Like other rioter theorist out there, I believe one can find a corollary between the London/UK riots of 2011 and the France 2005 riots. France saw racial and ethnic tensions reach a boiling point after a few questionable police interactions with certain youth groups. For weeks France was rocked, and the world riveted, by riots and protests throughout the streets of France. The problem, many say, was with how the French—and for that matter most of Europe—deal with immigration and cultural assimilation or blending. Many European nations pride themselves on their ethnic "purity." Swedes pay enormous amounts in taxes but are happy to do so because Swedes feel it is their duty to support other Swedes. But when pressed as to what a "Swede" is, a few people sound a bit like a noted "Mien Kampf" author discussing "racial purity." (Godwin's Law is real)
This feeling a nationalistic/ethnic pride causes a small problem when immigrants arrive on the lauded shores/borders of these titans of history. The nationalistic fervor that extols the superiority of each individual nation seems to only fall along ethnic lines. Immigrants are never seen as "French" or "Swede." Immigrants are encouraged to keep their cultural identity, to not assimilate into the general national culture. This creates a small problem when the 2nd generation arrives.
Children born to immigrants in many European nations feel isolated from both worlds: the old and new. Their parents don't act "European" and the children have to ties or affiliation with the old world, the home of their parents. The youth feel lost. They don't feel like they belong in their current European home, but they don't feel any longing for the one their family left behind. They are a generation without a home. But these youths are educated with the rest of the "true" citizens and they begin to have the same dreams and hopes that the "true" citizens do. They dream of the homes along the boulevards and avenues. They hope for the country estate a few miles outside of town. They pray for the job that will lead them from the poverty that many immigrants languish in.
But what many youth, both "true" citizen and immigrant is that jobs that pay enough for them to afford a comfortable lifestyle are almost non-existent. (Note: I said comfortable, not extravagant. Comfortable entails meeting cost-of-living and being able to save for an actual retirement.) The youth are angry that a dream sold to them by their parents doesn't quite carry the value the parents warranted it did. The youth are seeking the "security" the parents sold to them as it has finally "matured." However, the parents neglected to finance the security and have since defaulted on the note and left no insurer to carry the bond on the dream-deferred.
One article on the UK riots cited a report that concluded that a citizen of London, earning an average wage, would have to save his or her salary for 31 years to then be able to afford a London house. A certain London house was just sold ("straight cash homie" - Randy Moss) for $47 million, while 22 other bidders (also straight cash) lost out.
The replies from this side of the pond concern the plight of the "disenfranchised youth" has been that all too familiar refrain of "get a job" with verses of "work harder" and "stop being lazy" making the cut on the "they are all entitled" soundtrack. (Don't look to buy the soundtrack however, as the price is out of reach for 98% of Americans.)
I once believed, like the countless many in America, that hard work alone is enough to raise one out of his seemingly ignominious situation. The poor are blamed for being poor. We say that the poor are lazy and don't work hard. We denigrate the poor and say they are the cause of them being poor. However, the youth have worked hard. They've done what was asked yet when they came seeking their reward for their hard work, they received further assurances that with just a bit more work they can reach that pie in the sky. The youth watched their parents, who rarely worked as teens and young adult (we haven't forgotten Woodstock and "free love" even if the hash crazed coma you were in caused you to), succeeded and achieved more than the generation before them.
That was the dream that was sold to us: work hard and eventually you'll be better off than we are. That was the same dream sold to our parents. But when we awakened from our juvenile stupor and began to take those first few trembling steps as adults, we realized that the dream hadn't come into fruition. We weren't asking for private jets upon college graduation, all we wanted was the ability to afford a Mazda, maybe a Honda if we at the top of the class. But we got none of that.
So yes, we the youth are entitled. But not in an over-privileged, bratty, "gimme-now" kind of way.
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