Root Causes For Me, Not For Thee, You Yobs

I don’t have a dog in this particular fight, but since (a) the UK often plays the Ghost of Christmas Future to the US, and (b) the UK ruling class-most notably the current PM, Keir Starmer-has felt free to pontificate on similar events in the US, it’s fair game for me to comment on the unrest (riots) that rocked the UK recently.

The proximate cause for the riots was the murder spree by the Welsh-born child of Rwandan immigrants, who knifed to death three young girls and badly wounded eight other individuals at a Taylor Swift-themed yoga party. In part due to the refusal of the UK police to identify the assailant, rumors soon spread (including on social media) that the murderer was a Muslim immigrant, leading in the first instance to violence against mosques, etc.

The ruling class immediately jumped on the mistaken beliefs about the perpetrator to condemn the rioters as ignorant racists, which in their minds fully justified a crushing response by the state.

This narrow interpretation of the cause of the riots that spread far beyond the site of the original crime (Sunderland) was unsurprisingly opportunistic and self-serving. It permitted the complete decontextualization of the riots in a way that denied a priori any legitimate justification and thereby rationalized the unleashing of a “standing army” (Starmer’s words) against these rioters–measures that were conspicuously absent in other violent civil disturbances–hence the bitter complaints about “two-tier policing.”

The brutal slayings in Sunderland were merely the last grain of sand dropped on a pile of grievances that has been accumulating for literally decades. The allegedly unreasoned and indiscriminate reaction to this single grain was just an example of the non-linearity inherent in such situations. In emergent orders–social orders particularly–a single event can set off a massive reaction that seems disproportionate and unrelated to it. This is often true in revolutions. A single event unleashes massive latent forces that have been building for extended periods. This is why authoritarian governments are so hell bent on suppressing any dissent no matter how seemingly minor. Small sparks can ignite social explosions.

The mountain of grievances clearly related to a single factor: mass immigration into the UK, and especially mass immigration from some of the most misgoverned and dysfunctional parts of the world with radically different cultures from the native inhabitants. In this environment, a mass murder by an individual only peripherally related to the underlying source of grievance could spark massive unrest. Further, given the recent history of the UK (consider, for example the bombing of the Ariane Grande concert in Manchester, or other mass stabbings that have occurred in the UK in recent years e.g., on a bridge in London in 2017) it is not at all surprising that many people would leap to the conclusion that a Muslim was the perpetrator in Sunderland.

The grievances have built inexorably precisely because any dissent from the ruling class view has been ruthlessly targeted and suppressed. When voice is denied, again and again, it will inevitably come to the point that the aggrieved will substitute violent deeds for words.

But it is exactly these things that the British ruling class cannot admit, and is in fact at great pains to deny precisely because of its direct culpability for mass immigration, its malign effects, and the identity of those who have borne the economic, cultural, and psychic damage. It therefore has to deny vehemently the underlying cause and place full blame on the evil of the rioters.

British classism is also on full, ugly display here. Indeed, it is worse than its historical antecedents (e.g., in the Victorian era) because there is not even the palliative of condescending paternalism: it is merely vicious hatred, disdain, and disgust.

The sick irony is that those who refuse to look honestly at “root causes” here (in no small part because they are the root cause) routinely invoke “root causes” to excuse, rationalize, and justify other social dysfunctions–including rioting far more destructive and violent than that that has occurred in the UK recently. Starmer represents a perfect example. He delivered sick-making remarks about the George Floyd rioting that explained them, and hence excused them, as the understandable consequence of systemic racism. The British ruling class has been similarly disposed to excuse and rationalize Muslim violence as the product of legitimate grievance.

Root causes for me, but not for thee, you yobs. Your root causes are totally illegitimate.

Like J6 in the US, alas, the riots are worse than a crime–they are a blunder. They have given the increasingly authoritarian British state the justification to engage in mass jailing of its political dissidents. Further, given the inevitable role of social media in disseminating information and opinion about the riots and the causes, the riots have provided a justification for the state to increase its power to control and censor it. Indeed, the head of London Metropolitan Police has even threatened those expressing their wrongthink outside of the UK with arrest and extradition.

Wouldn’t that be fun.

Thus, this backlash against egregious mis-government has redounded to the benefit of that dysfunctional government and the class that rules it.

Which demonstrates the fundamental dilemma of the mis-governed. How can one resist malign authority without strengthening it, like sowing dragon’s teeth? I don’t have an answer, except to say that direct confrontation has exactly this effect.

The US faces very similar issues–hence the Ghost of Christmas Future metaphor. However, I doubt it will play out here similarly to the way it has in the UK. The reason is quite simple. The white working and under classes are still present in numbers in UK cities where they are tooth and jowl with the immigrants. That is not the case in the US: white flight occurred long ago. So a UK-style white riot is not in prospect here.

The Clash-White Riot

Urban white rioting is a staple of the Oi genre, which is uniquely British. There’s nothing like it in the US.

The underlying conditions that have sparked rioting in the UK are therefore not present in the US. But the severe discontent about mass immigration is, as is the ruling class’s determination to crush any opposition to it. So something will likely happen here, but it will be different. How exactly, I can’t say.