The Unspoken Hypocrisy in England's Response To Rioting

I am an anti-Christ

I am an anarchist

Don't know what I want

But I know how to get it

I wanna destroy the passer by

Cause I wanna be anarchy

Those seemingly prophetic lyrics, sung by Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten in the 1976 hit "Anarchy in the U.K." became a reality this past week as thousands of thoughtless miscreants torched buildings, looted stores, and attacked bystanders in several English cities. What started out as a relatively peaceful protest march in response to the killing of a man by police in Tottenham turned into an appalling wave of anarchy and destruction across several English cities. The riots, which took place between August 6th- August 10th, killed 5 people, caused $325 million dollars in damages, and put English crowd control tactics in the international spotlight. Clearly, the police forces of England failed to uphold law and order in major metropolitan centers such as London, Manchester, and Birmingham. To put it bluntly, they were out manned, unprepared, and very passive.

Abnormally passive, actually.

When I look at England's shoddy reaction to the complete and other deterioration of civility in their own country, I see a sad and telling irony that reflects the double standard England has held for centuries in relation to protests and resistance against their empire. That double standard goes something like this:

If you are an English citizen, you can disobey the English government for any cause, even if that cause promotes anarchy, thuggery, and primal instinct. If you are a non-English citizen, don't even think about protesting the English government with legitimate concerns or they will cut you down before you can even utter a word.

There is an ample amount of evidence to support this viewpoint. Throughout the course of history, the British Empire has trampled on the basic human rights of the "colonists" that they have ruled over. These glaring acts of tyranny and oppression have occurred since the days of the American Revolution, and they have only slightly eased up in recent history. The British government, whether it be ruled by a King or Prime Minister, has always responded to the calls for freedom, justice, and respect for their colonists in the same manner: with the hail of bullets, the cracks of batons, the bleakness of jail cells, and the intimidation of martial law.

One of the earliest examples of this perpetual brutality can be found in England's response to the Boston Tea Party. After American colonists in Boston had carried out their defiant, non violent act of civil disobedience (dumping British-imported tea into Boston harbor), the British government decided to ignore the colonists objections, opting instead to severely punish the 13 American colonies for their insubordination by passing the Intolerable Acts. These Acts, which were made law soon after the Boston Tea Party, closed the port of Boston, restricted public gatherings, and forced colonists to house and feed British Troops. This was arguably the first event that started Great Britain's heinous tradition of confronting their colonial subjects rather than negotiate with them.

Now let's fast forward to more modern times, and you'll see how nothing has changed since the days of the American Revolution. While England was bravely defending the European continent from Adolf Hitler's fascist forces in the 1940's, they were engaging in fascism of their own on the Asian continent. In India (a British colony at the time), dissent against British rule was mounting. Mohandas Gandhi's Quit India Movement, a campaign for nationwide acts of civil disobedience, was becoming wildly popular, and England's colonial grasp on India was beginning to weaken considerably. Once again, instead of holding rational discussions and negotiations with those involved in the uprising, the British Empire stuck to their tradition of scorched earth crackdown. Thousands of protesters were killed or arrested, public floggings and other acts of humiliation were carried out, and pro-democracy advocates such as Gandhi were forced into hiding. So basically, the British government was denying the Indian people the same rights that they were trying to preserve in their own homeland. More irony.

The most recent target of British brutality has been Ireland. For close to 100 years, Catholics and Protestants in British-controlled Ulster (Northern Ireland) have fighting politically, and sometimes militarily, over where their allegiance should lie. Catholics generally want to eliminate British rule and unite Ulster with the rest of Ireland, whereas Protestants prefer that Ulster remain part of England. Over the last century, the British government has directed countless acts of injustice and bigotry towards the Irish Catholic population in Northern Ireland, the most notable being the "Bloody Sunday" incident of 1972. Like the previous two examples I mentioned, Bloody Sunday started off as a non violent protest against the British government. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, an organization dedicated to fighting bigotry towards Roman Catholics in Ulster, held a protest in the city of Derry, even though the British government had outlawed all public marches just a few months earlier (big surprise there). In response to the "illegal" gathering of the Catholic minority, the British military deployed troops all around the marching route. As the march went on, tensions mounted, and the troops eventually ended up firing upon the unarmed protesters, killing 13 people. Only last year did the British government finally apologize for the unjustifiable killings that took place that day.

The British are experts in forcibly stifling dissent and unrest, that is for certain. Their problem, however, is that they always seem to use such tactics at the worst possible times, while they simply sit and do nothing when the time comes to justifiably use such force. Apparently, the English view transcendent freedom fighters such as Gandhi and Samuel Adams as bigger threats than a mob of chavs looking to steal themselves a pair of new sneakers. There was never any hesitation to shoot the Irish or American colonists with live rounds, but the British police didn't even break out a single water cannon to disperse their own citizens, citizens who were torching their cities. Not for a cause, but for demonic fun.

If there is any lesson that can be drawn from the gutted buildings, smashed cars, and broken storefront windows that are now scattered across England, it is that the pure-blooded Brits of the homeland can do whatever they please, while the second-class "subjects" of colonized lands can't even ask to be treated humanely.

The smell of smoke and ash that currently hangs over London might as well be the smell of bright, flaming hypocrisy.