On Revolutions

Some are calling the riots in England a revolution. I’m not convinced.

In fact I think people throw the word revolution around much too casually. Burning cars and broken glass does not a revolution make. Yes, many (most?) revolutions are characterized by violence but they are defined by the quasi-irreversible nature of the change that follows. That is why, I believe, both the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution are aptly named though they were very different.

“You’re ignoring the context,” some will probably tell me. No. I’m not. How can I? The BBC new clips, and the Guardian articles that are floating around social media networks are throwing the context in my face. This is in addition to the lessons of history and politics. Yet, it is that context that makes me a skeptic. Are there legitimate grievances? Absolutely. Are there systemic issues that have not only been ignored but exacerbated and created by English socio-economic policies for at least the past 30 years? Yup. Is England figuratively reaping what it has sown? Probably. But this is not a revolution. I have yet to hear a voice ask for a radical shift in anything. No demands for prominent leaders to step down. No new world order. No overturning the status quo.

It is not acceptable to burn buildings and cars to get media coverage. It is not effective to destroy businesses and infrastructure to demand increased wages and better living conditions. It is not possible to use revolutionary tactics to ask for reform. Revolutionaries of the past knew that when you hit the boiling point there is no turning back; there is no room for concessions. There are many adages that convey this wisdom. ‘Don’t shoot unless you intend to kill’ is the first that comes to mind. But as I said, these are not revolutionaries. These are rioters. They are angry, frustrated, disillusioned, and desperate. This is not a call to action but a cry for help.

Unfortunately they will get none. To go back to the adage, the rioters of England are like a man who fires his gun into the air in the middle of a crowd. His goal is to get everyone to stop for moment so that he may tell them of the cruelty of the oppressor and so that he may finally have justice. The result, however, is that he is tackled, beaten (back) into submission, and locked away. The crowd, momentarily entranced by the spectacle, will then continue about their business, remembering him only as ‘the mad man with the gun.’  Cameron is not calling Parliament back to discuss social reforms to appease the lower class. Rather they will discuss how best to crackdown. The rioters will be jailed, likely without charges or trials. Any civil rights abuses will be deemed necessary in a state of emergency. The focus of everyone – the media, the government, the police, the majority of the people of England, the ‘international community’ – will be on the return of law and order. Their pleas for equality, in the broadest sense of the word, have already been delegitamized by images of looting. When the fires die down, it will be a return to the norm, and everyone will be glad that those ‘mad rioters’ are locked away.