Showing posts with label Riot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Riot. Show all posts

Friday, August 14, 2015

On Terrorism And Riots And Maoists And India

English: A police officer in riot gear at the ...
English: A police officer in riot gear at the London student protests, 9 December 2010 License on Flickr (2011-02-03): CC-BY-2.0 Flickr tags: riot, police, london, oxford street, protests, topshop (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Neither terrorism nor riots are strictly law and order problems. There are deep political, social, economic, religious, ideological undercurrents. But let's for one moment think of them as pure law and order problems.

You can't send an army battalion to go counter terrorists. Terrorists fight an asymmetrical war. Intelligence is way more important than weapons. Nabbing a terrorist and collecting information is valuable. Information sharing across agencies and across countries is valuable. But once in a while, you do have to physically fight them. And there you need a few super well trained soldiers. It is a war of asymmetry. Many rules get broken.

Riots are at the other end. They happen out in the open. They are large scale. They are mob behavior. It is true nefarious characters can incite them and get mileage out of them. But it is possible to contain them. There ought be a national alert system. If certain preconditions are met, the alarm should go off, like a fire alarm. As in, we think this situation is fast developing and could become a riot. Sending in especially trained riot police on the ground as fast as possible might be a big help. Tear gas and curfews could be useful. A rapid, large scale mobilization of security personnel could douse the fire. And once the emotions are contained in a few hours or a day or two, then you have done your job. This national alert system would be key. It is possible for India to go riot-free.

The underlying political, social, economic, religious, ideological undercurrents need to be tackled during normal times on an ongoing basis. But when a riot is about to happen, it ought be tackled as strictly a law and order problem that can be resolved.

Israelis proved you can actually nab suicide bombers before they strike. You can infiltrate their organizations. Similarly, riots are like the flu hitting a population. It is said Google can predict flu outbreaks before anyone else. People start searching for flu symptoms.

Telltale signs of riots should be collected. There should be a mechanism to do that. And security personnel should move in in large numbers before the storm has had a chance to break into showers.

A third problem is Maoist violence. Measured in proportion, that problem was much, much bigger in Nepal. At their peak the Maoists of Nepal controlled 80% of Nepal's territory. But Nepal has proven the Maoist problem can be solved. The trick is to think of it as primarily a political problem.

The thing about riots is, do we think of pickpockets and burglars as people who will only respond to change of heart, or do we train the police to nab them? We train the police to nab them. Similarly, riots are escalated by some anti-social elements who have to be thought of as pickpockets and burglars. Rioters don't speak for this and that religion any more than terrorists do. They are simply negative forces that need to be countered. Localized and countered, apprehended and put away.

Rioting is a crime like burglary, and the security forces need to step in.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

London Has Become Cairo (2)

DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 29JAN10 - David Cameron, Le...Image via Wikipedia
Wall Street Journal: Repressing the Internet, Western-Style: As the British police, armed with the latest facial-recognition technology, go through the footage captured by their numerous closed-circuit TV cameras and study chat transcripts and geolocation data, they are likely to identify many of the culprits. ..... Authoritarian states are monitoring these developments closely. .... They hope for at least partial vindication of their own repressive policies. ..... Prime Minister David Cameron said that the government should consider blocking access to social media for people who plot violence or disorder. ...... After the recent massacre in Norway, many European politicians voiced their concern that anonymous anti-immigrant comments on the Web were inciting extremism. They are now debating ways to limit online anonymity. ....... acts of terror briefly deprive us of the ability to think straight. We are also distracted by the universal tendency to imagine technology as a liberating force; it keeps us from noticing that governments already have more power than is healthy. ...... After violent riots in 2009, Chinese officials had no qualms about cutting off the Xinjiang region's Internet access for 10 months. ...... In their concern to stop not just mob violence but commercial crimes like piracy and file-sharing, Western politicians have proposed new tools for examining Web traffic and changes in the basic architecture of the Internet to simplify surveillance. ..... Should America and Europe abandon any pretense of even wanting to promote democracy abroad? Or should they try to figure out how to increase the resilience of their political institutions in the face of the Internet?
I have never believed in political violence. I don't today. But I do believe in mass action. I don't believe in rioting. But then I don't see the London riots as simply a law and order problem.

The economic roadmap that the Conservative government in Britain has in place as the solution to the recession is precisely the wrong move to make. This is a time for massive rethink on the part of governments and also massive spending to make up for lost private expenditures. Britain is going the wrong way.

If America were to go down that cut the spending route, the recession would deepen, and there would be riots in America.

What is happening in London is less a failure of the British police to control mobs and more the failure of the Conservative government. It is primarily a policy level failure.

There is a need for a massive rethink of the nation state also in long established democracies. Instead of protesting Wikileaks (Learning The Wrong Lessons From Wikileaks) government departments and agencies should be embracing social media like tech startups.

The Internet And The Emperors

There should be talk of one gigabit per second kind of internet access for all and the resultant universal lifelong education. The goal should be universal health care. The goal ought be a Global Marshall Plan.

When it is time to think big, Cameron has thought small. And he has problems on his hands. Tea Party, take note.

London Riots: Debate
The Stimulus Bill Was Messed Up
Three Million Jobs
Global New Deal Needed
London Has Become Cairo
A Second Stimulus Bill Needed
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