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.

The threat of far right-wind terrorism

Norway rarely hits the headlines. Regarded as a peaceful country, a clear example of welfare state, with a thriving economy and an unemployment rate of less than 4%, Norway has remained far from bad news headlines. When last July 23 we knew about the car bomb explosion in Oslo and a mass shooting on the island of Utoya, many of us were surprised and we wondered, why Norway?

The constant media blitz on the threat of Islamic terrorism and the modus operandi of the first attack (explosion of a boom outside a government building in downtown Oslo) were more than enough to point out Islamic terrorist by those who are impatient to find answers –among which I include myself- . However, doubts started when we were informed of the shooting that had happened in the island of Utoya, where a group of young people was attending a summer camp organized by the ruling Norwegian Labour Party. A man –white skin, blond hair, Norwegian?- dressed in a police uniform opened fire and killed 69 people, mostly youngsters. Along with the explosion in Oslo, where 8 people died, the death toll was 77.

After the arrest of Anders Breivik Behring, the man who carried out the massacre in Norway, questions began to dissipate. The murderer, a 32 years-old Norwegian right-wing extremist and islamophobic, left the Islamist terrorism offside to show a new threat: the rise of the extremist right-wing as a new form of terrorism.

Although Breivik’s mental health is not yet known, it is evident that his plan was developed conscientiously to carry out a marketing campaign to
spread his fanatic right-wing ideas. His manifesto was posted on the Internet and sent by bulk email before the attacks, and it explains everything: from the justification of the attacks based on an imaginary Islamic invasion of Europe, how to make booms, to an interview to himself and a previous diary to the terrorist attacks. In this manifesto, the terrorist says he is not alone in his peculiar crusade against Islam, Which should alert the prospect of organized groups who share their hate for Islam, immigration and cultural conservatism taken to extremes.

The rise of xenophobic parties in Europe

The macabre ideology written by the murderer in his manifesto, takes its base in the right-wing parties which have proliferated in Europe in recent years. The rapid migration experienced in the economically developed countries (in some of them their ethnic composition has changed up to 30% of non-Western immigrants) and the lack of effective policies for integration, have resulted in an increase of fear, conflicts and rejection of “multiculturalism” as a response to strong demographic changes.

The radical right-wing parties in Europe have found its gold mine in this rejection of immigration and, by a populist and nationalist discourse, they have gained more and more followers. Thus, in Norway, the Progress Party (where the confessed author of the massacre was a member for several years) became the second largest group, winning one in five votes at the last election in 2009. In neighboring Sweden, the Sweden Democrat party membership increased by 4571 people in 1010 (26% more than the previous year) with a discourse which focus on the expulsion of immigrants.

In France, anti-Islam discourse has led to Le Pen’s National Front party to hold the third political force in the country. “Islamophobia” has also gained ground in the Netherlands and finds shelter in the third largest political group representing the country, the Party for Freedom. Far right-wing is also the third force in Finland and Denmark.

Right-wing extremist terrorism

Although it is not known yet whether the terrorist acted alone or not, it is clear that his ideology has found coverage in the far-right “institutional” parties increasingly visible in Europe and other “extra-parliamentary” groups: the so-called neo-Nazi groups or racist bands. The basic difference between them is that, while the first condemn violence, the neo-Nazi bands see it as the way to defeat the immigrants considered as the “enemies”. These violent groups have no institutional representation (since they just want to destroy democracy) and, because of their tendency to dissolve and transform themselves, it is very difficult to trace them. However, the radical right-wing is visible on the Internet, in some websites and discussion forums where they share their xenophobia, anti-socialist ideas and paranoid against a democratic government.

The man accused of the killing spree in Norway participated often in these platforms and, after his first appearance in court, he claimed of accomplices, which he described as “two more cells” in an organization. Does this mean that Breivik was part of an organized terrorist group? So far, police rule out this hypothesis and the latest information suggests that the murderer acted by his own.

Whether fear is unfounded individually or under the shelter of an organized terrorist group, does not change that this twin attack in Norway is part of a fanatic right-wing terrorism, which remind the shooting occurred on last January 8 in Arizona, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fired against a crowd of people in a Democratic Party event and killed 6 people and injured seriously more than a dozen, including the US Congresswoman Gabrielle Griffords.

So far this year, we have witnessed two acts of terrorism perpetrated by fanatics fed by the ideology of the radical right-wing. Will be needed more terror so that we begin to realize the danger they pose? As well as politicians and the media have warned us about the threat of Al Qaeda, they have now a golden opportunity to expose this new form of terrorism and foster public debate about the far-right parties responsibility when they launch their apocalyptic, xenophobic and anti-Islamist discourse.

The public outrage is justified

The public indignation materialized in outcries of anonymous people since 15th of March in Madrid's Puerta del Sol, and in several cities in Spain, change the course of the political campaign and becomes the protagonist of the front pages of national media. All I can see and hear from my laptop in the UK resulting in a feeling that moves between the hope and the relief of knowing that we are not asleep. "It’s about time1”, I tell myself. The media have made us protagonist in less than a week, and it is curious, because we have been it for years, victims of economic crisis, social injustice, corruption, manipulation and the curtailment of our rights. Something that, however, is not new in our history.

Because we are the protagonists in this play, we know all too well the reasons for these concentrations, that’s why we don’t need anybody to light us up and explain the reasons of our boredom and tiredness. I just list them:

1. 43% youth unemployment. Almost half the youth Spanish population is not working, those who have no experience or studies find really difficult to be recruited due to the high competition for the few jobs on offer; and those who have got qualifications and work experience , now are considered "overqualified". And all of this is happening, while we see that in Spain, to be prime minister is not required to speak English.

2. Injustice in the labour market. Those who work don’t envision a scenario very encouraging: aspiring to be "mileuristas" (earning no more than 1.000 euros per month for a full time job), having precarious contracts and enduring hellish working conditions for fear of being fired. If you are a woman, the situation is even more difficult: maternity redundancies double with the excuse of the crisis. How to escape from this labyrinth without end? Many, like me, have chosen to emigrate to other countries in search of opportunities denied to us in Spain.

3. "Tighten your belt". We have heard so many speeches appealing to social responsibility and the need to apply "difficult" measures to tackle the crisis ... In this term we have witnessed a labour reform that makes dismissals cheaper, lower wages for government employees, an increase of the retirement age and a drastic cut in social benefits (no more check-baby income, college loans with no interest rate or benefits to long-term unemployed). All this would make sense if there is a consistent policy of cuts and restrictions for all sectors of the population, but, unfortunately, in Spain the political class keeps their privileges, for example, by having exorbitant salaries - in some cases for life, paid from our pockets.

4. Ministry of Housing, what for? The housing bubble burst and, although prices have fallen slightly, housing in Spain is overvalued by 40%. Renting a house is also expensive, the average price is 750 euros per month, slightly less than the salary of a Spaniard "mileurista" without access to a mortgage. The alternative is to share an apartment for rent or live with parents. "To get by," say many young Spanish -and not so young. The trouble is that this option becomes mandatory and indefinite. And people get tired of that.

5. A discredited political class. Corruption scandals in the two major parties, lies, false promises and political actions in the service of financial power or lobbying businesses rather than citizens are, I’m afraid, too common in Spain. These politicians work for our welfare? People feel that politicians don’t represent them them, because they live in a “bubble”. As protesters say in front of the Puerta del Sol: "Citizens have lost respect for the major political parties, but because of this we are not going to lose our critical sense".

Clearly, there are plenty of reasons to be indignant and demonstrate against government. Still, we endure outrageous interested views saying things such as "behind all the protests are the extreme left-wing parties and communist groups" or that "this is organized just by young people, bored, with nothing better to do." Two days before regional and municipal elections, the Electoral Board has outlawed concentrations, so people can be fined just for protesting. This shows that who most should, still don’t understand. The day of reflection is not important. The election result doesn’t matter. The important thing here is that the Spanish have managed to organize in order to point out their outrage. How this will end? At the rate that is changing the world with the push of social networks, even sociologist can’t agree. I'm not a sociologist and couldn’t foresee the consequences, however, I hope that this has just begun.