The UK Riots as seen through the Internet. Is it a UK Apocalypse?

I am sipping a piping hot cup of green tea.  Beyond the cafe window Chinese and Western tourists stroll leisurely past the old style Hutong buildings near Beijing's Drum Tower.  On the BBC's website, images of flaring orange fires and silhouetted riot police cover the front page.  I am certain that the violence is an unpleasant, and for many of those living the UK's major cities where riots have broken out, a terrifying experience.  Seen through a computer screen and constantly updated media reports, it appears almost apocalyptic.  Margaret Atwood, 28 Days Later and several recent zombie films are just a few examples that spring to mind.

A call to a relative in London, and I was reassured that although the violence was "terrible" and "simply out of control", they had been fine because it was "mostly in the black areas".  And so I realised that I would not have to even look online for 'explanations' of the sudden unrest.  The social issues and ignorance which have plagued Britain for years are simply getting even worse.  A woman who has lived in London for 10 years, and still thinks Hackney is just a 'black area'?

Meanwhile, politicians and a host of reporters condemn the looting, rioting, arson and even attempted murder that has arisen over the past few days.  The New York Times and other foreign media have placed UK's riots far down on their headline pages, so that a glancing browser might hardly notice the tiny orange box that is a photograph of the recent fires.  Reportage about Duggan's shooting is so scarce that it seems an event entirely removed from the violence of recent days.  Is this frustration from a society trying to unshackle itself from the controls and patronising language of the government and police force?  Has unacknowledged deprivation in our country left people so uninterested in their own lives and prospects?  I really do not know, but from my quiet cafe on a picturesque street in Beijing, even the closer social upheavals in China sometimes seem surreal.

In fact, one of the most visible and accepted social factors in China is educational and economic disparity.  Standing outside a bar and getting ready to go home after a relaxing evening with friends, a tractor full of middle aged migrant workers trundles past to continue working throughout the night. With free healthcare, affordable housing and free education in Britain, it is easy for the middle class in the UK to ignore the problems many people in our society face. Just because schooling is free, does not mean that it is always successful. If people feel they are in a society which gives them little opportunity or choice, it might be difficult to find a place within it they are satisfied with.  Aware that an arrest will mean for many a first offence, people cannot see into their own future enough to care about it.