The Madness of the Pack – by Ed West

Once upon a time there was a city famous for its diversity, for its mosques and churches, a crossroads of cultures where the intermarriage rate was as high as 34%. That city was Sarajevo, 1990.

Pre-war Yugoslavia had both a high level of integration and large numbers of people who did not even strongly identify with the groups for whom people were killing and dying. A family friend of ours emigrated to New Zealand because she was Catholic and her husband was Orthodox, making them Croats and Serbs, identities to which they did not feel much attachment as Yugoslavs.

Despite all the media talk about ‘old hatreds’ at the time, a major factor in that tragedy was that authority had collapsed, as Stephen Davies said wrote back in 2018,

If there is great hostility and historical enmity between groups, you would not expect widespread intermarriage (as happened in Bosnia, for example). You don’t usually marry someone you hate. That comes later. The problem with the second argument is that mixed (multi-ethnic or multi-confessional) societies can stay together for a very long time and that this should be given some explanatory weight. If all mixed societies are inherently unstable, why are they historically so common and why do many survive for hundreds of years in peace and increasing prosperity?

All groups will have people within them who we can describe as intolerant idiots. I am sure we are all familiar with these types of people, who are hostile to people who are different from themselves and who are ready and eager to use violence against them. Normally these people are controlled: there are mechanisms that control them and prevent them from following their instincts and inclinations. In particular, the legal system imposes severe and exemplary punishments on them if they do so. This leaves the rest of the population, which ranges from mild aversion to positively friendly feelings towards individuals from other groups, to do as they please.

Sometimes, however, things go wrong, for various reasons. The most important is when the overarching authority stops punishing intolerant idiots who commit violent acts. (The punishment need not be severe, the important thing is that it is certain.) At this point, things quickly go wrong. The intolerant idiots on all sides act on their inclinations and commit various atrocities. The sensible, moderate majority find it difficult to cooperate because they are numerous, dispersed, and varied, and face very high coordination costs.

Serbian violence was often led by football hooligans, many of whom came from the fringes of society; indeed, it was one of the sparks of the conflict. was a riot during a match between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade.

It is not hard to imagine that some of the rioters of the past week engaged in the same kind of horrific violence as in Yugoslavia. Some of what we saw resembled a pogrom, or the communal violence against market-dominant minorities in post-imperial states. like Zanzibarwith hooligans targeting shops owned by foreigners and minorities. The images of people being attacked because they were Asian were particularly disturbing, bringing back chilling memories of their youth in the 1970s and 1980s for many people – and particularly media commentators of a certain age.

Historically, mobs have tended to attack two groups – those in authority and foreigners – and this is evident whether the protests are on the left or the right. What is now called the Peasants’ Revolt – dubbed the ‘Mad Multitude’ by chroniclers – began as a protest against taxation and had some radically egalitarian leaders such as John Ball, but once in London the mob attacked both Crown officials and any foreigners they could mainly find Flemish migrants.

A generation earlier, the Flagellant movement descended into violence as delirium-ridden mobs attacked both clergy and Jews. The mobs unleashed by the French Revolution targeted royal officials but also sought out foreigners, particularly the English. Pogroms in Tsarist Russia were not led by the authorities, but while they turned a blind eye or even cheered, these same mobs often turned on landowners.

It doesn’t really matter that those who engage in mob violence don’t ‘represent’ the community, as people have repeatedly assured themselves after the recent violence, because it only takes a relatively small percentage of the population to take advantage of a breakdown to bring society to the brink of collapse. Even during the Troubles, in a society far more divided than Britain is today, majorities of both Protestant and Catholic populations opposed the UVF and the IRA and voted for the mainstream anti-violence Official Unionists and the SDLP. That was why the British government changed its approach in the late 1970s by treating the paramilitaries not as representatives of the community but as criminal gangs.

Group violence is especially dangerous because it can escalate quickly and feed on itself like a conflagration. A small number of people will use the breakdown of norms to do their worst, including targeting members of different communities. It is because a small minority are violent that anti-racism norms matter (although liberals have a blind spot in that they fail to see that this tendency is universal).

Another coping mechanism is that these riots are orchestrated, the work of outsiders bused in to disrupt happy, peaceful communities. This is a common, comforting belief in any society where order is breaking down, but here too it was untrue, as suspects charged with rioting are usually local residentswith seven out of ten within five miles. As history has repeatedly shown, many people will attack their neighbors if given the chance.

There is a debate to be had about whether this is just hooligans seizing an opportunity, or the bubbling up of pent-up resentment over immigration, and unemployment And deprivation.

All true, although I feel like one aspect of the debate about the root causes of riots that is underplayed is simply that they are fun. People don’t destroy libraries because they bring people together and give them power – they just enjoy doing it. People enjoyed the riots of 2011s, and these people are looting telephone boxes in liverpool had a great time too. A lot of it has to do with alcohol and, I suspect, cocaine, and warm and dry weather.

But a big factor is the breakdown of authority. As might be expected, many of those charged in Sunderland And Liverpool have already had multiple convictions, and if these riots have a positive outcome, then perhaps it is a sign that people realize that defunding the police is no longer a good idea and that we need more prisons. Because repeat offenders are responsible for a large part of crimeI bet the many prison sentences will lead to significant improvements in riot-hit cities over the next year as repeat offenders are finally declared unfit to work.

Another factor fueling the riots is undoubtedly the fall in police numbers since 2010 and the fact that more than half of all courts in England and Wales have been closed. Compared to 2011, when Britain last saw riots, prisons are now full and courts are two years behind. As Home Secretary, Theresa May confidently predicted that we could cut police budgets without causing violent unrest (the same Theresa May who also banned the use of water cannons).

In Bloomberg, Adrian Wooldridge wrote of the crisis of confidence in law and order, and that ‘the grievances must be addressed through institutional reform and improved government policy. Fewer than half of Britons now have confidence in their local police forces, down from 63% a decade ago. The continuing flow of asylum seekers across the Channel is putting a strain on national resources and people’s patience. Riots will undoubtedly break out again if the government cannot reduce the flow of refugees and speed up the process of dealing with them. Although some have called for a recall of Parliament, this would be a futile gesture when Britain needs swift action, delivered by ministers, rather than more talk.

‘It is also up to Starmer to do more to address the sense of hopelessness in many working-class communities, particularly in the North, who feel marginalised by economic and social change and then ignored by the British state. Let us be tough on riots, whatever they are, but let us also be tough on their causes.’

It is clear that immigration is a factor among these causes, and the majority of all voters quote as a cause, although among others. In particular, the decision of recent governments to place asylum seekers in hotels – often in poor cities where it is striking that the main hotel has been taken over by uncontrolled, mostly young men from abroad – was downright irresponsible.