Muslims impressively embodied the spirit of social solidarity during British riots | ||
By our staff writer So it is ironic that the recent civil disorder had nothing to do with Islam. It is ironic too that it has been an ordinary British Muslim, Tariq Jahan, who has most impressively embodied the spirit of social solidarity. Even people whose view of Britain"s Muslims had previously been wholly negative confessed themselves humbled by Jahan"s words. Some now feel ashamed of ever having nursed anti-Muslim prejudices. In the aftermath rioting and looting, Britain is crying out for leadership, someone to speak up on behalf of moral decency, as Tariq Jahan did. Few seem to feel that David Cameron, who was on holiday with his family in Italy when the riots broke out, is capable of such leadership. Indeed, far from bringing Britons together, this conspicuously privileged patrician is perhaps more likely to deepen the anger and ill feeling that fueled the riots. The fact is that the rioters identify him with a ruling class of politicians and bankers who, with some few exceptions, have for years exemplified not decency but unbridled personal acquisitiveness. Britain cannot “arrest its way” out of social breakdown, as one Cabinet member put it, read an Arabnews editorial. The aftermath of the UK riots, with courts handing out exceptionally heavy sentences to everyone found guilty of taking part and looting, may yet prove as politically damaging to the UK as the riots themselves. At the time of the riots, Prime Minister David Cameron promised tough action. There is no doubt that he was fully in tune with British public opinion, shocked and appalled at the events. In courts across the country, judges have reflected that opinion and have been swift to hand out sentences that prior to the riots, many in the UK would have found excessive if not draconian. In one case, a young student with no previous convictions was jailed for six months for stealing bottles of water worth less than five dollars despite handing himself into the police, expressing remorse and pleading guilty. Another man was given 18 months for handling a television stolen by someone else. There are many more similar cases. As a result Britain’s prisons, already bursting at the seams, are at a record high. Around 100 people a day are being sent to jail as a result of the riots. For the moment, public opinion is still very much with the judges. Suggestions from the country’s more liberal media that they may be being too harsh have not only been firmly rejected by Prime Minister Cameron and members of the government, they have been met with a deluge of counter-opinion that the rioters and looters deserve everything they get. In fact, it may well be that many sentences will be reduced or quashed on appeal and that what the courts are doing is showing that while disorder on the scale seen a while ago will not be tolerated, they can also show themselves merciful after an initial outburst of severity. It is already happening. A 24-year-old mother sentenced to five months was freed on appeal. If so, then the riots and the sentences will soon become non-news in Britain. But if not, there is a danger the harsh sentencing could backfire. Everything depends on how the public reacts. If disquiet with the sentencing spreads beyond the liberal-left media, views could change and the government could be seen as much a problem as the rioters. At the moment that is not the case, but there are small signs of shifting ground even in the Conservative Party. Its former leader, Iain Duncan-Smith now the country’s work and pension minister, has said that Britain cannot “arrest its way” out of social breakdown. Cameron should perhaps reflect on events in his country’s history 326 years ago. In the aftermath of a rebellion in the west of England in 1684, the leading judge of the day, Judge Jeffreys, dealt with the rebels so harshly that his name has gone down in British history as synonymous with cruelty. Over 300 were executed and 900 enslaved and sent to the West Indies. So revolted were people at this harshness that it turned them against the king and his government; he was finally forced to abdicate and flee the country. The British love order but have a longstanding antipathy to legal harshness. It may yet display itself to the government’s discomfort. It is true that Cameron has long voiced concern about “broken Britain”; it is also true that he is promising to rescue the country"s dysfunctional families. But his stern new image has called into question his original stance as a compassionate conservative, if it has not compromised his whole credibility. Many are bound to feel that Cameron was indulging in imposture when, before he came to power, he urged people to “hug a hoodie”, to show understanding for the disaffected young men of the inner cities who go about in hooded jackets with their faces hidden. In the aftermath of the riots, Cameron talked as if he favors locking hoodies up and throwing away the key. Far from being their well-meaning friend, he is in danger of being seen as the enemy of young people. There are few indications that Cameron, who during the riots came close to putting troops on the streets, can be expected to stand firm on behalf of liberal values. On the contrary, his conduct more than ever suggests a naked political opportunist who lives by sound bites and carefully choreographed performances. What is puzzling is that Cameron has not only alienated British youth but also antagonized Britain"s police. Even before the riots, which in London threatened to overwhelm them, the police were facing much-resented cuts in their numbers as part of the Cameron government"s austerity measures. Since the riots, Cameron has further outraged senior policemen by turning for guidance to US police. Now Britain"s vaunted dynamism belongs to a vanished era. The same cannot, alas, be said of the terrible behavior. | ||
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