[By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

As a veteran "riot reporter" during my time as a foreign correspondent, I am conscious of how difficult it is at times explain the root causes of riots.

There are those who dismiss hooded youths engaging in an orgy of looting and vandalism as doing so purely out of opportunism - criminals, pure and simple. The reality is, violence never occurs in a vacuum. There are a complex set of reasons and one cannot simply lump the causes of all the riots together under a single heading.

Claudia Webbe, who chairs the London Metropolitan Police's independent advisory group for Operation Trident, which tackles gun violence in London's black community, told the BBC "It appeared to me that those who were attacking the police directly... and seeking to attack anything they sought to regard as an institution were venting out issues to do with issues of inequality, decades of generational unemployment, poverty...that quickly disappeared into a thuggish, violent criminality that we have to condemn."

The violence began in the north London suburb of Tottenham after a man was shot and killed by police. The scenes were very reminiscent of those in the same area in 1985 in reaction to the death of a local woman who died of a heart attack after police raided her home. In the ensuing violence, a policeman was hacked to death. A quarter of a century on, Britain's economic growth is almost at a standstill. Government cuts in public services have affected a broad swathe of high-unemployment urban areas. Many residents have claimed they could see the violence coming a long time ago.

Explanations that the government's difficulties are part of the global financial crisis are not holding up with people who feel isolated from and betrayed by society. A lack of confidence in the State, the supposed guardians of the nation, has caused a loss of respect for authority.

When I was a boy, we respected authority in all shapes and forms – our schoolteachers, community leaders and the police. If a policeman stopped you for riding your bicycle on the pavement or without lights at night) a stern warning and the threat of a 'clip over the ear' if it happened again was usually enough to keep you on the "straight and narrow'.

The education system has failed a broad swathe of modern youth who leave school hardly literate or numerate and with no qualifications that could help in a tight job market. Controlling the city streets with random, mindless violence gives these youths a feeling of power that temporarily assuages their feelings of failure and resentment.

The most worrying thing about the riots is that there is no predictability about where a mob might appear and what they would do. That has made it very difficult for the police to cope and regain control of the streets. Modern communications have also made rioters and looters more efficient in their mayhem.

There are demands for the army to be brought in and for police to be issued with rubber bullets and allowed to use water canons to disperse crowds. Chat rooms echo with demands for the thugs to be given stiff prison sentences to teach them a lesson.

These measures won't work. Unfortunately, it will take many years and a complete overhaul of British society in order to get to the root of the problem.

There are lessons here for other countries, too. As Chinese leaders have admitted, China also has its social problems and there is a constant concern about incidents which could instability.

As in Britain, one of the causes of unrest in China is inequality in income and opportunity between the rich and poor. The main difference is that in China, unrest tends to manifesting itself in the countryside not in the major cities, which is something perhaps to be grateful for at the present. This is why the government has focused heavily on encouraging urbanization and job creation to try and satisfy pent-up demands.

No-one in the world, however, should think the scenes in Britain cannot be repeated elsewhere.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.ccgp-fushun.com/opinion/geoffreymurray.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.