Rioting

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the city was plunged into a nightmarish episode of lawlessness, rioting and looting. My colleagues commented, as many people did, that it was surprising of the United States, a first world nation, that it could fall into such a third world anarchic scenario.

The media images that were being streamed online and transmitted across oceans to syndicated news networks and large media corporations added to the mental picture for viewers outside the US. Predominantly, the images were that of African-Americans, rummaging through damaged stores and strolling past dead bodies. Such images surprised many people, for they were such a stark contrast to what people were used to seeing in American media products and cultural exports.

Unfortunately, rioting in the US is nothing new. The largest rioting in recent times happen less than 15 years ago in 1992 in Los Angeles, where South Central burned as the Rodney King trial came to a close. And before that, civil unrest occurs regularly from the 60s (Watts, Chicago), 70s (Kent State, Weather Underground, Anti-war movement) and 80s (labor unrest, Contra crisis) in the US and its territories.

It is also easy to identify reasons for such unrest. The 1992 LA riots was about racial discrimination and police brutality surrounding the Rodney King beating. Hurricane Katrina was about the lawlessness and greed that caused locals to loot. These are however only trigger points. They are easy to pinpoint, but simplistic in nature. The LA riots was of course about racial discrimination and police brutality, but it was also about income inequity and the rising tension within minority groups and social segregation. And these were in turn influenced by the Reagan years of contracted social spending, welfare assistance and neglect of inner cities.

Similarly, when Hurricane Katrina hit, people were looting for basic food and necessities. What was largely overlooked by viewers miles away from the disaster, and informed by short 1 minute news brief and video footage on the local 9 o'clock news, was the larger issue of inadequate and inefficient federal emergency response. And an even larger issue is that of the minority population in the South, with low car ownership and underrepresented in politicial offices, who paid the ultimate price.

I have been watching the unfolding of the riots in France, and it too begs the same questions. The trigger point was that of youths being killed while running away from the police. But as the riots spread and more people become implicated, the scenario becomes clear. The demographic landscape of France, with its years of foreign migration, its Algerian legacy and the enlarging Muslim minority, slotted tellingly in poor suburban ghetto, is the story of the riots. Such social inequality which has been simmering for a while is only erupting now when triggered. And sadly, it is a story not only of France, but of many European nations.

(Doug Ireland investigates deeply into this turmoil in France in his editorial.)

In Singapore, we hear the same story but from a different angle. The racial riots of the 60s have been continuously brandished by the local government as a symbol for our need of racial harmony. More critically, we are reminded constantly of the possibility of anarchy (or that we would fall back into an uncivilized tropical jungle) once again if we breached our so called social contract. Thus, the government effectively takes away our freedom of speech, create unconstitutional seditious regulations and practice its own forms of eugenics and political quota system.

So what exactly happened during the racial riots of the 60s? Racial discrimination and income and class inequality would remain the usual suspects of such confrontations. But can we say that we have improved in those areas, or are we still a fragile nation, held together by thin threads of secrecy, active social engineering, political gerrymandering, ready to fall apart at any moment if we speak our minds?