What's happening in England?

It's 11 pm and I'm so tired that I lay in bed, close my eyes, and I start to dream as soon as I fall asleep. Suddenly, I find myself in an old house, huge, I would say it's a mansion instead of an ordinary house. I know the people who live there; they are not from my real life, but from my dreams. I open a window and I see a green lawn and a few cows grazing in the middle of a gray day, what better image of England. However, a new element bursts into my idyllic landscape. It’s a helicopter, a metal bird that heads rapidly towards my window. I have no time to run. The helicopter is coming and its deafening noise prevents me from hearing my own screams...

I wake up feeling a great sense of relief after realizing it has been a dream. Quickly, I forget the details of the nightmare, but the helicopter buzz still resonates in my head. After 15 minutes of buzzing I realize it's not my imagination: a helicopter is flying over our neighborhood. Because of the helicopter, or the nightmare, since that moment I can’t fall asleep over the rest of the night.

The next morning I wake up with headache. I need a coffee. I go downstairs, to the kitchen and when I open the door I realize that TV is on, even though no one is watching it. I'm about to turn it off, but a succession images catch my attention and I forget even my coffee: streets on fire, hooded guys smashing windows, kids throwing bottles at a group of policemen, a gang of youngsters looting an electronics store… images don’t end and I can’t stop watching. Three days later, I still stay glued to television:

I see British Prime Minister David Cameron, not looking very friendly, saying that we have seen the worst of England.

I hear another woman, not looking very friendly either, complaining about the police budget cuts announced months ago by the British government.

I watch dozens of policemen fleeing from the objects thrown by a gang of young people.

I hear the possibility of bringing the army.

I see an old man wondering why all this has happened, trying to figure out the mistakes of a system that has allowed thousands of young people destroy their community.

I see a picture of a person, apparently killed by a policeman, and the reason of the beginning of the riots in the streets of London.

I hear riots have spread to other cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool or Bristol.

I watch a couple of young men initially helping a bleeding boy and then stealing what he has got in his rucksack.

I see how Hindus clean their corner shops, shattered after the street riots.

I listen to a police officer advising parents to keep their teenagers at home during the wave of violence.

I read that three people have died during the riots in Birmingham.

I hear that more than 1000 people have been arrested.

I listen to another police officer saying that there were riots thirty years ago which raised the issue of racism, but the riots of these days are just criminal acts without any justification.

I see a man visibly shaken, crying on camera that riots means the insurrection of the masses in response to the yawning gap between upper and lower classes and to the social spending cuts.

I see a young boy hooded, leaving behind a ransacked establishment, with a plasma TV in his arms.

I hear dozens of times the words "gang culture" and "loss of values" in a materialistic society increasingly dominated by the statement "you are what you have".

I turn off the TV and go out. Walking through the streets of Bristol, I try to draw conclusions from what I've seen and heard, but everything is still unclear. My thoughts spin like the helicopter blades which didn't let me sleep a few days ago and the more aware I am that I do not understand anything, the greater the feeling of sadness that takes over me.

I feel sorry, very sorry to see how hundreds of young people destroy, steal and attack without the slightest hint of remorse or guilt. I feel sorry for all those who can't give nothing better of themselves. To see so many young people disoriented, with no voice and no future.

While the British political class, the "elite" formed in prestigious institutions like Oxford or Cambridge, is trying to decipher what is happening in their country; those juvenile delinquents who have been part of the riots still think they have nothing to lose. Ignored and now hated, perhaps this is more they could expect of themselves.