Social Unrest Or Looting In Britain? – OpEd

By Mojtaba Hosseini

As rioters express their anger at Whitehall’s incompetence, the streets of London and elsewhere in the formerly ‘Great’ Britain, increased tension between the citizens and the riot police is dangerously evident.

According to the news, a Sony warehouse destroyed in a blazing fire on Monday night. All British media broadcast images, which would elicit a visceral reaction from anyone who saw the footage. While broadcasters interviewed people, in front of burning warehouses and stores, flames and smoke billowed out of them, and for the most part, the underlying sociopolitical factors in the UK, which likely touched off the chain of events the world has witnessed over the past days, was not addressed. The conversation was around the court process for the rioters and how to punish them severely.

World media reported how UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who abruptly returned from his plush vacation in Italy, and stood in front of No. 10 Downing Street and talked about how court processes will be “sped up to ensure swift justice for those involved in ‘sickening scenes of people looting, vandalizing, thieving, robbing,’ many of them apparently teenagers.”

What seems to be missing here is mention of the role of those in power and their policies in triggering the riots. And how the UK coalition government’s assault on the working poor, the working class, middle class, students, school children, the unemployed, the disabled and everyone else who does not count themselves as rich or super-rich ultimately led to this eruption of arson, muggings and looting.

Since the coalition government has been in power severe spending cuts for higher education, tuition subsidies and assistance for those attending English universities, went into effect in December last year. The government had to do something to fix the economy without applying pressure to those responsible for the economic crisis, the bankers, the rich, and the super-rich, instead, made the most vulnerable pay.

In the past year, the coalition government of David Cameron and Nick Clegg has been state sanctioning thieving of funding for public services, such as housing assistance, community outreach programs, disability assistance and health care. The government has been vandalizing the government programs dear to those in the direst economic situations. In addition, if you look at those who are rioting, you will find they are mostly from families that have been hit the hardest by the austerity measures that have been imposed on British society.

A group called UK Uncut, which came about in response to the push by the UK government to impose cuts, has done its best to educate British people on true economic situations in the formerly Great Britain. If the government were to correct its policy and start to close the loopholes on tax dodging corporations and the rich, an estimated 95 £billion a year could be put toward funding public services. Last year, banks in the UK paid out7 £ billion in bonuses, and four banks made 24£ billion in profit.

The coalition government of David Cameron and Nick Clegg along with Zionist owned banks and corporations conspired to cut social safety net programs that could have prevented people from rioting in the streets. And to keep people from feeling miserable, and hopeless, like society is stacked up against them and they feel they must act out to get someone’s attention to their needs or go out and claim what they fear they will never be able to afford.