Planted by Water

The recent French riots have made for depressing news. But sadly I think it is the kind of thing that could hapen here, and has from time to time, most recently in Birmingham. There are no doubt a complex of reasons and causes for such rioting, and simplistic responses aren’t helpful. But surely the kinds of societies that we are producing in the Western world (in US as well as Western Europe) has something to do with it.

It is not only about the failure to integrate immigrant communities in to the host society, though the issues of immigration and multiculturalism -’the problem of the stranger’ - is one of the main issues facing us in today’s world. But it is also about the production of an alienated underclass in all of our societies - exposed also to some extent in the US, tragically, by what happend in New Orleans. It is the net affect of rampant materialism, unfair economic policies, the constant exposure, through TV, to consumerist dream worlds which elude the vast majority and so perpetuate frustration and anger, and the injustices created by a world dominated by big business that puts profits before people. It is the product of the divisions between the haves and the have nots, where people feel excluded and undervalued as value is continually measured by material wealth.

None of this excuses violence and lawlessness, and criminals must be punished, but if all that we do is get tougher with the symptoms and don’t address some of the underlying causes, what we have seen in France over the last two weeks is going to become a regular occurrence across the Western world.