I lived in the UK, first as a student and later as a banker. London is an amazing city, but the spectacle of the city (and as a microcosm for the country as a whole) was to behold in the early 1980s. It is hard to express how London was "failing apart" during that time (yes Thatcher was prime minister, but had not yet embarked on her fight against the coal miners' union). You could see the rot as it were.
Over the last few nights violence has exploded in the city, first it appears caused by the death of a young black man, 20 yards from his home in troubling circumstances. Penny Red, and Englishwomen blogger wrote the following:
Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis. They are not about poor parenting, or youth services being cut, or any of the other snap explanations that media pundits have been trotting out: structural inequalities, as a friend of mine remarked today, are not solved by a few pool tables. People riot because it makes them feel powerful, even if only for a night. People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing, and they realise that together they can do anything – literally, anything at all. People to whom respect has never been shown riot because they feel they have little reason to show respect themselves, and it spreads like fire on a warm summer night. And now people have lost their homes, and the country is tearing itself apart.
I wish I could say it as well. What amazes me is that while the U.K. is bad in the size and remoteness of its underclass (poor, uneducated no training and no job prospect) is how a similar class in the U.S. has not yet expressed is rage and powerlessness! On day a young black man will be probably killed in Chicago or L.A. and the powder-keg of resentment will explode... watch out America!