UK Riots 2011- Result of Moral Decay and Excessive Consumerism.

After the Google+, the incident which drew the attention of whole world was UK riots.Every social networking site is full of news and updates of UK riots including Twitter, Facebook, Digg etc. I have been searching for the reasons behind these riots and found that the whole event started on 6 August 2011 after the fatal shooting of a 29 year old civilian, Mark Duggan by officers of the Metropolitan Police Service. But I couldn’t digest this fact that death of one civilian can give birth to one of the worst riots on such a large scale in UK after 1981 which was due to de-industrialization of Britain.

When I was exploring the net I found that this whole event was the result of unrest in local people due to many issues such as high unemployment and cut in public services, recreational violence, criminal opportunism, tension with the local police etc. and the event of Fatal Shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police Service played the role of Catalyst.

But one more thing added fuel to the fire due to which the whole outbreak had become unstoppable was the’ moral decay ‘ of the society about which the UK prime minister Cameron was also concerned in his speech "I have said before that there is a major problem in our society with children growing up not knowing the difference between right and wrong. This is not about poverty, it's about culture. A culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities".

I agree with him 200%. We can easily find why he raised question against the morality and culture of his country. Yes, every citizen should have right to raise his voice against irregularity of the system in any democratic country but here one famous quote of Spider Man movie is coming into my mind that “ With Power Responsibility Also Comes”.  It doesn’t mean that you start looting the stores  and fill your supermarket trolleys with stolen goods because normally you can’t afford them.

CONCLUSION: 

Its clear that UK riots 2011 were the result of not only successive sad events but also of Moral Decay and excessive consumerism where the looting become the primary objective. The events like looting occurs on a mass scale due to inequality in society, impoverishment of people and ebbing of the already exhausted social hope of people. I found very interesting lines in one blog of my friend who comment on the culture of UK  “They have been brought up in a culture, in which millionaires regularly read the Financial Times supplement every Saturday which advises them ‘How to Spend It’; while they live on the edge of destitution.”

But as London is promoting that its going to host best Olympics ever in 2012 the UK riots can increase the challenge because these disappointing riots have impacted the whole world and there is a feeling that London is on the brink of collapse. So hosting event like Olympics with such a negative image in the world is really going to be a challenge for the UK.

Let’s hope UK will prove itself and we’ll have best Olympics ever in 2012.