England was alight last week, but not with the garden lanterns of summer, the glow of candlelit dinners or the footlights of the theaters in London's West End. Instead, the country was lit up with the fires of destruction that raged in London, Birmingham, Manchester and elsewhere. They were lit by hundreds of thugs, thieves and malcontents who seized upon the police shooting of a single man in Tottenham, a London neighborhood, to distort genuine grievance into an orgy of theft and arson. England had seen nothing like it since the racially inspired riots of the 1980s.

For four nights the country looked on in horror as millions of dollars in property were destroyed. Far worse, five members of the public were killed. The police seemed outmaneuvered at every turn by vicious and mobile gangs, who looted and burned. The police initially viewed the disturbances as a matter of public order, not of criminal activity, and appeared to hold back. On the whole, the police in Great Britain are largely unarmed and pride themselves on their policing with the consent of the public. In this case, they soon recognized their mistake as the gangs, using cellphones, kept each other abreast not only of targets of opportunity but police activity as well. Prime Minister David Cameron flew home from vacation in Italy and recalled Parliament, declaring the violence an exercise "in criminality." He demanded tough action and got it. By Tuesday evening some 16,000 police were deployed in the streets of London, up from the usual 6,000. But by this time the country was in an uproar, demanding both action and answers.

What distinguished these outbreaks was their lack of any obvious motivation. Race did not seem to be a clear factor, as the rioters and looters came from different races and ethnic backgrounds. In years past, urban riots pitted white against black and brown. This time around, one man of African-Caribbean descent allegedly used his car to deliberately mow down three men of Pakistani descent, killing all three. The suspected driver is under arrest. London may be the British capital but it is no longer an exclusively British city, having become truly international. This does not always sit well with more conservative Britons, but it is in large part the legacy of an imperial Britain, where the sons and daughters, and now the grandsons and granddaughters, of the old colonies have emigrated seeking a better life.

Political activism of any kind did not seem to be the reason. Nor was extreme poverty a motive, though many of the rioters lived in council housing estates, a form of government-built and supplied housing rented out by local council authorities at a subsidized price. Millions of Britons live in such housing estates. They are not the same thing as public housing in the United States, which is often the result of slum clearances. Council housing in the U.K. goes back nearly 100 years, and is still seen as an attempt to provide good housing to people who are not able to buy or rent a decent house in the private market. This kind of housing is as much a part of the British landscape as the deeply beloved (and excoriated) National Health Service.

But if race wasn't the driving force, nor poverty, nor political discontent, then what was the motivating factor?

The image of a placid, well-behaved England á la Agatha Christie, does not, alas, square with the record. Urban Britain has always been fraught with discontent, especially with the rapid growth of cities in the
19th century. The streets of London in the early 19th century frightened so many Londoners, especially the rapidly growing middle class, that the prime minister of the time, Sir Robert Peel, introduced the police officers on the beat, or the "Bobby," as he became known. Curiously enough, last week's riots did not extend to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The nihilism of the rioters is a cause for great concern, with many observers noting that many young people, the so-called underclass, see no useful role for themselves and thus feel no special attachment to their own society. Burning the shops in the high street, even for only a short time, becomes a form of engagement. Many immigrants of Asian and Caribbean descent do not feel part of British society and thus feel no loyalty to it.

But there is a larger picture, and that is one that recognizes the sheer thuggery of last week represents only a small minority of British young people. In the first few days following the riots, people from around London and other big British cities poured into the streets to help their neighbors clean up. At the same time, tough police action was called for and tough police action was the result. A long public inquest is now under way.

William M. Stewart, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and Time magazine correspondent, lives in Santa Fe.