…From Stephen Reicher, Wardlaw Professor of Psychology, University of St. Andrews.
07 August 2024
After the 2011 riots, I was speaking to a senior police officer. He was telling me about a meeting he had with the then Communities Minister during the days and nights of unrest. He had tried to impress upon the minister that it was too early to know exactly what had happened let alone why it had happened. How can one explain something when one doesn't even know what that something is? The minister was abruptly dismissive. He was a politician in Government. He needed to be seen to be in charge. He needed a diagnosis and an instant solution. Little matter that the diagnosis (it was all about gangs and feral youth) and the solution turned out to be wrong. They had served their political purpose at the time.
Indeed, the Government response in 2011 can be summed up in a single sentence. When David Cameron stood up to introduce the parliamentary debate to the riots on the Thursday after the events, he declared that they were 'criminality pure and simple'. One thing that the study of crowds teaches you is that riots are rarely pure and never simple.
As I said to CNN at the time when they asked me to explain why there was rioting (it was a live program, otherwise I am sure they would never have broadcast the clip) – I don't know. And don't trust anyone who gives you an explanation, because they are speculating on the basis of little or nothing. Sometimes it makes sense to shut up for a while and listen. Especially if you are an academic. Always map a phenomenon before you offer your theories (something psychologists are not very good at doing).
I make these points as strong caveats now that, in 2024, we once again face a spreading wave of rioting and there is a clamour to provide answers. What is happening? Why is it happening? What does it tell us about our society? How do we deal with it? If you are expecting me to provide simple answers or indeed any answers then (like the CNN anchor who was temporarily speechless in the face of an interviewee saying 'I don't know) you will be sorely disappointed. What I can do, however, is to point to issues with the responses that have been provided so far.
Beyond the mindless mob
Let me start with the widespread assertion – by many commentators in the police, in the government and in the media – that this is 'mindless violence' by 'mindless mobs'. I understand the use of such claims to express utter dismay and disdain for the violent attacks on the police, asylum seekers, muslims and others. But they don't help as an explanation. Indeed they stand in the way of explanation.
To be more precise, they are problematic in at least three ways. First, they let the perpetrators off the hook. The rioters have not got carried away. They have not been carried to excess by the excitement of the crowd. This is certainly true of the far right. As is clear from their online posts, these people know exactly what they are doing. They are very clear in identifying their targets. Their actions reflect a conscious ideology.
Second, it is only by recognising that what happens in the crowds reflects a broader set of beliefs beyond the crowd that we can begin to address that ideology. Why do people buy into the right wing claims that immigrants and ethnic minorities are the source of their problems, that the authorities (government and police) collude in making this happen, that they are not to be trusted and indeed that they are part of the problem? Riots are always the canary in the cage. They reveal broader issues in society. The claim of 'mindlessness' serves to hide the signal they send.
Third, by suggesting that the problem lies in crowd psychology itself – which strips even the most reasonable individuals of their identity and transforms them into a howling mob – the 'mindlessness' trope serves to lump all crowds together, suggest that all crowds are at least potentially violent and leads to a clampdown on all forms of protest. This potentially increases the alienation of people from authority, and feeds into the underlying causes of the present unrest.
But crowds are not all the same. Those who gathered to defend mosques or to clean up after the violence were also in crowds. They too were subject to crowd psychology, expressing a group identity, acting in terms of group norms and values. But their norms were those of inclusion, solidarity and kindness not of division and hate (I shall return to these crowds presently). Every crowd is different as a function of the specific beliefs of the groups involved. Indeed even to lump the far-right rioters and those who opposed them together as 'protestors' is dangerous. These rioters did not come to protest. They came to intimidate and to attack asylum seekers, immigrants and ethnic minorities. They were deliberately using racist violence against individuals to achieve a political aim. That, as you will have noticed, is the definition of terrorism.
Crowds, media and the state of the nation
Another topic of widespread debate and multiple assertions is what the riots tell us about the state of the nation. More specifically, what do they tell us about immigration and its impact on social cohesion. If riots are indeed the canary in the cage, are they telling us that immigration has gone too far and unless it is addressed then 'civil war' is coming (as Elon Musk would have us believe)?
These are large and complex issues, not to be answered in a brief commentary. But I can at least point to some problems and biases in the assumptions behind the debate, in the ways in which it has been conducted and hence in some of the conclusions that have been drawn.
To start with, the large number of events – and the large number of people involved in events – seems to suggest that anti-immigrant anger is far greater than had previously been imagined. Yet, while an explicitly racist and anti-immigrant far right clearly played a key role in organising events and mobilising for them, and while members of far-right group were clearly present and prominent during the events, it is not true that they were alone and that we can therefore read the strength of the far right from the size of events. Indeed, anecdotal observations suggest that at least five types of group were present: besides members of far right, members of other organised groups such as football 'firms'; people opposed to immigration but not members of any groups; people (largely young men) antagonistic to the police; bystanders who had come to observe and film. These were not simple events but complex and multi-dimensional. We don't yet know the exact balance of different groups, their motives for attending and what they were prepared to do in the riots. This is a key area in which we need an accurate description before proffering explanations.
Additionally, even were it true that more people than hitherto have been out to express anti-immigrant views, this does not mean that there are more people than hitherto who hold such views. As I and others have previously argued, one of the core aspects of crowd events is a dynamic of empowerment. Gathered together with others sharing similar beliefs, cooperating to achieve their goals, people feel more able to act on the norms and values of their groups. Equally, seeing others expressing anti-immigrant sentiment – seemingly with impunity – empowers observers to do the same. It is not only physical crowds that have such an effect. Any form of collective expression can increase the willingness of people to act on beliefs where previously they lacked the confidence to do so. Thus, after the Brexit vote – widely represented as an anti-immigrant vote – hate crime in the UK rose by over 40%. All in all, it may not be that we have more opposition to immigration than hitherto, but that those who are anti-immigration are more confident than hitherto.
This confidence to act matters in another way. Often in human behaviour, what we think ourselves matter less than what we think others think. Our sense of broader social norms can encourage us to act even when we don't believe in something or, conversely, inhibit us from acting even when we do. So, when we are exposed to apparent evidence of widespread opposition to immigration it might not change our personal views, but it might make those who disagree more reticent in expressing themselves – thus initiating a 'spiral of silence' in which everybody believes that everybody else is anti-immigration and for such views then to dominate the debate.
Whether this happens or not depends not simply on the events themselves, but on how the events are represented. Here, the media play a critical role, as do biases in what counts as newsworthy. Every journalist knows the adage 'if it bleeds it leads'. Scenes of violence and mayhem, people throwing rocks and cars on fire will always trump a peaceful crowd or mundane acts of solidarity. Indeed the fact that we only tend to see crowds when they are violent (1,000 football matches on a Saturday afternoon and trouble at one – which will be in the Sunday news?) goes a long may towards explaining why we buy into the notion of crowds as inherently and hence mindlessly violent. So in the present events (and here again we need more systematic and accurate information) the numbers involved in the defence of asylum seekers, in the protection of mosques, in the clear up and rebuilding the morning after the violence before, generally greatly outnumbers the number of rioters.
The far right has long employed a strategy of creating disorder and chaos and then seeking to benefit from it. In this case, cause mayhem by attacking immigrants and then blaming immigrants for the disorder. The very real danger is that the representation of the current riots plays into that strategy. It is not that Britain is strongly anti-immigration – if anything the figures suggest that we are one of the most tolerant countries in Europe and becoming more so. It is that we come to see ourselves as such. To do so would be to reward the rioters for their actions.
Conclusion
I have been longer than I meant to be. It is one of the consequences of the complexity of crowds. 'They are mindless' will, in its brevity, often win out over more accurate but more nuanced explanations. Moreover, in all that I have said, I certainly don't pretend to have explained the riots. What I hope to have done is to warn against the danger of jumping to conclusions. If we set off precipitately in the wrong direction, we will never understand or address the violence and disorder of this summer.
The demand for careful analysis may not satisfy the media clamour for instant diagnosis. It may not satisfy the political imperative to demonstrate mastery. But like slow food versus fast food, the result is always more satisfying, more nutritious and far better for our well-being in the long term.
Photo above: Local children Sebastian Taylor, aged 10, and his sister Evelyn Taylor, aged seven, sweep up the street outside a Mosque that was attacked last night during civil disorder on July 31, 2024 in Southport, England.
SOURCE:
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/hush-now-dont-explain-perverse-commentary-2024-riots(accessed 19.08.24)
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