Riots are the Language of the Unheard

Over the last 10 days we have all seen the terrible destruction slowly spreading from the USA and affected major cities all over the world.

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the idea that one small act in one place can result in tornado on the other side of the world.

At least that is what Edward Lorenz, is supposed to have claimed. That a newly formed tornado can even be influenced by a butterfly’s delicate wings, evolving into a tornado weeks later, on the other side of the world.

A very small change in initial conditions can lead to different outcome on an enormous scale.

This does not just apply to the weather.

Derek Chauvin caused such a tornado in just 9 minutes. He changed the lives of thousands, if not millions of people, in just 9 minutes. When he held George Floyd under the force of his knee. I wonder if he had any idea of the consequences of this act or the tornado it would create? We all know the story, you would have to be living in the amazon jungle not to.

One man did all this, he was the catalyst to all this chaos. Or was he?

What started out as a peaceful protest soon escalated into a full scale riot, which quickly became a free for all. Many of the looters not being able to see beyond the top of their shopping trolley, or the harm they were causing. Once equipped with a new flat screen and laptop, did these people truly have any idea what they were fighting for? Was it still about George Floyd or was it something else?
This ‘virus of violence’ spread even faster than the Coroanvirus itself, and soon struck other major cities causing widespread destruction and despair.

All the offending officers were arrested and charge, yet the unrest escalated even more. People were beaten outside their shops, many lost their livelihood, forced to see their businesses destroyed in front of their eyes.

In London, a group of ‘protesters’ destroyed a statue of Winston Churchill and threw it into the river and the police did nothing. Gangs chased police away and nothing was done at all to stop them. One man did all this, he was the catalyst to all this chaos. Or was he?

The title of this article as many of you may know is a quote by Martin Luther King, which is often used by people to justify rioting as a step to improve the future. People have the right to justice, to be heard. Police brutality should not go unpunished and if people don’t speak out, who is going to hear their voice?

Sometimes the louder we shout, the less people listen, so we have to shout even louder. Does that mean people will listen more?

In 2012 Peter Turchin, a Russian American scientist, wrote an article for the science journal Nature, called Dynamics of political instability in the United States, 1780–2010. The article got him a lot of attention.

The field of study that he calls, cliodynamics, focuses on population biology, and devises theories that are backed by cumulative scientific evidence, thus predicting the future by tracking “temporally varying processes and the search for causal mechanisms” throughout history.

After careful study he found that cycles of violence in the USA work on 50 year cycles, and in 2012 he predicted a major upheaval in 2020.

He believes that these upheavals can last 15 years or so and after that period, that generation decides that they want to go back to peaceful living again. Then the next generation lives in peace and then the generation after that comes along and does it all again. He also states that, historically these upheavals often come from a struggle for power, involving powerful people. Other times they are a ‘group on group’ incentive, like riots, groups against individuals and outright lynching. Is all this violence really going to accomplish anything?

Come up with a better way.

I saw an excellent video on Twitter where a man was telling his son:

“You have to come up with a better way, because how we’re doin’ it, it ain’t working”

He mentions the generations and how he did the same thing 14 years ago and how his son will be doing the same thing in 10 years time.

I have to agree. We need to come up with a better way.

I am going to close with the Full Martin Luther King quote:

“But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”

― Martin Luther King Jr.