A Universal Malaise
The violent insurrection lead by the young in Greece, and supported by its trade unions is spreading. At least the spirit behind it is spreading, throughout Europe. The spark that lighted this particular bonfire of aggrievedly-violent dissent might have occurred anywhere. Police, feeling threatened by a mob of young men in a district well known for its hostility toward authority, sought, in a panic of self-preservation, to defend themselves.The police officer who fired the bullet that killed the young student, who just happened to be in a place where he shouldn't have been, claimed that he had fired over the heads of the assembled, threatening mob. That the bullet had somehow hit a target and richoted, hitting and killing the unfortunate young man. An accident, pure and simple. Nothing is ever that simple, nor that pure. In this instance, it led to incendiary rioting.
Anything will do for a reason, and on this occasion the reason was the death of a young man by misadventure. Some kind of epidemic of disaffection with society appears to have gripped a sizeable proportion of Europe's young people. It has been simmering below the surface of society for quite some time, an odd miasma of rejection of social mores and complacency; a violent and nihilistic rejection of norms.
First Greece, then Turkish left-wing protesters in Istanbul targeting a Greek consulate, then in Moscow and Rome, also firebombed. Madrid, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Bordeaux, as well. In France graffiti was discovered offering "Support for the fires in Greece", and "Insurrection Everywhere", along with "The Coming Insurrection". Violent insurrection is becoming universal, commonplace. What does it signify?
Bored youth? Angry young people, deleteriously impacted by social and economic conditions leaving them few options but to simmer and look for incendiary opportunities to express their anger? Striking back at their countries' political systems, the inequities of social conditions? Just a general malaise, a malingering emphasis on collective power of youth condemnation and fury?
Other opportunists join their ranks, the anarchists, and staunch unionists never satisfied with society's grudging opposition to their dedication to their versions of the common weal. They begin, in the nature of their discontent, their fiery condemnations, their violent anger, to resemble other self-availing volunteer outcasts, those who invest their anger in religion, not so much politics and social conditions.
But that too is not entirely correct. The disaffected young Muslims who simmer with rage at the perceived injustices brought to Islam through the Western powers, leading them to dedicate themselves, their efforts and their lives to jihad, share some elements of the disaffection seen in the broader picture of a rampaging youth culture in Europe.
While young would-be Islamists use religion as their justification for rejection of the freedoms of democratic values, their war is as much politically-based as those of the rejecting youth of Europe, dedicated to wreaking havoc in their communities, their societies, their countries. The angry European youth destroy their own; the angry young Islamists seek to destroy the enemy; non-Muslims, and their political and social trappings.
The overarching conundrum here is what exactly is it that drives the young to such frenzies of denunciation of the political-social status quo in their societies?
Labels: Social-Cultural Deviations, Terrorism, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Friday, December 12, 2008
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