So The "Civilised World" Riots Too

With the Middle East being in the limelight and leaders of "developed" nations condemning the acts of the regimes the Arab Spring set out to abolish, who would've thought said leaders themselves would soon be the subject of all the media attention?

Maybe we should direct that question to all those "Middle East experts" and "civilised citizens". After all, many of the former two groups haven't bothered hiding the fact that they view the Arab world as more or less underdeveloped. And as a matter-of-fact, it is not just those former two groups that posses that conviction. Many Arabs feel the same way as well, often commenting on the lack of civilisation of their own peoples. (Let's not deny it, Middle Easteners, we were all guilty of sarcastic comments of that nature at some time or other.)

But soon, the protest movement widened to involve Spain (which, unless we're going all the way back to the Arabs of Andalusia, isn't geographically believed to be "in the region"), a European country. And Europe means democracy, right? It means freedom, social justice, equality, and all those other good principles we seek but can never seem to attain.

Perhaps not so. Over the past few days, another European country has encountered dissent. The death of a man of colour at the hands of the police seems to have sparked what have now been three days of looting, theft, arson, vandalism and such--that is, if media sources are to be believed.

However, I haven't come out of the Egyptian revolution a completely unchanged person: My lack of trust in the media, already on the increase, was cemented by the despicable reporting of many media sources, specifically Egyptian state television and newspapers, and their continuing pandering to the powers-to-be. And it appears our beloved unprofessional news portals are not alone. All over the world, the media has been manipulated until it has changed into a self-serving tool for its "owners" (you know what they say, money talks).

What I'm trying to get out of this epiphany is: I'm not in London. I'm not walking the streets of Tottenham or Liverpool. I haven't seen any of the reported events in person, so I can't exactly be sure of what's going on, but what I do know is this: Poor people will steal, if it becomes a matter of survival. Dissatisfied people will attempt to make their dissatisfaction known, if it turns life into an unbearable mess. People use different methods to get their point across; you may not agree with some of them, but before you pick up your gavel, perhaps you should try to put things into context. The world has enough people condemning atrocities, but not enough researching their causes and endeavouring to put an end to them.

Since I am not British, I will direct you to this (in my opinion) commendable blog post about the London riots, written by journalist Laurie Penny, as my parting words (a quote from John F. Kennedy) ring in your ears, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable."