It’s not just the UK. There has been a trend toward increasing civil unrest around the world.
Global Protests and Riots Almost Double from 2011 to 2018
Institute for Economics & Peace | Experts in Peace, Conflict and Risk
The Institute for Economics and Peace provides an in-depth analysis of civil unrest in the UK specifically through the .pdf available from the link below:
Note from this quote a clue as to the causes of civil unrest:
“The UK has become less peaceful in the last decade. Peacefulness in the UK deteriorated by almost 11 percent in 2022, the most recent year of measurement. This is the eighth deterioration in peacefulness in the last decade and the first since 2020. Fifty-eight Police Force Areas (PFA) deteriorated, while eight improved. This is the largest number of PFAs to deteriorate since 2018.
Of the five UKPI indicators, homicide was the only one to improve, while the remaining four — violent crime, weapons crime, police officers, public disorder — deteriorated”
This suggests the aggravating factors for civil unrest do not lie within social dynamics among the population but an overall level of dissatisfaction with systems failing to meet the needs of the people.
Sadly, the propensity for ignoring causes and treating symptoms has exacerbated the problems as police have increasingly adopted militaristic policies for “serving and protecting” the public.
The militarization of the police has made this phenomenon worse, not better and they’ve been allowed to evolve in a counter-productive strategy that fails on every front from inciting civil unrest to increasing incidents of their wrongdoing as police are responsible for up to 40% of all domestic violence incidents.
The strategy of militarization of the police has turned them into a terrorist organization for many citizens. This is a consequence of conservative politics because imposition is the only language they understand.
Here is a summary provided by Chat GPT on social events in which Police catalyzed riots as a consequence of their inept approach to conflict de-escalation (from a U.S. perspective):
Numerous social events throughout history have seen police actions catalyzing riots. Here are some notable instances:
1. 1965 Watts Riots (Los Angeles, California):
– Trigger: The arrest of Marquette Frye, a black motorist, by a white California Highway Patrol officer.
– Outcome: Six days of rioting, resulting in 34 deaths, over 1,000 injuries, and extensive property damage.
2. 1967 Newark Riots (Newark, New Jersey):
– Trigger: The arrest and beating of John Smith, a black cab driver, by white police officers.
– Outcome: Six days of rioting, 26 deaths, hundreds of injuries, and widespread destruction.
3. 1967 Detroit Riots (Detroit, Michigan):
– Trigger: A police raid on an unlicensed bar, or “blind pig,” in a predominantly black neighbourhood.
– Outcome: Five days of rioting, 43 deaths, over 1,000 injuries, and significant property damage.
4. 1968 Chicago Riots (Chicago, Illinois):
– Trigger: The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., followed by police actions during protests.
– Outcome: Several days of rioting, 11 deaths, numerous injuries, and extensive property damage.
5. 1980 Miami Riots (Miami, Florida):
– Trigger: The acquittal of four white police officers in the beating death of Arthur McDuffie, a black motorcyclist.
– Outcome: Several days of rioting, 18 deaths, numerous injuries, and extensive property damage.
6. 1992 Los Angeles Riots (Los Angeles, California):
– Trigger: The acquittal of four LAPD officers in the videotaped beating of Rodney King, a black motorist.
– Outcome: Six days of rioting, 63 deaths, over 2,000 injuries, and widespread destruction.
7. 2001 Cincinnati Riots (Cincinnati, Ohio):
– Trigger: The police shooting of Timothy Thomas, an unarmed black teenager.
– Outcome: Several days of rioting, resulted in injuries and significant property damage.
8. 2014 Ferguson Unrest (Ferguson, Missouri):
– Trigger: The police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by a white police officer.
– Outcome: Weeks of protests and riots, resulting in injuries, arrests, and property damage.
9. 2015 Baltimore Protests (Baltimore, Maryland):
– Trigger: The death of Freddie Gray in police custody.
– Outcome: Several days of protests and rioting, resulted in injuries, arrests, and property damage.
10. 2020 George Floyd Protests (Nationwide, USA):
– Trigger: The police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis.
– Outcome: Protests and riots across numerous cities in the U.S., resulting in deaths, injuries, and significant property damage.
These events highlight the recurring issue of police actions triggering significant social unrest, often reflecting deeper systemic issues within society.
Imposition is conflict escalation NOT conflict resolution.
Although the militarization of the police is entirely the wrong way to go in addressing social unrest, they are a symptom of resolvable political problems beginning with the short-sighted views of conservative politicians who interpret every problem as a nail because they have learned only how to wield a hammer.
Nuance escapes them.
The patience required to facilitate peaceful resolutions runs contrary to a profit-oriented mindset that equates time spent with lost dollars.
The core problem is also exacerbated by their sycophantic support of the conditions that led to last century’s Great Depression and were responsible for triggering the Second World War. We are watching those conditions and their consequences replaying themselves right now in real-time with the horrifying implications inherent within the corrupt American system.
No nation is immune to the impact of economic distortions feeding despair among the public.
The core problem catalyzing the increase in civil unrest is economic by nature.
The core problem feeding the despair driving otherwise peaceful citizens into extreme action is the economic distortion corroding the basic patience, tolerance, and decency of otherwise peaceful people who want only to live modestly dignified lives but cannot because we have all been robbed of trillions in a class warfare that seeks to resurrect a facsimile of governance resembling a medieval caste system of two classes of people; rulers and serfs.
This trajectory is unsustainable and will continue to feed unrest.
This sociopathic profit motive cannot but lead to chaos.
Making matters worse is that the lifestyles of the wealthy class have put humanity on a trajectory toward its extinction.
No one should be surprised by an increase in public unrest.
Things are going to get MUCH uglier before they get better.
The questions we need to address are:
- “How many casualties can we tolerate before we come to our senses?”
- How much pain and suffering can we stomach before we lose our shit?
- How many millions must die due to preventable causes and the behaviours of sociopaths hellbent on destroying this planet will it take before civilization is a chaotic mess of violent insurrections all around the world?
- What will it take for the wealthiest among us to show some leadership and help set this ship of humanity onto a path toward a sustainable future?
(This post was an answer to a Question posed on Quora — where all my posts on Medium have originated; hence the personal response indicated within this article. — https://www.quora.com/profile/Antonio-Amaral-1/ )
thotbag 