Taking the Shine off Great Britain

Taking the shine off Great Britain

“Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.”

From the Greek play Medea by Euripides, 431 B.C. (Latin version)

The world feels the pain when a once great power declines. The modern industrial evolution began here in Britain together with most of the new technologies that made it possible. Parliamentary democracy that is now celebrated around the world began here. It was the seat of the greatest world empire. And now, as standards of living decline for most
British, as roads and other infrastructure remain outdated, as once famous industries disappear with competition from an Asia it once ruled, the country saw a week of rioting and looting in August, 2011, reminiscent of failed states like such as Haiti and Somalia. Britannia that Ruled the Waves could not even rule the streets of its big cities.

Demonstrations and protests have erupted in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal over
the EU’s failed economic model that has transferred wealth to the richest and got these nations into unsustainable debt levels. But nowhere was there the mindless violence and viciousness that was seen in the riots in Britain. The British truly stand apart from others.

Since the loss of its empire and it pre-eminent economic and political position in the world, Britain has tried to identify itself with its richer cousin across the Atlantic, ingratiating itself by joining their military adventures in the Middle East, bullying smaller  nations and aping its model of predatory capitalism. Modelling itself and attaching its policies to those of the USA from the time of Margaret Thatcher has proved a disaster.But that does not prevent the British establishment from continually pontificating on the ills of other countries that the British had in its imperial past despoiled and degraded, like China, Iran and Sri Lanka. If some fundamentalist Muslim Uyghurs riot in Xinjiang province in remote Western China, it is a great occasion to study human rights abuses in China, even though the leaders are often in the pay of Western agencies. Vocal condemnations by the British and other Western governments are followed by months and years of analysis by “experts” in the mass media, at numerous seminars and think tanks, university studies and in magazine articles. If Muslims in the Middle East challenge Western interests, it is grounds for violent military invasions. But when widespread riots take place in the big cities of England, Prime Minister David Cameron only blames it on criminal elements. Britain must indeed have a large criminal element within its population according to his version.

Violence in the streets

The British have been notorious for its mindless violence in the streets. I can recall that even in 1973, when we had a long spell of study in England, we would not venture out at evening on days when the local soccer teams played. Unruly drunken gangs would take over the streets, stoning cars, assaulting pedestrians and upsetting dustbins. In other countries hosting football matches with British teams, special security had to be deployed to control British spectators. Is this kind of vandalism a sign of the civilisation Britain lays claim to? The prime responsibility of any government is to protect the lives of its citizens from the threat of violence. For a half century, Britain has been failing to provide this basic right for its citizens.

The culture of violence is widespread. In many areas, public schools cannot function because rowdy elements among the students threaten teachers and disrupt classrooms. Drunken youth hanging around pubs threaten passersby. Racial tensions are always simmering in racially mixed communities. Equally, the government has been ever willing to pursue violent militaristic foreign policies that it can ill afford at the expense of social
services and job creation. The Afghanistan adventure has cost the country over £30 billion. The new Libyan adventure will also escalate in costs as no end is in sight. It is not only that sections of the youth are social misfits, some of the leading politicians have the same
malaise.

Analysts have been trying to prove that it was the decline in social benefits forced by Britain’s financial problems that has created a restive and unruly youth population. But the liberals are wrong on this. At best, it is a contributory factor to the riots. It is the corruption in British society at the highest levels that is providing a model of others.
For example, it was discovered by the government audit that Members of Parliament and the House of Lords were routinely cheating on their official expense accounts. Two whistle-blowers, one against Former Premier Tony Blair and his chicanery over the Iraq War and the other recently of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his collusion in crimes with the government, have both mysteriously died. If this happened in China, Iran or Sri Lanka, there would be a demand for an international inquiry by the British government.

Money corrupts politics in the UK as much as in America. The former Labour government was found to have given lordships to multi-millionaire businessmen in exchange for political contributions. Many young people in the country have long ago lost faith in their government and in the values of their society. It was revealed that the British government
colluded with the Americans in the torture of detainees in the numerous prisons organised around the world to incarcerate, some for ever without trials, tens of thousands of terror suspects.

The Anglo-American alliance facilitated the use of social network media such as Facebook and Twitter to organise anti-government riots in Iran and North Africa, and much earlier in Georgia, Ukraine and Xinjiang (China), but when the same tactics were used in the British riots, social media users are being sentenced to long prison terms.

The British government also encourages violence and lawlessness to suit its political agenda. It has provided a safe haven to terrorist organisations from around the world to use these criminal elements to threaten other nations that it wants to undermine. The Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka operated its criminal enterprises in the UK with impunity and had its offices there. When they blocked the streets of London in early 2009 for several days to demand Western intervention to prevent the defeat of terrorism in that country,
the British government condoned this lawlessness on the grounds that it was an
expression of democratic rights. Will they also agree to describe the August 2011 riots in the UK as an expression of a frustrated populations’ democratic protest?

Economic decline

The world has still to wake up to the dire straits of the British economy. The country that was once called the “workshop of the world” has lost most of its manufacturing industries to Germany, Japan, China and South Korea. Some of its iconic motor vehicle companies are now in the hands of Indians and Chinese, apart from Germans and Americans. The mainstay of the economy is financial services which has made London the main financial centre of Europe. But this also saw shortcomings in 2008 and had to be rescued by government bailouts at public expense. But a financial sector cannot provide mass employment which only manufacturing industries can. The British official unemployment level is 8% but is most likely much more.

What many are unaware is that Britain has about the highest debt level in the world. The world focussed on the US debt of $14.3 trillion when it equalled the US GDP. But U.K. GDP is $2.173 trillion while its national debt is $8.981 trillion (see CIA World Factbook for details). Its national debt exceeds that of all other EU countries that are now in trouble.
But the existence of its financial sector enables the country to keep borrowing and survive intact, for the moment. The British corporate media, as in other Western countries, keep singing that “Our fundamentals are right, the economy will recover.” This refrain has gone on for over a decade while the decline becomes more unmanageable. Fairy tales will comfort infantile minds but they are far removed from reality.

Thepanis Alwis

Baddegama, Sri Lanka.

27 August, 2011-08-17

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