A contagion of crises:

Rising from the ashes of burning Britain

The ordeal of violence that Britain suffered earlier this week has raised many questions about public safety in the West, adding to the trans-Atlantic contagion of crisis that is cutting across boundaries from the United States to the European Union.

The Debt Deal in the United States to stave off the major crisis of a debt default by Washington is now seen as hardly a solution, but the beginning of a bigger crisis; with a minority represented by the Tea Party calling the shots in Congress, and the US political system moving further away from its tradition of consensus.

The Eurozone is facing its own crisis spurred by the debt burdens of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, to be joined soon by Italy, and the contagion in fiscal policy is also spreading to France. Wall Street is dipping dangerously, with similar drops in the stock markets in all of Europe, giving warnings of a second recession, before the world has recovered from the first. In the UK, the cities are burning, and the looters have had their day, while there is growing evidence of a major crisis in British society, that was admitted by David Cameron himself.

Suspected looters

Criminality is the key word in the UK to describe the rioting that engulfed London for three nights and spread to several other Northern cities such as Bristol, Edinburgh and Manchester. David Cameron has vowed to take the fight back to the gangs, with the Police forcing their way into the homes of suspected looters and the media writes with adulation about the vigilantes who are taking up position to safeguard their property.

Scoffing at the trials faced by a country or society is hardly the aim of a writer from a country that has seen even worse crises over the years. Yet, it is interesting to note how some of the values that the West, and some of the very leaders now in the midst of crisis, have tried to preach to the rest of the world, especially to those in the Third World, are suddenly being thrown overboard when one's own country burns and society is in deep crisis.

It was more than interesting to hear David Cameron refer to 'phoney human rights concerns' about publishing CCTV images of suspects involved in rioting being allowed to 'get in the way of bringing these criminals to justice'. Isn't this strange from those who have always stood in favour of human rights, when other countries, with less economic clout, or far removed from the West, were trying to overcome the problems of such 'phoney' human rights concerns in their own societies; or the threatening by politicians in the West, who never seemed to have imagined there could be phoney human rights concerns or activists? Did Cameron speak to William Hague before he used the phoney word?

UK citizens

Who would imagine a situation where travel advisories are issued about the situation in the UK? It did not come from Sri Lanka that has had to suffer from these repeated advisories to UK citizens about travel to and in this country. Many believe we should have done so as London was ablaze, and the British Police had no clue on how to tackle the crisis. The warnings came from Britain's own close allies, advising their citizens to rethink travel plans to the UK. In fact a warning from the US State Department stopped short of instructing Americans to avoid the UK, but did urge them to leave affected cities and to "not challenge debate or make unwise comments" to reduce risk of violent attack." Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia and Sweden, also urged its citizens to be cautious - as did Malaysia, which was stunned by a widely aired video that showed a Malaysian student, bleeding from an earlier attack, helped to his feet by people who then stole the contents of his backpack.

Many observers noted that the British media, had largely taken the establishment line of blaming criminality, and made no efforts to look at other causes that may have contributed to the buildup of 'criminality' or the orgies of violence that took place. There was criticism in some quarters that the other side of the crisis had been ignored by the media, and the BBC in particular came in for sharp, attack by a senior Jamaican journalist for its failure to look deeper into the roots of the travail faced by British society. In France the media pulled no punches with 'The Liberation' newspaper saying the riots were a wake-up call for Britain's unequal society,

Social media

If the Arab Spring, with the overthrow of dictators in Tunisia and Egypt (never described as such by the West before), was also the big outburst of Social Media. Facebook and Twitter, were often hailed as the driving force behind these two revolutions, with the mainstream media in the West doing its best to show how the Tunisians or Egyptians would never have been galvanized without the social media. It was left to more serious observers of the revolutions and their causes to debunk this overblown image of the social media, which could have been a contributor to the uprisings but never their very motivating power.

Now the UK is having second thoughts about the role and impact of the social media, in the context of the texting, Blackberry messaging, and other means to help organize the looters and other violent elements for their deadly attacks.

The UK government is exploring whether to turn off social networks or stop people texting during times of social unrest. David Cameron said the intelligence services and the Police were exploring whether it was 'right and possible' to cut off those plotting violence. It is accepted that texting and Blackberry Messenger have been used by some to fan these riots.

Mr. Cameron told the Commons that said anyone watching the riots would be "struck by how they were organized via social media".

He added that law enforcement was considering "whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality".

But this flies the face of Rights Groups, whether phoney or not. They have already said any move by the UK government to turn off social media networks in times of crisis, is a measure that would be abused and hit the civil liberties of people who have done nothing wrong. It will be interesting to see whose rights would be prevail, and how the UK government that now concedes the presence of phoney human rights concerns would finally act in to curb or control social media, and how it can, if necessary be controlled.

In what may seem lighter vein, one noted the observation by Sunil Gavaskar about the Third Test between India and England being played at Edgbaston in Birmingham, where a great deal of violence took place. He noted that had the English team been in India when any such, or even less, violence broke out, they would have quickly packed their bags and rushed home. We in Sri Lanka are also not unfamiliar with such escape acts, except for the great gestures of friendship by New Zealand, (out of the Asian-African cricketing nations) who were ready to play in the worst of times in Sri Lanka.

This is now a time for an agonizing re-appraisal of the social and political structures in Britain. The immediate blame can be piled on 'criminality' but there are many new issues thrown up in this crisis that British political and social leaders will have to grapple with. Not the least in importance is the role of human rights concerns, and the ability to identify which concerns are genuine and what are phoney. This will need a great deal of soul-searching, and possibly lead to new thinking on how Britain reacts to crises in other parts of the world. Another important issue that of the social media, its possible control and how it is to be done.