Springtime for Cameron

Riots? In the UK?

What shall we call this phenomenon, these marauders running riot with their Blackberries and bricks? The British Spring?

After the widespread pro-democratic protests in predominantly Muslim countries, we were all wondering: who’s next? What dictatorship is about to topple before the angry hordes? Secretly, some of us hoped for something similar to happen inJerusalem, because that would have balanced things out nicely.

No-one expected it to happen in England.

England, dear England! Land of disembodied voices in elevators! Country of the stiff upper lip! Home of British comedy! The place with the most celebrity chefs in the world, even though they still don’t know how to get their bacon nice and crispy!

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not being sarcastic and I don’t approve of looting and vandalism. But I can’t help noticing the hypocrisy in the Sky News reports. Whereas, when protesters thronged the streets of Egypt and Iran, everyone in the West applauded the role that the internet and modern communication devices were playing, they are now singing a different tune. “Social media are blamed,” the newsreaders are saying. Politicians are thinking of shutting down Blackberry’s Messenger service.

Pardon me, but it’s Britain we’re talking about here! It’s supposed to be the free West, not China! You don’t do that kind of thing! The free flow of information should remain free! Isn’t attempting to listen in to BBM a bit like hacking phones? Well, it’s exactly the same, actually.

I don’t know about you, but I’m confused. It’s like my world has been turned upside down. While, at last, the thugs in my own country are being exposed and taken to task for their racism and corruption, while increasingly, the debate is becoming meaningful as more and more voices of reason are being heard (read the wonderful article by Cyril Ramaphosa), chaos is erupting in London, and the United States has more bad debts than all of Africa combined! So, may I ask: who are the barbarians now?

Western media have been subtly propagating a dualistic worldview for a long time. They have set themselves up as the champions of democracy and the so-called “free market”. While I fully support the theory behind free markets — you will never catch me in a SACP T-shirt — I have my doubts about capitalism as a Western export product.

For too long, in our own country, have we listened to a finger-wagging PW Botha barking against the “Kommunistiese Gevaar” (Communist Danger) while downplaying his own extremist actions. If Communists had always been the so-called Reds, is it a coincidence that Coca-Cola’s advertisement campaign is also predominantly red? Not to mention McDonalds?

I love free markets, yes, the kind you find in the streets of Istanbul, the Middle East and Africa. I prefer them to malls. At least, in the real free markets of the world, you are free to bargain your way into buying stuff you really need, such as fresh fish or shiny brinjals. You are not being constantly bombarded by commercials commanding you to swop your almost-new car for a brand-new one, to indulge in foodstuffs you don’t really need, to live an addictive and compulsive lifestyle on the fringes of neurotic affluence.

The British press might see the protesters in other countries as ‘freedom fighters’, and the people running amok in their own country as ‘villains’, and to some extent they may be right, but in the end, it’s all a matter of perspective.

In what suppressed society will the march towards peoples’ power erupt next? Australia? Switzerland? Your guess is as good as mine.