The riots, again

On the sixth day of the riots HS started referring to rioters as "immigrants" and not as "young people" anymore. "Immigrants of African origin", even.

French Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy called the rioters scum. French Minister of Equality Azouz Begag accused him of racism for that. Hmm, doesn't such accusation say more about Begag's prejudices than Sarkozy's?

French media is a bit annoying to read, because it concentrates more on the resulting political storm than on the actual events. The actual events are pretty bad though, and the violence has spread to other suburbs: Sevran, Aulnay-Sous-Bois, Blanc-Mesnil, etc.

I don't know if it is some common phenomenon or if it's just because I am bad and heartless person who was born and raised in a bad and heartless country, but for me such riots tend to negate the humanity of the rioters, at least on the emotional level. Theoretical thoughts like "what would happen if police used machine guns on the rioters?" come to my mind and utterly fail to horrify me. I sort of know that these creatures are human, but only because I keep reminding myself. If I really knew that police were going to do something like that I would consider it a bad idea because of human-rights and public-order considerations, and try to stop it if I could, but if they actually managed to do it then I don't think that the steaming pile of bloody corpses would produce any negative emotional reaction in me at all. I would think "this is not right" but I would feel "ugh, good thing they got rid of all that trash".

I wonder how common this phenomenon is, and how much such emotional reaction or lack thereof really affects people's actions. I'd like to think that it doesn't, but I know that to a certain extent it does. As I said, I would try to stop such a massacre because I think it's wrong but my heart wouldn't be in it and that would show. Maybe it would show almost imperceptibly but in a large group of people that feel the same way it would really show.