A commenter at CT

In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:
“Yes,” said the young man. “You wouldn’t be talking to me now if we didn’t riot, would you?”

“Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you.”

A few other good comments. There's more nihilism in the UK than Egypt, Tunisia, Athens, Spain, etc. Someone on the thread hinted at that, half in jest. Let's see if someone tries to make it stick the way it should.
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update 8/9- 163 comments: one reference to Egypt, dismissed and forgotten; a reference to Spain as where the country's leaders are on holiday; a discussion of riots in the US during the 60s.
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update 8/11- Henry F. quasi ex-neoliberal tries and fails. 8 comments so far. 17 on another post about academic spam.

It's similar to discussions of Wikileaks. In english among self-described intellectuals the discussion centered on Wikileaks and what it represented as a cultural/political phenomenon. Discussion in countries covered in the cables (and among western specialists in those countries) focused on the leaked information: the cables were a major catalyst for the Arab Spring. Crooked Timber is technocrat, anglophone, and anglophile. Their subjects here are London and after that the US. Whatever else it is, it's a shame.


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update 8/11- Strike three: Pity.
"Meanwhile in the Horn of Africa…"
An earnest liberal accusing her friends of talking only about themselves and the world they know.

Jan 2011: Cairo. The map at the link is interactive. Click.
"There's more nihilism in the UK than Egypt, Tunisia, Athens, Spain, etc."

Yemen