It is astonishing to find that the British press that is so quick to tell us about the \u2018true\u2019 nature and\u00a0motivations behind each mass protest in the Arab world, is somehow intellectually lame in its attempt to grasp their own huge scale riots at home. Until now, I have failed to see even a single worthy analytical attempt to understand the full meaning or significance of the current violent\u00a0events taking place on the streets of cities all over the UK. British papers have been \u00a0outlining the events as being driven by, associated with, and defined by hooliganism.\u00a0 They talk to the victims,\u00a0and sometime even manage to interview some protagonists and perpetrators.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But, amongst such shallow, sensationalist coverage, we are still\u00a0missing the most important information. What is the demography of the riots? Who is leading it? Does it have any leaders? Is there an ideology behind it all? Why do they loot, what do they loot, and from whom do they loot? And most importantly, what is the meaning of it all?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The events we saw in the past week\u00a0 in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Manchester were\u00a0possible signs of disintegration within British society. Some sectors within the society were \u00a0clearly saying \u201cwe have had enough of it.\u201d The truth is that these people we see rioting on our streets have been\u00a0drifting away for quite some time, and no one has shown any concern, and now they are clearly not interested anymore in obedience to any notions of law and order. They do not see any great value in it. And the reason for that may be simple \u2013 there is simply not much in it for them.<\/span><\/p>\n What we see in Britain is not a political protest. It is not a battle with any coherent call for justice. Neither is it an outburst of mere racial hatred.\u00a0 It is none of those things \u2013 and yet, considered in its entirety, it comprises and manifests all of those factors at once. It is actually a rejection of the entire system. It is a clear manifestation and forceful expression of generations who have lost all hope in a society that does not convey any prospect of a future for them \u2013 what we now see in British cities is young people who are putting the current system on trial. It is a spontaneous\u00a0eruption of a demand for recognition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For the obvious reasons not many in Britain are willing to listen to the desperate and urgent message voiced by the deprived. But I think that we must try to understand what is going on here.<\/span><\/p>\n If you want to know why the British media fail to understand what is happening, the answer is fairly straightforward \u2013 though they are there to transmit an image and appearance of freedom of speech, liberty and the spirit of enlightenment, large parts of the British media are deeply embedded as an inherent part of a wider system which they serve and bolster.<\/span><\/p>\n As a nation, we claim to believe in democracy \u2013 though we often enough kill en masse\u00a0in the name of freedom. Closer to the truth is the fact that we are submerged in a culture of self-love, and hence, we simply find it impossible to imagine that anyone within our proximity would dismiss our \u2018greatness.\u2019 And yet, here is the bad news \u2013 it is clearly all spinning out of control now — for far too long, we have been celebrating our \u2018greatness\u2019 at the expense of our underprivileged neighbours.\u00a0Clearly, our next door neighbours do not buy into this notion of freedom and liberty, since they do not posses the means to celebrate such freedom: they are left out, excluded from the game.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When I was young, I used to wonder what I would do when I had to finally support myself, and indeed, there were many options to choose from: education was\u00a0available for most of us; but more than anything else, there were jobs to be found, since there were many different industries. I knew, for instance,\u00a0that I would always be able to at least settle in a factory job and support myself and my future family. But Britain doesn\u2019t\u00a0offer any of that anymore. There are no jobs. There are no industries, and from this year, higher education will not be a viable\u00a0option for countless youngsters.<\/span><\/p>\n Tragically enough, our politicians do not appear to be at all concerned with these matters: British politicians, much like other Western politicians,\u00a0seem impervious to the austere challenges faced by our youth,\u00a0and the implications of all of these events for their future and their sense of hope. It has been convincingly argued that\u00a0Western Liberal democracy is simply there to merely set parameters, and to create the appropriate conditions for big businesses. Such a state of affairs is certainly true in Britain. The democratic system in\u00a0Britain can be more accurately described as a form of subtle, perfidious and devious political oppression that simply gives the appearance of the \u2018true reflection of our own will\u2019. It gives the false impression that ultimately, the current order is nothing but fulfillment and reflection of \u2018our own personal choice.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n The truth of the matter is actually far simpler \u2013 the Western political system is there to maintain consumerism, and to keep big business going. Our civil freedom is reduced to a simple set of entitlements: we are free to consume, to buy, to spend, to purchase, to acquire, to lease, to hire, and to rent. And yet, there is a big\u00a0problem here that will not go away, because as we move up the ladder of our consumer existence, more and more people are falling behind. As the more fortunate among us proceed upward,\u00a0more and more youngsters are realising that they will never even be able to join the game.<\/span><\/p>\n On the one hand we are subject to a \u2018dictatorship of\u00a0commoditisation\u2019; we are trained to identify with a set of gadgets and\u00a0brands,\u00a0and yet, on the other hand, an increasing number of the people around us\u00a0 are left out \u2013 they can barely afford to possess these objects of desire, and find themselves removed from the \u2018identity game\u2019. They become faceless, their existence denied, left to wander, \u00a0ghost-like, wrapped in training suits in a society\u00a0driven by ruthless hard capitalism and sheer greed.<\/span><\/p>\n Such a reading of the riots in London may well help us to grasp the fact that many looters were apparently happy to be pictured by the press as they were seen in the streets\u00a0 with their\u00a0 new possessions. For the first time, they also had a chance to join the Western \u2018symbolic order\u2019. They smile at the camera, showing off their entry card into our society. They don\u2019t want to be faceless anymore \u2013 they insist to be seen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Lamentably enough, British politicians seem to be very enthusiastic about \u2018moral interventionism\u2019 in other countries. But I believe that the time is ripe for Britain to be subjected to a true form of\u00a0moral interventionism \u2013 an influx of spiritual ideas that would redeem us all from mammon-seeking and hard Capitalism.\u00a0 Yet it is increasingly clear that within the British political spectrum we will not find any such force that could lead to such a transformation, and that is indeed both a volatile and tragic situation.<\/span><\/p>\n Source<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong> You can now pre-order the book on Amazon.com <\/a>\u00a0or Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" British politicians seem to be very enthusiastic about \u2018moral interventionism\u2019 in other countries. But I believe that the time is ripe for Britain to be subjected to a true form of moral interventionism <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32132"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32322,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32132\/revisions\/32322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Gilad Atzmon’s New Book: The Wandering Who?<\/strong><\/h3>\n