomness was inscribed on the violence by the use of the descriptive ‘riot’, it is clear that at worst it was an exploding of deep seated frustrations.  ‘Riots’ are small wars and if randomness refers to meaningless, destructive, violence that is illegal and morally repugnant, then what happened in London is essentially the same as the USA and Britain invading Iraq, the sanctioning of crimes against humanity in Libya and the continuing massacre of innocents in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Even the ‘adventures in democracy’ in the whole of Latin America and Caribbean, South East Asia and the Middle East can be called ‘Designer Riots’. 

A friend of mine from the Yaksha clan and a meticulous compiler of facts who understands that riot-designers prefer to be hidden from the public eye, emailed me a short story about riots.  It’s almost 450 years old.  The year is 1677.  This is his note:

‘Lord treasurer Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, 1st Earl of Danby, etc., under Kings Charles II and William III of England, arranged the marriage between the Duke of York’s eldest daughter Mary and the Protestant William of Orange. Not wanting to depend on cash from Catholic France, and needing concrete support not available from public opinion, Danby wondered in 1677, whether ‘a small insurrection’ might not be desirable as an excuse for obtaining money and arms for the government.’

That was in 1677.  A few days ago I heard about a film called ‘The New American Century’.  This Massimo Mazzucco’s film follows his ‘Inganno Globale’ (Global Deceit), the 2006 effort which presented all the major inconsistencies pertaining to the official 9/11 story, indicating that the ‘spark’ necessary for the ‘Designer Wars’ on Iraq and Afghanistan was in fact an inside job.  ‘The New America Century’ is said to present ‘the historical, philosophical, economic and political background -- some of which is practically unknown to the general public -- that seems to support such accusation by the 9/11 Truth Movement’.

Every major war in US history was based on a complete fraud and that’s admitted by insiders themselves.  A hundred years ago the first film theaters in the US were used to broadcast propaganda to rile the American people into the Spanish-American War.  Not too long ago, white papers of the oil company Unocal called for the creation of a pipeline through Afghanistan.  The invasion of Afghanistan is fulfilling this need. 

The designers are not interested in democracy or peace.  They are not interested in ousting regional or eliminating thugs or vanquishing terrorism.  It is about profit.  If tyranny serves profiteering, tyranny is left alone. The same goes for monarchies, military juntas and other authoritarian systems.  It’s all about whose tyrant so and so is. 

We had our own designer war not too long ago.  That war was designer-made by a big neighbor.  Some say it was to punish the then president for being a loyal Yes-Man of Uncle Sam, so much so that he earned the sobriquet ‘Yankee Dickey’.  On the other hand the said big neighbor, in 1991, genuflected before the IMF, taking the wrong path that the small neighbor had taken 13 years previously.  More pertinent, probably, was the separatist fervor gaining momentum in the southern part of that big country.  It was time to design a deflection.  Money, guns and expertise were loaned to make sure that the small neighbor burned.  It burned for 30 years and in the process burnt the designer too. 

London was a riot.  A riot of design, as the naturalist claimed.  Not new, ladies and gentlemen, no.  The history of the modern world is about designer wars, it can be claimed.  And like all crimes, it is useful to ask, ‘who benefitted the most and how’ and you will get the identity of the designer. 

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David Cameron, Ruffian Britain and the loss of the moral compass

It seems that people in Britain are not safe.  The people in general are not safe from a ruffian government in the pocked of corporate ruffians.  Ruffian rebels are not safe from a ruffian police and a ruffian judiciary.  The general citizens as well as private and public property are not safe from the ruffian rebels as well as a ruffian insurance sector.  And no one’s safe from a ruffian media that paints rebel as ruffian and a ‘surprised’ ruffian government as saintly benefactors of a citizenry that has suffered so many shocks it is not surprised by anything any longer. 

Failed state, did I hear someone say?  Did someone invoke the Articles of Association of the ruffians who talk of R2P (Responsibility to Protect)?  Maybe I heard wrong, but I didn’t read wrong an email query I received from a friend: ‘Can we send arms to London rebel fighters and provide air cover with fighter jets  as they are fighting for good cause - as the UK government is the most corrupt government on Planet Earth?’ 

Well, that’s a bit unfair.  Britain is certainly better than Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, I am sure all sensible people will agree.  My friend, however, had a strong case:

'Phone hacking, cash for favors, legislators taking bribes from newspapers, police taking bribes from the media,  media and TV channels in the pay of terrorist outfits, legislators harnessing votes and funds from terrorist for elections, police taking bribes from terrorist not to give protection for head of states who visit on invitation from reputed universities, legislators telling barefaced lies to go to war and affect regime change, crimes against humanity in Iraq, Libya and other countries, all a quiescent media and public!’

The call was for regime change for the safety of the decent folk in that country and for the immediate formation of a ‘Rebels’ Council’ which would be funded and armed.  Now some might call it over-reacting, but considering the kinds of ‘reactions’ we’ve seen from places like London, Paris and Washington, I must confess that there is an element of ‘appropriateness’ in these proposals.

The Metropolitan Police were not taken by surprise, William Bowles (‘Things Fall Apart’) informs us, quoting a Ministry of Defence report (‘The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036): ‘The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx. The globalization of labour markets and reducing levels of national welfare provision and employment could reduce peoples’ attachment to particular states. The growing gap between themselves and a small number of highly visible super-rich individuals might fuel disillusion with meritocracy, while the growing urban under-classes are likely to pose an increasing threat to social order and stability, as the burden of acquired debt and the failure of pension provision begins to bite. Faced by these twin challenges, the world’s middle-classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest.’ 

Bowles describes the ‘ruffians’ in more eloquent terms.  ‘Underclass,’ the preferred media term and that of the regime, he says, is that segment ‘the state has buried away, out of sight–out of mind on ‘sink estates’ or trapped and invisible in the poorest neighborhoods of our cities’.   He points out that the ‘ruffians’ are the kids of a third of the population that makes up ‘surplus to capitalist requirement’ and notes ‘big chunks of the middle class are being forced back whence they came from, the working class’. 

What is Britain 2011 if not bad policing, racism, persecution of minorities and immigrants, mass unemployment, rampant deprivation, austerity for the ‘surplus’ and perpetuation and consolidation of wealth and power (as David Harvey puts it in ‘Feral Capitalism hits the street’) for the only real minority, the bourgeoisie?  It is a country where politicians cheat on expenses, bankers plunder the public, and hedge fund operators and private equity operators loot shamelessly, he points out. 

If indeed, Britian is ‘[the] political economy of mass dispossession, of predatory practices to the point of daylight robbery, particularly of the poor and the vulnerable, the unsophisticated and the legally unprotected, has become the order of the day’ that Harvey claims it is (and there’s no reason to believe that this distinguished professor of the City University of New York is fibbing), then R2P makes sense.  Arming rebels makes sense. Regime change makes sense.  

Nathaniel Tapley in an open letter to Cameron’s parents, humourous and at the same time deadly in accusation, lays it out without frills.  He lists Cameron’s corrupt friends and the kind of rioting they’ve engaged in (white collar of course).  Without justifying or playing down the violence of the looters, Tapley expresses shock at how the guardians of morality behave.  Speaking of the legislators, he mentions cash-for-questions, cash-for-access, insider trading and other hanky-panky that happens out of Parliament and which self-righteous media outfits like BBC and Channel 4 shove in the not-see files.   He asks Cameron’s parents, ‘Can they really, as 650 people who have shown themselves to be venal pygmies, moral dwarves at every opportunity over the last 20 years, bleat at others about ‘criminality’; [that is] those who decided that when they broke the rules (the rules they themselves set) they, on the whole wouldn’t face the consequences of their actions?’

I am not sure if Cameron’s parents are to blame, but I can’t blame the man for asking, ‘Why did you never take the time to teach your child basic morality?’ 

This is why it is funny that David Cameron, Prime Minister (honourable) has actually lamented about the loss of moral compass, the decline of civility and the sad deterioration of family values and discipline among errant youths.  A short while ago someone re-posting a poem written in honour of the late Lakshman Kadirgamar on the 6^th anniversary of his death, noted, ‘It is ironic that the 'international community'(sic) that was mute when he was killed, is calling incessantly for 'independent' inquiries when his killer was killed!’

It was not the rebels (‘ruffians’ if you prefer, David) who have problems with morality, civility and values.  They may err, but then again, those who make a living out of erring can’t really point fingers. 

It is not that David Cameron lost his moral compass. He could not, for he never had one to begin with, or in the case of Britain, it lost that piece of technology several centuries ago. 

 

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The British Fall: London (cosmetic) must negotiate with London (real) right now!

There was a Prague Spring and recently an Arab Spring, the terms coined by those who wanted change in the relevant regions that suited particular interests of particular global actors, especially Western capitalist countries.  What should one call the current developments in Britain, then, I wondered. 

The Western media, so ready to use the rag ‘rebel’ on any group, organized or otherwise, rising up against the establishment of unfriendly or less-friendly nations, have opted, understandably for the negative ‘rioters’ in the case of Britain.  The truth is, apart from name and location, the modus operandi, the nature of the violence and the costs are identical.  The summer’s over and ‘spring’ seems too sprightly and flower-filled to use on a landscape marked by fire, broken-class, overturned vehicles and smashed shop interiors.  I know that the British still call it ‘Autumn’, but ‘Fall’ seems to be the appropriate noun. 

As I write Germany, France, Australia and Austria have issued travel advisories to citizens currently in Britain or planning to visit.  David Cameron has issued the all-means-necessary warning.  Plastic bullets will be used to stop the rebels, the authorities have warned.   It’s almost as though London has pinched the political script of dictators around the world it has befriended only to help overthrow after their respective use-by date has passed in favour of a replacement-tyrant. 

Is it wrong to call them ‘rebels’, someone might ask.  Right, because that’s London-speak for those who attack governments, fellow-citizens and shops and in engage in arson and violence if it is all happening in some other country. I am not a British subject.  To me, therefore, following London-speak, they are ‘rebels’.  The second reason is that these rebels are not venting anger without a cause.  There’s chronic unemployment in that country.  There’s been lots of spending cuts.  And it’s not ‘out of the blue’.  There has been sporadic rioting in that country for the past 30 years. 

True, it is not all black and white, but black-white is also part of it.  It can’t be ‘news’ to the BBC that London is a racist city where non-whites have been attacked regularly for decades.  The early eighties saw a ‘high’ of over 5000 attacks on blacks every month on average.  It is also true that certain section of the rebels are targeting facilities owned or run by people they consider to be ‘foreigners’.  There are lots of issues and the BBC and other media outfits operating in that country are glossing over them all. 

BBC might not want us to, but people are taking notes.  Here’s one: ‘Note how they call it 'riots'...maybe it is for regime change?  And where is Channel 4?  Notice that all the footage is from behind the riot polize....the queen's point of view’ .  I know there’s a lot of tongue-in-cheek in it, but the statement issues by the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Ramin Mehmanparast might help some self-righteous politicians in London (and in the BBC and cash-strapped Channel 4) look in the mirror and see ‘Sanctimonious Fraud’.  This is what Mehmanparast said:  The British government should exercise restraint and avoid using violence; instead it should talk to protesters and listen to their requests’.

BBC might tell the world a tall tale.  The rebels won’t buy it and not all the directly affected will either.    It is now clear that London (cosmetic) must come to terms with London (real), that London (pretty-face) must negotiate with London (real-face).  If not, this British Fall will drag and hurt and hurt and hurt and hurt.  Burn, burn and burn.   Shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t.   It should all be resolved peacefully.  Amicably. Through negotiation.  Cameron would do well to go for power-sharing with the rebels right now.  Later, might be too late. 

[Courtesy Daily News, August 11, 2011]

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Let sanity prevail in London!

I am deeply traumatized and concerned about the recent outbreak of violence in London.  The news has been hugely sobering.  Although it started with a more or less peaceful protest in Tottenham on Saturday following the fatal shooting by police of 29 year old Mark Duggan in an assassination-style execution with shots to the head, it quickly snowballed or rather fireballed into wanton destruction of public property, looting and arson. 

Rioting has quickly spilled over to other suburbs.  The residents, i.e. those who are not taking part in the violence, are naturally shocked.  ‘It’s like a war zone; I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Ealing resident Chritian Potts said, echoing sentiments those of residents in other townships. 

Several fires had broken out in Croydon, including one at a large sofa factory, spreading to nearby buildings and tam lines.  Police cars were severely damaged in Hackney.  Looters raided a Debenhams store and row of ships in Clamham. A Sony warehouse in Solar Way, Enfield, a shopping centre in Woolwich New Road, a timber yard in Plashet Grove, East Ham and a building on Lavender Hill were all set on fire.  A Tesco store was looted in Bethnal Green.  Cars were set on fire in Lewisham.  A bus and shot were set on fire in Peckham.  Football matches in Charlton and West Ham have been postponed.  Looters attacked shops, smashing windows and stealing items in Birmingham City Centre.  Windows have been smashed in McDonalds and Jessops near Birmingham Cathedral.

When violence spread in this manner and the authorities find it hard to do anything about it, it is perhaps natural for the media to focus on the criminality.  Google ‘London Riots’ right now and click on any link that appears.  Now press Control-F and type ‘Mark Duggan’.  You might get ‘no result’ or else find that the name has slipped into footnote.  What we are seeing is not righteous anger about some individual being killed by overzealous policemen.  That may have been ‘spark’, but the violence and criminality speaks to deep seated discontent and frustration among a significant section of the population. 

Social media, mobile phones and other such devices are being widely used to alert people to places marked for violence.  One would assume this allows the law enforcing authorities to step and take preventive measures, but what has happened is that the mobs have come nevertheless and indeed have prevailed over the police. 

Britain is clearly in trouble.  Sri Lanka is a member of the Commonwealth and as a citizen of Sri Lanka, I sincerely hope that the relevant authorities don’t stop at stopping the wave of rioting but seek to understand its root causes and take corrective measures.  I am indeed relieved that no one has tried to make it out that Islamic extremists had orchestrated it all. I hope sanity continues to prevail on this count.   

Teresa May, the Home Secretary has quite rightly said that the criminals would be brought to justice.  She adds, ‘There is no excuse for violence, looting and thuggery’.  It is hoped that these sentiments are endorsed by her counterpart in the Foreign Office.  Perhaps also, the British media would take a cue and begin to see the startling similarities between what London has seen over the past few days and what many countries have seen and are seeing the British do: violence, theft and thuggery.  There cannot be excuses, Ms. May is absolutely correct. There is no place in the civilized world for what Ms. May calls ‘sheer criminality’ and we heartily agree that those responsible should face the consequences of their actions.


Mrs May condemned the riots as 'sheer criminality' and said those responsible would 'face the consequences of their actions'. I support her without reservation.


Once again, I sincerely hope that normalcy returns to London.  I sincerely hope that sanity prevails.  I call upon all relevant authorities as well as the general citizenry, including those disgruntled sections currently perpetrating these criminal acts, to exercise the utmost calm and patience and resolve all grievances in a dignified and civilized manner.  As a fraternal state in the Commonwealth, Sri Lanka stands firm with Britain on the side of democracy and civilization, or so the relevant authorities in Colombo should state.  I hope the Government of Britain will take all necessary steps to bring to justice Duggan's killers and that if it is felt that local precedures are inadequate, will submit itself to the scrutiny of a team of independent international investigators.


All things considered, all of Britain would I am sure understand that given the ground realities, it is incumbent on countries like Sri Lanka to do the needful in terms of ensuring the safety of Sri Lankans living in Britain. I quote here a 'Travel Advisory' drafted by my friend Vinod Moonesinghe: 

'We advise against all travel to the United Kingdom. Sri Lankan nationals in Britain should leave now by commercial means whilst these are still available. Those who choose to remain in Britain, or to visit against our advice should be aware that it is highly unlikely that the Sri Lanka High Commission would be able to provide a normal consular service in the event of a further breakdown in law and order and increased violent civil disorder. Evacuation options would be limited because of likely communication and travel restrictions. If, despite our clear advice to leave you choose to remain, please make sure you and your family have a valid exit stamp on your travel documents if you need one to leave Britain.

This advice to leave Britain is because of continued violent disturbances in urban centres across the country, including the capital London'.

‘No part of Britain should be considered immune from violence and the potential exists throughout the country for hostile acts.

‘You should be vigilant and take extra care, particularly in and around landmarks and places where large public crowds can gather. Hotels, shops and restaurants used by the international community have been attacked in the past and it is likely that there will be further such attacks.

‘Britain has a high threat of terrorism and specific methods of attack are evolving and increasing in sophistication.

‘We advise against all but essential travel to Birmingham and Liverpool

‘We advise against all travel to areas within Greater London.'

Again, my heart goes out to the whole of Britain, fraternal country in the Commonwealth.  Let there be peace in London.   Let it begin with thee, ye brothers and sisters in Britain.

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