the Armchair of El Diablo
Ideas that break loose & change stuff
When is revolting, revolting?
What is a Good Revolution? We’ve spent the last year celebrating the democratic reforms of the ‘Arab Spring’. Iran, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Jordan have all had mass movements against unpleasant regimes.
The degree to which social media was ‘responsible’ has been debated, but you have to admit… the timing is pretty coincidental.
Who’s to say that a mass demonstration of violence against a prevailing system is less valid in London than in Egypt?
Well, the objective for a common good, I guess. There’s no purpose to the London riots, no desired outcome for a better society.
But just because this is more mob than movement, we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it as a type of revolution. A fairly scary one.
A massive change in social convention = Revolution
Iran and Egypt have shown that social media makes it easier for a group to act against repression.
London has shown that social media also makes it easy for people to mobilise on … what? Disgruntlement?
Usually you need to get a level of real common rage to fuel a group large enough to actually be unstoppable, or at least hard to contain.
Now, the cost of spreading that word is so low that when enough bored kids are crammed together, and economic conditions are low, they’ll hit the streets to rage about the lack of fizz in their Fantas.
Clay Shirky was the first (I’d read) to suggest the internet’s main benefit to society is the lowered transaction costs of making a group. Failure is cheaper now, so audacious attempts are easier. We now see that this is irrespective of the group’s objective: be it democracy, or an armful of free jeans.
So perhaps this is a revolution - not of ideals, but as a massive change in convention. The tolerance threshold to action has been lowered: mass violence is suddenly as easy to do as apathy.
10 August 2011
Throughout London parts of the mobile network have crashed. SMS being used to coordinate which places to attack and loot. Twitter announcing new places every 20 minutes that have erupted in riots, spreading some unbelievable photos.
Stunning, horrible stuff. There’s no protest here - just “opportunistic violence”, according to a BBC reporter.
We proclaimed an ‘Arab Spring’ when riots erupted, coordinated by SMS and Twitter, to challenge governments. This is a London Winter.
Some initial analysis from The Guardian here.
9 August 2011
Westiminster Palace. Shot from my iPhone.
10 July 2009
Great shot of G20 protests on Threadneedle St. Obviously not mine - but sent me via email, don’t know the photographer to credit it.
3 July 2009
In the next 24 hours, the Sri Lankan military will launch their ‘final assault’ on the LTTE (Tamil Tigers). Around the world Tamil supporters have turned out in protest, and have hit the streets with desperate vigour today.
Here in London, thousands of protesters surrounded Churchill’s statue across from the houses of parliament, closing down Westminster Bridge this morning. Shot from my iPhone.
21 April 2009
Shot from my iPhone on the way back from the police line on Threadneedle Street. These ninjas are some of the ‘anarchists’ who are being blamed for rioting. I left when things het up a bit - few windows smashed, few truncheoned heads, few spoiled lunch hours.
1 April 2009
Shot from my iPhone. I used the tweets from the Guardian journalists to find a way around the police barricades to get here. It was a new and immediate way to experience the news - to read it, and then be in it. I fell a bit in love with Twitter today.
This G20 crowd had a very different feel to Saturday, as you can see from my other shots. The roar and drums were thunderous. The crowd got pretty antsy here on Threadneedle street: this is where the bank was raided, and where the mob ‘kettling’ took place. Tweeted this for a while at twitter.com/DaveBathur
1 April 2009
30 March 2009
30 March 2009
30 March 2009
What it's about...
Looking at the role of digital media in elections and riots; campaigns and chicanery; in the righteous and the underhand...
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