Paris, London and Riots

Paris, London and Riots

I’ve been in Paris for three days, a resident at the Keesing Studio in the old Jewish district of Paris, the Marais. Two days ago Neela and I walked through the Latin Quarter and down past the Sorbonne district which is now chic and gentrified. We passed three up-market camping shops, and as many specialist bookshops. We reflected on the riots in England. Today I noted Facebook comments by my friends, some of whom have celebrated the protests with a deeply Shelleyan tone as the revival of an ‘anarchist’ spirit. As an entry by a Facebook Friend says: ‘Back on the streets a spirit of anarchy and chaos reigns in the hearts of all’.

But what does that really mean, a ‘spirit’ of anarchy? Is it a spirit of unified community at all, and even for the youth running amok, did they ever feel it in the hearts to express a unity of intent? Some joined in to protest another killing of a citizen by trigger happy police, some joined for a laugh, some needed new Nike trainers. But almost everyone hates the police and the authoritarian turn of the state; everyone in those inner city suburbs have felt the cuts to services and the loss of any hope in cheap education or the chance of a meaningful job; everyone who has ever been poor in England (and I have) can understand the resentment of the looters, even if the manner of expression is crude and lacking in strategy.

My own brother-in-law, an architect who works in Clapham Junction, has a different reaction (he was working late the night the high street was set ablaze.) For him it was senseless. What I am saying is that chaos can’t manifest a single unifying spirit, but is what it is – chaos. No wonder the Right in England has erupted in moral panic and indignation. So much for dreams of a Great Society if nothing but teargas and baton charges can hold it together.

Last night I read Paris by Andrew Starkey, and was immediately drawn to his description of Paris’s history of revolts and massacres, the up-wellings of fanaticism and popular discontent over the centuries.

What do the riots in England now have in common with the 1968 student uprising in Paris? According to Andrew Starkey, author of Paris: the Secret History, The French ‘revolt’ was mainly staged by students from the universities of Nanterre and the Sorbonne. It was driven by the middle-class students, sons and daughters of the ‘establishment’ who had suffered appalling conditions in the Nanterre Campus.

A group of anarchists ‘Situationists, or ‘Enragés’ led by the philosopher Guy Debord, occupied the main office, and unfurled banners proclaiming the end of work, Everything is Possible, and Boredom is Counter-revolutionary!

On May 3rd the students had occupied the Sorbonne in protest against an authoritarian crackdown on the Nanterre activists. The battle took to Boulevard Saint-Michel, where the police eagerly beat up protesters in full view of the world’s media.

Authority and anti-authority is the common link here. A police force is determined to show the public it is tough and in control, but as the ‘battle’ never really becomes winnable, the police manifest society’s vulnerability to the psychology of a crowd that is disaffected and alienated.

If the French soixant huitards (68ers) had an ideology and vision, in England none of appeared to have been expressed in the obvious symbolism and mode of the mass demonstration. Where were the leaders, the spokespeople? Twitter has replaced the loudhailer. Blackberrys combine all the work of a telephone, TV, Facebook, and a newspaper.

The rioters in England were rarely seen with sloganistic banners, because the slogans almost only appeared on portable phones as SMS messages and Tweets. I read this morning that not a single bookshop was looted, nor any books burned or stolen. But then muggings and looting were not ever the MO of the 68ers, was it?

I thought this to be an inability to express rage or political discontent. But I was wrong. It’s just that the public space and mode of demonstration and mass agitation no longer takes the 60s as a model.

But here’s Jaya Savige’s take on the English riots:

You don't have to wear a hoodie and throw bricks to cause millions of dollars worth of destruction for personal profit: you can also do it in Armani, with dodgy derivatives and an Oxbridge accent. Until we recognise that the recklessness of (some of) the 'best' capitalists is no different to that of the 'mindless thug' running down the street with a plasma tv, we remain blind to the hypocrisy of our moral outrage.