A number of factors have both fed into and fuelled the riots and confrontations we have seen across streets in Belfast and some English cities this past week.
The public/political debate over the past 20 years or so – and it predates the Brexit referendum, by the way – has become increasingly toxic, pushing competing us-and-them demographics into polarising culture wars.
At around 3.30pm back on January 15 2009, Janis Krums, on a commuter ferry, snapped a picture on his Twitpic service and posted it to his 170 Twitter followers. It was of an Airbus A320 plane ditching in the Hudson River.
There was no ‘retweet’ function on Twitter at that point, but his followers took their own screenshots of his tweet and it became the first social media photograph to go viral. In so doing, Twitter users broke the news about 15 minutes ahead of the traditional mainstream media.
That moment changed the media and changed history. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey noted in an interview: “Suddenly the world turned its attention because we were the source of the news. And it wasn’t even us, it was this person in the boat using the service. Which is even more amazing.”
If it hadn’t been Krums on the Hudson River, it would have been someone else and another story. People – and social media use has continued to expand since January 2009 – could, in effect, suddenly tweet anything they liked. Lies, propaganda and manipulation were all fair game.
Today, with multiple platforms, algorithms and like/retweet buttons, one tweet can be around the world in minutes. So, a tidal wave of mis- and dis-information floods into accounts every day: and millions seem prepared to believe what they want to believe and, albeit not in millions, take to the streets.
Social media – uncontrolled and largely anonymous – is at the bedrock of campaigns by extremes on both the left and right. As Callbuzz reflected in April 2012: “By and large (social media) is reserved for people to act like bigger idiots than they would otherwise. It is easy to be racist or sexist or generally asinine in 140 characters. It is impossible to be sublime.”
And it is very easy to be repulsive when nobody knows who you are and when the major platforms tend to give you a bye-ball. Even easier to get feet on the street when social media drops the invitation straight into your inbox, without the prying eyes of the police or the state: a sort of ‘Rioteroo’ service delivered straight to the confrontation point.
For the right in the UK, this is about more, much more than immigration numbers and impact. This is about changing how the UK is governed and reversing great swathes of the societal change we have seen since 1945.
Basically, the right doesn’t like the state of their own country and want to change it to something of their liking. And it won’t just be immigrants they’ll be focussing on in the long run. It’s a trend we are also seeing in the US and a slew of EU and South American countries.
As sure as night follows day, the march of the right will be met by a counter-march from the left. This always happens in polarised societies: and culture wars are always the most brutal manifestations of polarisation, with both sides invariably resorting to the same language and tactics as the war drags on.
The other difference, of course, is that social media platforms are now weapons for both sides in this war; and worryingly, they are weapons owned and controlled by what might be described as ‘outsiders’.
What the political centre/status quo looks like in a few years is anyone’s guess. It has looked weak for some time, refusing to tackle difficult societal issues head on, and in that failure actually fuelling and facilitating the extremes on both sides.
And what about Belfast? Why, having just come out of our own bespoke conflict – a conflict which they were instrumental in ending – are loyalists now burning down businesses owned by immigrants, intimidating other immigrants and deliberately picking fights with the police?
This sort of stuff doesn’t happen without a nod of approval from loyalist sources
Whatever their particular problem is, I can’t see how it will be resolved by these tactics: tactics which have failed to resolve anything else when they have been used.
This sort of stuff doesn’t happen without a nod of approval from loyalist sources. So maybe, just maybe, one of those sources – even if it means using the LCC as a conduit – could explain just what the hell is going on and what they define as a resolution.
If it helps, they can talk to me directly.