Ultimately, what stands out from these similar phenomena is that they have produced a common stigmatisation against a very specific section of the community.
Explanations of the riots, explanations of the ‘gang’, at the end of the day are more revealing of the construction of cultural difference, against the norm of (White) Britishness, than of both phenomena. In the 1970s, Castles and Kosack posited that in substance migration was considered as an asset by the ruling class, since immigrants could be scapegoated for economic problems. The racial tensions that divided the working class facilitated its exploitation. Drawing from this statement, one can put forward the hypothesis that those phenomena have provided the authorities, with the precious help of the media, with the opportunity to hold someone responsible for what has been going wrong in society. The entrenched image of the Black mugger, the Black rioter, the Black gang member has appeared to be the perfect tool to absolve themselves of responsibility.118
112 Margaret Thatcher Foundation, http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104026 [accessed 14 August 2011].
113 Margaret THATCHER, op. cit., p. 146.
114 Simon HALLSWORTH, 2011, art. cit., p. 183.
115 See Stuart HALL, Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1978.
116 John CLARKE, ‘What’s the Problem? Precarious Youth: Marginalisation, Criminalisation and Racialisation’, Social Work and Society International Online Journal, vol. 6, n° 2, 2008, http://www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/62/364See [accessed 1 April 2013].
117 John LEA, art. cit., p. 12.
118 Steven CASTLES & Godula KOSACK, Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe, London: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Moreover, in a sense, riots and gang-related activities—or (violence) collectives—constitute different types of structures of informal governance.
Successive governments, whatever their political sensibilities, have failed to learn from past repeated experiences, in spite of serious testimonies wholeheartedly agreeing with each other. As for the media, they have systematically and freely inflamed the debate. Second-class citizens (many of whom are Black) have been driven to resort to new, tougher ways of taking part in (or even taking over) the political debate for the authorities to stop ignoring them, to enjoy some power, to negotiate their position within mainstream society and find a role in it, but also to stop being victims. Such groups even succeed in becoming virtual institutions through myth making. For instance, Power and Tunstall posited that ‘causing trouble was a commonly known way of asserting an alternative, defiant, anti-authority and destructive image to compensate for the inability to succeed or participate in a more organised way in mainstream society’.119 Here of course the authors refer to Marx’s theory, according to which alienation among the proletariat leads to conflict and obviously to deviant behaviour.
Rioting amounts to refusing the political language, and fighting on one’s territory gives a chance to win.120 The same can be said of getting involved in gang-related activities. However, since it is both put forward in the public space by the media and repressed by the authorities, one can argue that the concept of ‘gang’, or (violence) collectives, just as the concept of rioting or what Mucchielli identified as a ‘basic form of protest’121 rather relates back to a political vacuum,122 and to what Paolo Freire referred to as the ‘culture of silence’: in other words, alienated and oppressed individuals in colonised territories (deprived areas which have tended to undergo regeneration or rather gentrification processes), and by extension in highly developed countries, internalise negative images of themselves (images created and imposed by the oppressor): consequently neither dialogue nor self-government can be envisaged.123 Since these collectives are not organised, sustained political organisations, since they have no clearly-stated demands, they cannot possibly succeed in becoming integrated or influence policy-makers into integrating them into mainstream society. Discussing the case of rioters, Bachmann and Leguennec posited that they confront an ‘enemy without a face’, they confront those who ignore them on a daily basis, condemn them to social worthlessness and lead them to a deadlock.124 At the end of the day, rioters and ‘gang’/(violence) collective members
119 Anne POWER & Rebecca TUNSTALL, Dangerous Disorder: Riots and Violent Disturbances in 13 Areas of Britain 1991-1992, York: YPS for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1997, p. 2.
120 John GAFFNEY, 1987, art. cit., p. 54.
121 Laurent MUCCHIELLI, ‘Pour une sociologie politique des émeutes en France’, in Jean-Louis OLIVE, Laurent MUCCHIELLI & David GIBAND (eds), État d’émeutes, état d’exception: retour à la question centrale des péripheries, Perpignan: Presses de l’université de Perpignan, 2010, p. 254.
122 Cyprien AVENEL, op. cit., pp. 86-87.
123 Tom HEANEY, Issues in Freirean Pedagogy, http://nlu.nl.edu/academics/cas/ace/
resources/Documents/FreireIssues.cfm [accessed 14 August 2011].
124 Christian BACHMAN & Nicole LEGUENNEC, Violences urbaines: ascension et chute des classes moyennes à travers cinquante ans de politique de la ville, Paris: Albin Michel, 1996, pp. 355-356.
get stuck in a vicious circle: the prejudices that link ‘gang’ or (violence) collective membership with a certain social and racial profile are but reinforced. Consequently, opportunities to choose alternative cultures multiply in the eyes of politically and socially invisible populations and yet other forms of governance can be expected to emerge.125
Last but not least, to a certain extent, these two forms of subcultural protest movement can be analysed in terms of contributing to the democratisation of British society, in the sense that they bring the issue of alienated populations to the forefront and make them visible. Therefore, having recourse to unorthodox methods to express political views might be considered as inseparable from the pursuit of social change. The ‘gang’, just like rioters, may well remain outside of and opposed to mainstream society and the rights and protections provided by citizenship on a long-term basis. Even though Scarman himself argued that ‘violence, though wrong, is a very effective means of protest’, as things stand, there is still a long way to go, and more understandable and conventional forms of political demand ought to be devised by those who feel they are left out of mainstream society.126
Conclusion
As contended by Hallsworth, ‘there is an industrial logic to the current fixation on gangs, and, as such, a solution to the problem posed by them must include doing something about the developing gang industry that sustains the very gang it aspires to suppress’.127 Policy makers, among others, are thus to a certain extent responsible for the fact that one of the already weakest sections of the community, the Black community as it were, continues to be/is further stigmatised.
The term ‘gang’ is definitely too (negatively) connoted, too racially loaded a term to be used appropriately and can’t be transposed into Britain without causing casualties. Even if statistics, the interpretation of which is always a treacherous exercise, were to show that youth violence has certainly been on the increase, the systematic association with the menacing young Black male from the wrong part of town does not correspond to reality in every respect. Massive funds have been devoted to the suppression of ‘gangs’, when they could have been invested in blighted zones128, and initiatives aiming at empowering their residents.129 Obviously, lessons from America have not been learned.130
All the evidence suggests that just as the much maligned conservative administration, the New Labour governments and the current coalition government relied on scapegoating in order to take the attention and the blame away from their economic and social policies, but also probably in order to be in the best position to impose their community cohesion agenda: in other words the stigmatisation of foreigners through anti-other policies and through language, highlighting their mores
125 Cyprien AVENEL, op. cit., pp. 86-87.
126 Leslie (Lord) SCARMAN, op. cit., p. 36.
127 Simon HALLSWORTH, 2011, art. cit., p. 196.
128 Simon HALLSWORTH & David BROTHERTON, op. cit., p. 16.
129 See Richard CLOWARD & Lloyd OHLIN, op. cit.
130 Simon HALLSWORTH & David BROTHERTON, op. cit., p. 14.
and behaviour, and concealing the realities of their living conditions in the context of the hostile coexistence of parallel communities imperilling social cohesion in Britain. The repetitive use of the threatening image of the mugger, throughout the 1980s when rioting was legion, and in the 2000s with the escalation in youth crime, seems to have multiplied the occurrences of violence in Britain. The authorities obviously haven’t taken heed of the conclusions given by the various inquiry reports published on riots, even though they have all (the most recent ones included) highlighted the very same litany: deprivation, alienation, discrimination, racism, police harassment, unequal employment and housing opportunities. However, these documents had warned British policy-makers that the excluded, youths more particularly, would find ways to fight against oppression, and the chronic denial of rights and resources. Admittedly, the government’s strategy may well seem to have been manifold and included legislation, repression, blame-the-victim approaches, youth crime and gang prevention initiatives, and regeneration programmes, as opposed to constructive, all-concerted, sustainable investment in depressed areas, and development of youth provision, education programmes meeting the holistic needs of alienated young people as well as raising their aspirations. However, such a strategy is most unlikely to succeed for the single reason that it ignores poverty and deep-rooted socio-economic problems, and therefore misidentifies who the real enemies are.
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