Conflagration in Britain

When I saw the first reports from the unrest in Tottenham, my first thought was that it followed the classical pattern of urban disorder in Britain and France in recent decates, with an act of police brutality triggering the conflagration. A difference to what happened in France 2005 was that this time no-one tried to describe the unrest as an immigrant riot or race riot. It seemed like a riot by all the young people, regardless of race, who had ended up socially excluded and with no future. Was there hope in this, I wondered - hope that race and religion would be forgotten and common experiences of exclusion would unite people? But another difference, less hope-inspiring, was the sheer scale of the violence in London, and the fact that people trying to stop fires or protect their shops were among the victims. By contrast, the riots in the banlieus had seemed comparatively controlled, rational or even ritualized, the violence being directed against the police or against cars, but not really against any other unrelated people.  

As I've written before about the riots in France, the causes of urban unrest are seldom exhaused by economic grivances. Economic marginality is certainly an important background factor. But to say that economic betterment is all the rioters want seems unconvincing. In episodes of unrest, the paramount desires seem to be those of freedom and respect. To pay back against humiliation, to restore "justice" and to revel in new-found freedom almost always seems like more important concerns to rioters than economic deprivation per se.

Some commentators have argued that the brutal cuts and austerity measures of the present Cameron government cannot have caused the riots since they haven't really started to have effect yet. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if the measures were an important factor anyway, not for economical reasons, but as a final insult and proof of the establishment's arrogance and contempt for the lower classes.

That pur joy and revellation in freedom is an important factor in rioting is apparent from the following gleanings from various texts on the riots.

It has become clear to the disenfranchised young people of Britain, who feel that they have no stake in society and nothing to lose, that they can do what they like tonight, and the police are utterly unable to stop them. That is what riots are all about. Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis. They are not about poor parenting, or youth services being cut, or any of the other snap explanations that media pundits have been trotting out: structural inequalities, as a friend of mine remarked today, are not solved by a few pool tables. People riot because it makes them feel powerful, even if only for a night. People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing, and they realise that together they can do anything – literally, anything at all. (Laurie Penny, "Panic on the Streets of London", Open Democracy, 9 August 2011)

At around 5pm, watching the live coverage of the start of the night's violence on Mare Street, it struck me that things were kicking off in broad daylight. The disturbances on Sunday seemed opportunistic, "copycat" - people taking advantage of the overstretched police to launch a relatively minor spree of theft and destruction. On Monday, this "opportunism" had become a strategy. A daylight confrontation meant open defiance of the police, not simply taking advantage of darkness and overstretch. It was as if, all of a sudden, groups across London realised that the police could not be everywhere. [...] It looked as if the rioters were revelling in their mobility, flowing from place to place without pattern but simply because they could. It looked like a kind of sudden freedom. Call it mob rule, call it Hobbesian anarchy; condemn these robberies, the arson, the assaults on passers-by, the destruction of small businesses. All those things were disgusting. But the kids doing them were clearly dizzy with a kind of liberation. (Will Wiles, "Riot Thoughts")

Everyone was on a riot, just goin’ mad like, chuckin’ fings, chuckin’ bottles. . .it was good tho’. . .it was good fun . . . ‘course it is! [...] Yeah. . .it’s the governments fault . . . conservatives whatever, whoever it is, I dunno’. We’re showin’ the police we can do what we want. That’s what it’s all about (interview with riot girls, BBC)

The second quote above continues with a statement on how frightened the author feels about the breakdown of  rule of law, since that is a rule he benefits from. The interview with the "riot girls" seems to have been the object of much derison on the net, but aren't what they are doing simply that they are celebrating freedom in all its ugliness and beauty? Against the tendency to idealize freedom and turn it into a harmless slogan, these quotes are, I think, a good a reminder of how explosive this ideal really is. Whenever freedom is realized, it tends to frighten people or scandalize them.

Let me return to the comparison between the unrest in Britain with the 2005 riots in France. Sophie Body-Gendrot has written a lucid analysis about it. She expresses one of the similarities in a laconic sentence: "What is striking is that these youths ask for nothing." This is indeed a striking, important fact. It's true that they don't ask for anything, they act. What's happening is that they take the opportunity of freedom as it offers itself, trying to expand it and keep it alive. They know that no one is ever going to help them with that. They can't ask anyone, since no-one can do it except they themselves.

Pointing out that the desire for freedom, or joy in freedom, can be an important factor behind riots is not to defend them. I too would have felt frightened by looting and arson. As a researcher, however, I think it is undeniable that much rioting is simply impossible to understand without taking this desire - along with the desire for respect - into account. That said, I also admit that I do have a weakness for this desire, that I find comfort in how strong and pervasive it has proven to be (even though I do not approve of all the manners in which it has been realized), and that I do wish that all downtrodden souls will have the opportunity at least once in a lifetime to feel the joy of freedom. It goes without saying that no one else should come to harm and that the freedom must be shared with others.

To return to Body-Gendrot, she also mentions a few differences between the urban unrest of Britain and Frace. Apart from the fact that racial conflict seems to play so little role in the British unrest, she also discusses the different configuration of Paris and London - affluent Paris being like a "medieval fortress" with outbreaks taking place at the margins while the boundaries of London neighbourhoods are more porous - and the differences in public reaction to the riots in Britain and France which reflect differences in political culture. The only thing I wonder about in her discussion is the seeming discrepancy between the early part of her paper that stresses how much rioters usually have in common with other residents in their neighborhoods (whim whom they share the same "reservoir of grievances" regarding police harassment, poor housing and lack of jobs), and the middle part that mentions their "detachment from their communities that allowed actions without remorse".

End of blogging for today. A privilige of writing a blog is that you can indulge in impressions and on-the-spur comments, without having to be systematic or reaching conclusions. Writing a blog can be very dreamlike, but such dreamlikeness is also true of reality itself.

A friend found this Google map linked to by the Guardian. A snapshot of the situation in London on Monday night August 8. 

"Badlands of the Republic" - three quotes

Mustafa Dikeç's Badlands of the Republic: Space, Politics and Urban Policy (Oxford: Blackwell 2007) is a really excellent work for understanding the revolts in the banlieus in France. I don't have time here to dwell on all its strong points. Let me just quote three passages I liked particularly much:

Firstly, I was happy to see that he is courageous enough to see the revolts as something deserving of the same respect as ordinary social movements, although they are not social movements in the conventional sense.

They are neither pre-conceived nor organized, and they are not articulated as collective efforts aimed at transforming the established order. However, […] they are not intrinsic acts of violence either. They all mobilize with a demand for justice and as reactions against perceived injustices. ‘Let justice be done’ or ‘J’ai la haine’, as was heard – again – during the revolts of autumn 2005. (Dikec 2007:152f)

Secondly, he points out that what motivates the revolts are inequality, discrimination and repression - not religion.

[S]tating that the revolts were ‘ethnic’ (dark skin) or religious (Islam) is almost as absurd as stating that the May 1968 uprisings were ‘ethnic’ (white) or religious (Christian). There was nothing to suggest that the revolts were ‘ethnic’ or religious. (ibid 176)

Thirdly, a penetrating remark on the meaning of republicanism.

The problem is not that republicanism is inherently incompatible with diversity. The problem is that the republican imaginary is so white and so Christian that any manifestation of discontent […] quickly evokes concerns about the values and principles of the republic. This is the paradox of actually existing republicanism in France. When those who do not quite fit in the republican imaginary mobilize, the principle of equality – otherwise strongly defended – gets displaced by a preoccupation with ‘ethnic’ origins and religious affiliations - otherwise strongly criticized. Rather than a defence of the equality of all its members regardless of ethnicity or religion, republicanism becomes a denial of diversity. (ibid 177).

The Riots 7: Do you think we might join hands?

Here’s another long entry, which I write to follow up my previous notes on riots and bring them a little closer to if not a conclusion, then at least a semblance of order.

Part I: Negri, the Invisible Committee, and Rancière on the riots

So I am suggesting that the riots could be seen as part of a striving for autonomy. Fine, but haven’t I left a whole lot of questions unanswered? If the rioters are out after autonomy in the face of the spectacle, pride in the face of exclusion and the police, purveyors of an economy of “theft and gift” in the face of the neoliberal market, wouldn't then solidarity with the precarity movement – at least with its anarchist or autonomous wing – appear natural, logical? Why then don’t we see much more cooperation and solidarity between them? Are the differences between the “autonomy” of the rioters and that championed by the activists too great, perhaps even unbridgeable? A clue to this can be gained from what the activists and intellectuals of this movement themselves have to say about the riots.

Let us start by listening to what some of the more well-known intellectuals. I don’t think there is any more need for me to pay any further homage to Badiou (see this previous entry). I will instead give some (brief) attention to Negri, Rancière and the Invisible Committee. I can state already here that I am critical of all of them.


Negri

This interview with Negri – conducted at the time of the Paris riots in 2005 – is perhaps best known for his statement that the cars burned because their owners didn’t go out to defend them. As a whole the interview offers an instructive contrast to Badiou. Like Badiou, Negri is an enthusiastic supporter of the rioters (albeit with reservations: it fails to qualify fully as a proper “insurrection”), but for different reasons. To Negri, the rioters are in need of a theorist since they lack political awareness: “This movement wants something, but it does not yet know what it wants” (Negri 2005). He has no qualms about stepping in as their interpreter. The riot, he states, is above all a revolt against the neo-liberal Empire (that is how I understand his talk about the “crisis of Fordism”, “economic globalization” and “neoliberal cuts in public spending”).

This interpretation is substantiated somewhat in Commonwealth (coauthored with Hardt, 2009), but the basic message is similar: the "urban jacquerie" of the 2005 riots was an expression of indignation in the banliues, the “emblematic space of the precarious worker”. But as a challenge to empire it is insufficient. A revolution needs institutions to make itsself lasting and effective and ways must therefore be found of moving from jacqueri to organization (Hardt & Negri 2009:239, 245f, 259).

While not necessarily wrong, this is a perfect example of an ideological explanation: an explanation that could have been made without listening to the rioters themselves, that fits the theory just a little bit too well, and which teaches us nothing about the riots. In fact, it is highly predictable to anyone familiar with Negri’s theories. Despite the frequent appearance of the riots in the book, I can't help suspecting that the riots never mattered much to Negri, at least not the way Seattle or Genova did. An example of this is that they appear to have left no imprint on his and Hardt’s theory of the “three cycles” of protest in the anti-globalization movement (the first inaugurated by Seattle, the second by the anti-war mobilizations in the wake of 9.11, and the third by Heiligendamm). Let me conclude by saying that I think the texts by Negri mentioned here exemplify a widespread tendency among radical intellectuals to close their ears to the rioters. As far as I can judge, the latter have been quite ready to formulate their demands verbally, above all their complaints against the police. Instead of taking them on their word, however, commentators have been prone to lament their lack of political awareness, meaning a lack of explicit antagonism against neo-liberalism or global capitalism. As I’ve already stated, I believe that Badiou is one of the few radical intellectuals who has been honest enough to see the riots as fully justified even if they’re “only” motivated by a desire to get back at the police for once, or, in other words, even if the rioters lack all but the most rudimentary awareness of or interest in global capitalism.

The invisible committee

The “invisible committee” is already famous as the collective author of The Coming Insurrection and as a group that carries on the Situationist legacy in France. Unlike Negri, the authors of this book explicitly accord the “flames of November 2005” an exemplary, paradigmatic value. “Those first joyous fires were the baptism of a decade full of promise” (The Invisible Committee 2009:24). The book is full of statements endorsing the riots. For instance, seeing teachers whining about their school being burned downn on the evening news, the authors “remember how many times, as children, we dreamed of doing exactly this” (Ibid 38). Above all, the tactics of the rioters offers a model to be followed:

Not making ourselves visible, but instead turning the anonymity to which we’ve been relegated to our advantage, and through conspiracy, nocturnal or faceless actions, creating an invulnerable position of attack. The fires of November 2005 offer a model for this. No leader, no demands, no organization, but words, gestures, complicities. To be socially nothing is not a humiliating condition… but is on the contrary the condition for maximum freedom of action. (Ibid. 113)

However, I am skeptical of the authors’ idea of these riots. I see the riots as rooted in a desire to act out anger, get revenge and restore pride. I don’t see them as a model for any calculating, strategic plotting to topple the spectacle as the authors of this book seem to do. It's easy to feel sympathy for Coupat – one of the alleged authors – after his arrest, but I feel far less sympathy for the book. To be frank, I’m a bit downcast at what these authors have done to the Situationist legacy. No longer is the spectacle to be combated through détournements, shocking happenings or poetic terrorism. The structure is to be physically immobilized by striking at its vulnerable supply lines, in the style of guerillas. Sabotage becomes the primary means of liberation, a far more non-communicative means of combat that any of the Situationists’ acts of symbolic violence. I may be naïve, but I really like the ideal of everyone – and I mean everyone – having fun together. This is an ideal the Invisible Committee has thrown on the garbage heap.


Rancière

If we turn to Rancière, finally, we find a rather hesitant and ambivalent attitude to the 2005 riots. On the one hand, he believes that the riots come short of real political action since they have failed to put forward a “political proposition” directed at their opponents with whom they share the social field (Rancière 2006a). They are therefore lacking something – a kind of verbal self-consciousness – that would be necessary for true politics. But on the other hand we should remember, as he stresses in another piece that also briefly touches on the riots, that politics to him is about the configuration of the “sensible”, of what can be perceived as possible. It is not something purely or merely verbal. It has to do with the senses. Politics is not simply a clash of words. It starts with “dissensus”, the contention that “there is not one reality”. Far more than being a merely verbal disagreement, dissensus is about “reframing the very field of the given, of the sensible, the intelligible and, consequently, the possible. It is about putting in the unique common world of the consensual logics several worlds, conflicting worlds” (ibid 2006b). To Rancière, such a clash of worlds happens above all through the process of “subjectivization”, the self-definition in public of previously neglected or invisible groups (the “part of the uncounted”) which upsets the field since they refuse pregiven categories. Applying these ideas to the 2005 riots, he opposes interpretations such as Finkelkrauts (see my discussion in this entry), who see the rioters as guided by a consumerist ideology. These voices all sees the rioters as caught up in a single “world” or “police” taken as a configuration of the possible, a neoliberal world in which the market is absolute or a given. What emerges from Rancière's texts is therefore a deeply ambivalent picture. Doesn’t his rejection of interpretations such as Finkelkraut’s imply that the riots have at least taken important steps towards a true “politics” in his sense? He claims not to regard the riots as politics, but this seems unfair from the point of view of his own theory of politics as the emergence of other worlds. At the very least, one should concede that they meant a big no, the appearance of a huge “dissensus” that shook the established field.


The contrast to the Situationist International

What triggered my excursus into what these radical intellectuals have had to say about the riots was the obvious overlap between some of their concepts and what the rioters seemed to be doing. For instance, the seemingly pointless burning of cars can easily be understood as taking pleasure in the confrontation itself, regardless of future goals. Isn’t this similar to Negri’s strategy of autonomous separation, desertion or exodus rather than dialectical conflict? Isn’t he too interested in delineating the idea of a social movement less interested in appealing to or demanding things from authorities than in the creative formation of a new life, in being able to lead their own life while having as much fun as one can, without having to feel like victims? Aren’t autonomists and rioters alike groping for forms of public confrontation that eschew classical forms of “voice” and political participation? Aren’t they both rushing in the direction of an exit or desertion of the established field of political dialogue – an exit which, however, doesn’t take the form of quietly withdrawing to some alternative sphere of living, enclave, or subculture, but which instead, in the manner of Rancière’s “politics” always simultaneously involves a challenge and confrontation that necessarily appears provocative and outrageous from the point of view of the existing “police”? Despite this overlap, however, none of the radical intellectuals discussed above seem interested in discussing these similarities.

This attitude contrasts to that of the Situationist International, which in 1965 greeted the Watts riots in L.A. as a “rebellion against the commodity” driven by the “demand to really life” which momentarily realized an economy of “theft and gift”. The important thing was that this was done “in festive celebration, in playful self-assertion, in the potlatch of destruction. People who destroy commodities show their human superiority over commodities” (Situanionist International 2006:197). Famously, they also wrote that the riot was the first rebellion in history to justify itself with the argument that there was no air conditioning during a heat wave” (Ibid 200). That is to say: the Watts rioters didn’t riot because they were victims, because they lacked something which the state could give them. They rioted because it was their pleasure, because they were no slaves, but free people who didn’t have to put up with anything. I feel a great deal of sympathy for this way of looking at the riots. Unfortunately, however, it’s not easy to come across similar views today of the riots in recent years in the banlieus or suburbs of Europe.


Part II: A way towards convergence

So is there any prospect of a fruitful convergence, alliance or even fusion between the movement of the immigrant youth and that of autonomist radicals? Here I can only sketch an answer. I take for granted that the reader will understand that most sketches end up in the waste basket.

To the "progressive" Left an alliance between a variety of immigrant organizations or immigrant movements is certainly possible and the fact that such alliances already exist is a welcome development. But whatever was expressed in the "movement" of the rioters, and I for one can't help feeling that this "something" was extraordinarily important, appears to me to be rather far from the "progressivist" camp. Commentators have already pointed out a number of differences between what we can call the standpoint of the "rioters" and that of the "leftists".

For instance, Alain Touraine points out two differences between the suburban riots of 2005 and the wave of student protest which erupted the same year. The first is the difference in social position.

The immigrants are wholly disoriented and set fire to cars since they can’t articulate themselves and lack advocates. The students by contrast are far more privileged and receive enormous support through their unions. Despite this the immigrants and the students share the feeling of discrimination and exclusion: the suburban youth have already stood outside society for a long time, while the students fear an impeded future, which could just as well turn them into excluded tomorrow. (Touraine 2006)

This portrayal of the student protesters is in keeping with his disparaging view of today’s precarity movement as driven less by political hopes than by fear of the future, by the desire to protect the rights and concessions they have already won. This difference in social position is important. However, it is also important to point out that this defensive posture is not shared by the autonomist/anarchist wing of the precarity movement. Unlike workers and students fearful to lose their privileges, this wing ought to be a a possible ally of the immigrant youth. In Japan too it is possible to discern two wings of the precarity movement: one making up the so-called “anti-poverty” movement and the other being animated rather by what could be called a “viva poverty” ethos (a largely anarchist ethnos which I’ve already given some glimpses of in connection with Dame-ren and Kubikubi Café).

Touraine also points to a second difference, namely that suburban riots are better seen as cultural struggles than as social movements. While the rioters rebel against social and economic exclusion, the exclusion is also experienced as cultural and the protest against poverty is therefore also a call for cultural recognition (Touraine 2006). This statement is vague, but as I’ve remarked in my previous entry, I agree that culture plays an important role in the riots, albeit a should underline that this is better seen as a wholly new culture, a culture in the process of being produced, rather than any stereotypical cultural essence. I don’t believe at all that a recognition of culture as a central element of struggle should be an impediment to cooperation between rioters and activists. I won’t enter into the difficult question of how compatible the various version of an alternative culture are that these groups may produce. Certainly there is a risk of cultural collisions – for instance regarding limitations on the freedom of women – but there are also signs of new cultures and lifestyles being born which are shared across ethnic borderlines.

A third possible difference is indicated in the rather condescending view of the riots that can be found among many commentators on the Left. We have already seen that Touraine describes the riots as “wholly disoriented” and lacking the ability to articulate their demands. Comments like that are surprisingly common. Negri and Ranciêre make similar comments, as we recall. And Zizek writes that “the recent revolt was just an outburst with no pretense to any kind of positive vision” (Zizek). Wiewiorka remarks that the riots “produce no discourse… they are typically crisis behaviours, and not at all a movement” (Wieviorka 2005). Even Lapeyronnie, one of their most understanding interpreters, thinks that the alienation of the rioters from the political system means that they remain caught in a helpless dependence on the political system from which they try to elicit understanding and concessions (Lapeyronnie 2006). The list can be made to go on and one. I’ve already stated several times that I believe that views like these are unfair, especially among activists of autonomous persuation who are the ones who more than anyone have advocated strategies of exodus, flight and desertion as better suited to the resistance of the multitudes than using established channels of protest. To the extent that the riots were motivated by being loyal to one’s desires – for instance, restoring one’s sense of pride by making fools of the police and authorities – they share the motivations of much anarchist and autonomist activism.

To summarize so far, I believe that the differences which various commentators have pointed out between the rioters and precarity activists are valid above all for those precarity activists engaged in the kind of struggle highlighted by what I have called the “progressive” interpretation, that is, the movement for social inclusion, for gaining or preserving a variety of rights and guarantees or livelihood and official support. If one instead compares the rioters to the activists oriented towards anarchism or autonomy, the differences almost melt away. Doesn't this suggest an affinity? Just as there are ways in which a "progressive" left might join hands with "respectable" immigrant organizations, might there not be room for a comraderie of rioters and autonomists? I am not saying, as the Invisible Committee, that the tactics of rioting is always right. I think that depends on the degree of oppression. All I'm saying is that I do think it would be good if the marginals, minorities, the discriminated and the dropouts could come together and help each other a little more often - and that the obstacles might be less serious than we think.


Part III: Freeters and immigrants

I will finish the entry by stating briefly why I believe that the problem of the solidarity between freeters and immigrants will become more pressing in Japan in the future. Here is my prognosis. After the media and opinion storm which has been continually growing in strength in recent years against the “reforms that went too far” – a common expression used for the deregulations and privatizations which reached a climax under the premiership of Koizumi – Japanese authorities are bound to take at least some measures to ameliorate the working conditions or freeters and other irregular workers in Japan. To the extent that their situation improves, it seems logical to expect that companies will respond by increasing the flow of immigrant labour. The DJP – the most important governing party in Japan – will probably welcome that development and may also try to further it through legislation. How will the freeters active in the precarity movement respond to this situation? Two difficulties can be predicted. Firstly, it may be harder to gain the support of the general public when the “victims” of precarity are no longer Japanese. There is a danger of growing nationalism. Already today groups like Zaitokukai (see this previous entry) have appeared. Secondly, there will be difficulties in creating a sense of solidarity within the movement between freeters and immigrant workers. Until now, freeters have been able to portray themselves as marginals and excluded. “Poverty” has been a personally directly felt (“mijika na”) problem, a problem of which they could feel themselves to be the direct victims or people most directed concerned (“tôjisha”). Among freeter activists there is also a rather widespread distrust against philanthropy and people who “support others” out of “compassion” or idealistic motives (“dôjô shite hito o tasukete ageru”). Being a “tôjisha”, a directly concerned victim, is often said to the most authentic way of participating in a movement. However, isn’t there a risk that this rejection of “compassion” and “helping others” will be used to justify cold-heartedness and indifference to the situation of immigrant workers? If freeter should concern themselves only with their “own” problems, should they simply drop out of the movement when their own situation improves? Will they be able to shed the jargon about the primacy of being a “tôjisha”, or will they perhaps be able to formulate some new conceptual framework in which they and immigrants will both be “tôjisha”?


References

Hardt, Michael & Negri, Antonio (2009) Commonwealth, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Negri (2005) “Finally a Little Revolt”, interviewed by Jacopo Iacoboni (orig. La Stampa 2005-11-12)

Invisible Committee, The (2009) The Coming Insurrection, Los Angeles: semiotext(e).

Rancière (2006a) “Our police order: What can be said, seen, and done”, interview by Truls Lie, Eurozine (contribution by Le Monde diplomatique)

Rancière (2006b) “Misadventures of Universality”, paper presented at the Moscow Biennale's Conference on Philosophy, Politics, and Art, 17 November 2006

Situationist International (2006) “The Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy”, pp 194-203, in Knabb, Ken (ed. & tr.) Situationist International Anthology, Berkeley: the Bureau of Public Secrets.

Touraine (2006) “Explosion möglich”, Die Zeit 2006-03-23, Nr. 13-23 (March)

Wieviorka, Michel (2005) “Violence in France”

Zizek, “Some Politically Incorrect Reflections on Violence in France & Related Matters”

The Riots 6: Culture

Let me return to where I left off in "The Riots 5" and focus a little bit more on the role of the concept of culture in the interpretations of the riots.

One reason I’ve chosen to focus on culture is my impression that that it’s been neglected for a long time by the Left. Placing importance on culture, however, doesn’t necessarily imply nationalism or communitarianism, or what I’ve called culturalism. Neither does it have to imply any demotion of the importance of socio-economic factors. Culture can be seen as an important element in all revolt as well as in all attempts to secure autonomous spheres of living.

It’s time, therefore, to clarify that the culturalist interpretation is not alone in paying attention to culture. What characterizes this interpretation is that it reifies the cultures of immigrant populations, essentializes them, and believes that such essences somehow “explain” the riots. The most glaring weakness of culturalism is that the so-called “failure” of the integration of immigrant populations is taken as a corroboration of the persistence of (virtually ahistorical and indestructible) cultural essences or “traditions”. It overlooks the fact that immigrant cultures are created or reshaped in the host country. No culture, and especially no immigrant culture, is ever intact, and immigrant communities are practically always marked by a tremendous destruction of tradition, including the erosion of parental authority.

A first step towards correcting the culturalist interpretation would be to pay attention to what Durkheim called “anomie”, a state in which cultural norms are no longer binding and in which individuals suffer from a lack of cultural guidance. As many sociologists who have employed or elaborated on this concept point out, it is a useful tool not only for explaining suicide (as in Durkheim’s famous study), but also many other forms of criminal or “deviant” behavior. One of my favorite examples of good use of this concept is Inoue Shun’s interpretation of the character Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: the white colonizer who ends up as a brutal mass-killer despite his reputation back in Belgium as an eloquent humanitarian. Put simply, all norms – including the veneer of “civilization” which Kurtz managed to maintain as long as he was surrounded by his familiar European environment – need a social environment and bereft of that environment anomie occurs. That was no humanitarian “core” to Kurtz’ personality, but neither is there any core to the personality of any of us, since we all need society or social interaction to maintain our civilized facades. The concept of anomie, when put into use in a social interactionist context, is simply an enormously useful tool when it comes to understanding not only how seemingly civilized Europeans could turn into barbarians as soon they became colonial overlords, but also what happens to immigrants who are more or less forcefully uprooted from the contexts which once maintained their “traditions” and at the same time prevented by social exclusion from finding suitable substitutes in the countries where they end up. In such a context, the new norms that they manage to construct by themselves, by discovering new solidarities between themselves and new ways of living, in fact offer the best hope not only for them when it comes to leading meaningful lives but also for their “integration” into the surrounding society.

But the correction of the culturalist interpretation cannot stop here. In fact, the conservative discourse has hardly disregarded the factor of anomie. Indeed, as soon as a riot occurs, the familiar lament about moral crisis, societal breakdown and mindless hooliganism is never far away. What the conservative discourse does, however, is that as soon as the problem of anomie pops up, it tends to switch over from a culturalist to a security interpretation. Anomie becomes viewed as the seedbed of crime which needs to be contained and mastered. Rather than disregarding anomie, the conservative discourse tends to oscillate incoherently between the images of widespread normlessness and the existence of intact foreign cultures rejecting mainstream values, in the process conjuring up a horror fantasy worthy of prewar anti-semitism at its most grotesque: jihadist imams and juvenile gangsters fused into a single person.

Against this kind of scaremongering one should point out that the rioting youth already appears to have taken great strides in overcoming anomie. The organized, ritual character of the riots has often been pointed out, a fact which is perhaps most strikingly evinced in the controlled character of the violence, which is practically never aimed at humans, only at things such as cars and public buildings (see for instance this article by Lapeyronnie for an analysis of this).

But how do we go on? To start with I think we can agree that culture needs to be addressed a lot more by writers critical of the conservative discourse. If we look at the advocates of what I have been calling the “progressive” interpretation, I can’t help feeling that their way of addressing the issue of culture is often both unconvincing and unhelpful. I do find points of interest in their writings, especially when they are based on extensive research – like say the works of Gilles Kepel, who I think has made very important contributions and whose warning that the “fate of Islam” to a great extent will depend on the outcome of the “most important battle in the war for Muslim minds during the next decade will be fought not in Palestine or Iraq but in these communities of believers on the outskirts of London, Paris, and other European cities” (Kepel 2004:8). However, Kepel’s focus seems to be exclusively on whether or not “Muslims” will be able to endorse the already pre-existent democratic values of the European host societies. This blindness for whatever novelty in terms of culture or values that might be born out of this “war” is unfortunate, but reflects a widespread tendency among “progressive” thinkers to focus almost entirely on the “democratic” or “republican” values of the host culture and their fondness for the claim that the rioters of the banlieus are in fact animated by precisely these values and that the riots are therefore in keeping with the best of European traditions. Thus Emmanuel Todd argues that the young people rioted precisely because they had integrated the republican model, including “fundamental values of French society” such as freedom and equality.

I am convinced on the contrary that the phenomenon is typically French. The racially mixed young people of the Seine Saint-Denis fall under a tradition of social uprising which is frequent in French history. Their violence represents also the disintegration of the African and North African families in contact with the French values of equality. (Todd 2005)

With their revolt, the insurgent youth have integrated into the French tradition. And they're treated by the police just like any other revolutionaries. Despite Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s absurd rhetoric, the police and the population haven't lost their nerve. If the events can be brought to an end more or less peacefully, France will wake up and say to itself: this revolt doesn't mean the failure of the French model. On the contrary, it shows that it works. Because that's what we call assimilation in French. (Interview Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 12.11.2005, quoted here)

I have the impression that statement like this have become a kind of staple argument among progressive thinkers. Thus Ulrich Bech too argues that the riots are not caused by a lack of integration. On the contrary:

These assimilated youths whose parents were immigrants scarcely differ in their desires and attitudes from their peers in their country of immigration. They are closely affiliated. And this is precisely what makes the racism of their exclusion so terribly bitter for these very heterogenous youth groups, and so scandalous for everyone else. The paradox is this: a lack of integration in the parent generation defuses, and successful integration of the second generation intensifies the problems and conflicts. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 15.11.2005, quoted here)

Similarly Sébastien Peyrat claims that the young rioters are inspired more by the slogans of the French revolution – freedom, equality and brotherhood – than by the traditions of their countries of origin (Dagens Nyheter 2005-11-04).

These arguments might seem striking, but I can’t help feeling that they are rather empty of content – like so many readymade rejoinders you can use in a debate. The reason is that what counts are French (or Swedish, German or European) values is itself highly malleable and that the very constitution of a “tradition” can only be made in retrospect. Today the labour movement is certainly considered to be in agreement with fundamental European values, but was it a hundred years ago? How fundamental were the values of freedom and equality in 1789? Here’s a harder nut for you to crack: was the autonomia movement in Italy in the 70’s in agreement with European “tradition”? Were the black panthers in agreement with American democracy? In fact, the very idea of a “tradition”, or reassuring people that nothing fundamental is changing or that the riots don’t really challenge anything fundamental, is an anti-concept. It is an anti-concept since it is too blunt, too empty and too malleable to be used as a tool for thinking.

Let me point out that my intention is not to criticize Todd or Beck or anyone else in particular, only a certain rhetorical figure, a kind of staple argument that I think is being heard perhaps a little bit too often by critics on the Left and which I think is unhelpful for the simple reason that it cannot withstand being thought about.

So how should culture be thought about? Here is my suggestion: rather than seeing the riots as caused by cultural essences or by anomie, and rather than seeing them simply as a continuation of a “revolutionary” European tradition stemming from 1789, I would like to see them quite simply as the expression of a process of cultural creation. As Todd explains, they originate in the encounter with local European values and circumstances. They don’t spring out of any finished ethnic communities. They don’t reflect action patterns or norms of the countries of origin. They are ad hoc, created here. The creation of novelty is reflected in the emergence of new languages and of new solidarities based on the shared sense of marginalization and exclusion. Leaving the banlieus, they enter France. Leaving Rinkeby or Angered or Rosengård, they enter Sweden. If progressives stress the fundamental agreement between this process of cultural creation and the host societies, it can just as well be interpreted as a move towards autonomy, in the sense of being an attempt to walk for oneself, without maps or models. The rioters are not driven by hatred of the West, but neither are they “integrated”. What do I know about the wonderful variety of tongues in which they get their ideas? Freedom from the spectacle – isn’t that the flip side of not being “successfully integrated”?

But I won’t end here. What could I reply to a person who pointed out that an autonomy marked by misery, poverty, criminality, violence, war, unemployment, escalating prejudice and conflict would be crippled, never free of anomie or the drawbacks of exclusion? To revolt may be good and justified, but won’t it antagonize the inhabitants or the surrounding mainstream society, inflaming racism and prejudice? But is the response of mainstream society really the responsibility of the rioters? Isn’t the question of how mainstream "Swedes" or “French” should react a question the members of these mainstream populations ought to pose to themselves? I don’t have any illusions. I am sure that many Swedes who could have sympathized or identified with rebellious youngsters of their own colour – thinking “this could have been me” or “this could have been my children” – are unable to feel the same closeness to immigrants. But even if I don’t have illusions, I have hope. I hope that despite the geographical and cultural distance that separates them from the refugee, they will still be able to think that this could have been me. I wasn’t born in Afghanistan or Bosnia. I wasn’t born a Jew under Hitler, but I could have been - if fate had willed differently. In another time or another place, I could have been anyone of the people I am now in a position to help. Now let me finish with a piece of preaching: whenever you feel threatened by someone, ask yourself if you would like to change places with him. If not, is he really an enemy?

References

Inoue, Shun (1985) “A Choice of Nightmares: On Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”, pp 335-49, Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 6.

Kepel, Gilles (2004) The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, Cambridge, Mass. & London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Lapeyronnie, Didier (2006) “Primitive Revolt in the French Banlieues: Essay on the Fall 2005 Riots”

Todd, Emmanuel (2005) ”Interwiew on the ’French riots’”

The Riots 5: Three dominant interpretations (plus a fourth)

Looking at writings about suburban unrest in France 2005 or in Sweden today, I think one can discern three predominant interpretations. I'd like to call them the progressive, the culturalist and the security interpretation.

The progressive interpretation is propably familiar to many. It emphasizes the structural socio-economic roots of the riots. The outburst of violence is caused by discrimination and exclusion, and the violence is a misguided expression of frustration and a hidden plea for help. The solution consists in reforms to enhance inclusion, socio-economic equality and a general promotion of tolerance of difference.

This interpretation is challenged from the right by the culturalist and the security arguments. Together these arguments form the core of a nebulous mixture, in which structuralist and individual-centered factors are both emphasized. “Culture” is used as a structural explanatory variable to challenge the progressive emphasis on economy or class, while “security” is introduced to reframe the riots in individualist fashion, as caused by professional trouble-makers or criminals. The riots are thus partly blamed on culture, thus justifying the call for a more restrictive immigration policy, and partly on the recklessness of gangs, which need to be controlled by a more massive police effort.
The best example of this confused mixture is probably Alain Finkelkraut, who manages to claim both that the rioters in the French banlieus 2005 were cultural fanatics driven by hatred of the West and that they were spoiled brats who only desired the consumer items, the brand goods and the girls they saw on television (Finkelkraut 2005; for the context of these statements see Shurkin 2006). This inconsistency doesn’t matter, of course, since the point he wants to drive home is that they are uninterested in public welfare or better schools and that the Leftists who see the riots as a revolt against discrimination or unemployment are wrong.
For some reason, the strength of this rightist discourse hasn't suffered from its internal tensions. What is happening is rather that voices on the right use their own lack of consistency to jump swiftly between individualism and structuralism according to occasion, either relying on a "security" interpretation that stresses the criminality of the rioters in order to justify the more resources to the police, or on a "culturalist" interpretation that blames the “culture” of the immigrants in order to justify restrictions on immigration.

Let us have a closer look at what the conjunction of structural and individual factor implies in reality. The “security” interpretation can be exemplified by Sarkozy’s statement at the time of the Paris riots 2005:

The primary cause of unemployment, of despair, of violence in the banlieus, it isn’t discrimination, it isn’t failure of the education system. The primary cause of despair in the neighborhoods, it’s drug trafficking, the rule of gangs, the dictatorship of fear and the abandonment by the republic. (Le Monde, 22 November 2005:12, quoted in Dikec 2007:166)

Here the problem is viewed above all in terms of security and the solution is located in enhanced policing and a stricter enforcement of law and order. A defining characteristic of the security interpretation is the denial of structural factors. As soon as the few real culprits are arrested, the rest of the immigrant population will be integrated peacefully, maybe even be grateful to the state and the police for protecting them from the vandalization of their neighborhood. Arguments along these lines are plentiful also concerning the recent outburst of violence in Sweden. “Society must stand up forcefully for law and order, not least to protect the majority of the inhabitants”, Dagens nyheter wrote at the time of the Rosengård riots, “That the recent riots have taken on such a violent character is partly because of the participation of professional troublemakers – football hooligans and so called autonomous Leftists” (”Malmö rämnar”, DN, 2008-12-21). “One should remember that it’s all about younger kids incited by one or at most a few older ones. It turns out again and again that things calm down when you remove the leader”, a Gothenburg police officer states in another newspaper article, which also quotes a local politician who claims that there is no general conflict behind the disturbances, which are linked to individuals ("Hisingen inget nytt Rosengård", DN, 2009-08-20).

As long as politicians and others choose to rely solely on the "security" interpretation, the resulting picture may appear rather innocuous. Just provide the police with some more resources, and the problem will disappear. However, as a moment of reflection will tell us, conservatives often embrace a “culturalist” interpretation in addition to the "security" interpretation. The common prejudice that “foreigners are criminal” is only the most blatant example of this mixture.

Now this is important. Let us think for a moment about what it means. Isn’t there a risk that these two arguments in conjunction will imply a far more virulent and explosive mixture than each of the two arguments taken separately? In my view, this is undeniable. It means that one deploys the police to use its "legitimate force" to solve a structural problem – structural and hence endless, since the police will never be able to get to the root of the problem. This can only mean a declaration of perpetual and endless war against the immigrant population. The police’s task is no longer saving the this population from a few culprits, but intimidating and controlling it as a whole on a daily basis. Force is no longer used as a temporary measure to restore the system, but becomes part of the system itself in the form of an institutionalization of harassment against an entire segment of the population simply by virtue of its ethnicity. I think it is fair to call this fascism. So far, this fascist option may not be official state policy. But it has many adherents and who can deny that it is de facto implemented by the police, customs officials and guards on innumerable occasions?

In addition to the three interpretations above, I wonder if there is not room for an additional argument on the Left besides the progressive or social democratic one. My aim is to grope for such an interpretation. Let’s call it the “autonomy” interpretation. It is an interpretation that the rioters are rioting for the pleasure of rioting rather than out of a sense of victimhood, for the pleasure of being able for once to shape their own lives, for the pleasure of being able to hit back at the police and make fools of them and laugh at them, for the pleasure of the freedom they momentarily create, for the pleasure of proving that one is neither weak nor intimidated; that the riots are a way for them to reassert their independence, pride and ability to enjoy life in the midst of exclusion. I am not saying that the rioters are really thinking like this. What I am suggesting is that such an understanding seems more helpful than the others mentioned above to grasp many of the aspects of the riots. I am also suggesting that the rioters are deserving of at least some measure of respect. That they should be respected even when they don't behave like victims.

This interpretation is also detached from structural factors in the sense that it highlights the importance of agency, a will that is free to choose and create, rather than viewing people as the passive puppets of structure. In this sense it resembles the security interpretation. It is, however, eminently compatible with structural interpretations, both of a socio-economic and a cultural kind. The riots may not be reflection of the material basis, but they may be response to it. When you revolt against an intolerable structure, you address it, you call it intolerable and you say "Enough!", but that doesn't mean that the revolt can be predicted from it. If it is truly creative, it always comes as a surprise. As Alberto Toscano once stated, "the rebel is the one who gives rise to the exception". I agree. True creativity is not impossible, even if it may appear impossible from the point of view of structure. As for culture, autonomy implies the creation and defense of independent lifestyles and resistance against the culture of mainstream society or the "spectacle" with its representations and ready-made roles. Almost by definition, riots driven by a quest for autonomy will therefore become "culture wars", although in a sense totally different from that in which conservatives or nationalists use the term.

Are you objecting that the rioters are also asking local politicians for space for leisure activities, work and perhaps also other forms of welfare benefits, and that they can therefore hardly be aspiring for autonomy? Well, in my view such demands don’t necessarily have to be made from a standpoint of victimhood. Pursuing a free and real life is not incompatible with strategically demanding whatever benefits and guarantees of survival one may get. Demands don’t have to be understood as pleas or beggary. Rights can be won and benefits can be spoils of war. In a country like Sweden, with a long tradition of a proud and strong labor movement that always rejected the posture of “asking with cap in hand”, this lack of modesty should surely not be viewed as too unbecoming. Why not let the progressive and autonomy interpretations join hands against the amalgam of culturalist and security interpretations on the right?


References:

Dikec, Mustafa (2007) Badlands of the Republic: Space, Politics, and Urban Policy, Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.

Finkelkraut, Alain (2005) “La voix "très déviante" d’Alain Finkielkraut au quotidien ’Haaretz’”, interview by Dror Mishani and Aurelia Smotriez, English translation here.

Shurkin, Michael (2006) “France’s Jewish Prophets: Alain Finkielkraut, Albert Memmi, and the Looming Crisis of Liberalism”, ZEEK, May 06

Toscano, Alberto, ”Religion and Revolt”, published on seconds.

The Riots 4: Vignettes

This will be a descriptive and fragmentary entry (too fragmentary to be called a montage). I'll start with a brief description of what happened in Rosengård (part of Malmö in southern Sweden)in December 2008. That will be followed by three vignettes from the riot and the aftermath, which I think will give a taste both of the atmosphere during the riots and of how the mass media reported them. The first of these is a translation of a newspaper article with a few comments added. The final two ones are shorter. They are based on newspaper articles and concern the police.

I.
The riots broke out shortly before Christmas in December 2008. They were triggered by conflict involving the refusal of a landlord to renew the contract of a basement used as a mosque by the Salafist Islamic Culture Society. For three days we saw things on the news which were reminiscent of the Paris riots 2005 or the recent riots in Greece: cars and trucks overturned and set on fire, burning telephone booths and recycling stations, vandalized gasoline stations, damaged police vehicles and clashes in the night with hordes of young people attacking the police and the fire brigade with stones, eggs, fireworks rockets and homemade bombs. Buses were cancelled and the traffic on the major road through the area was stopped as hundreds of young people started attacking cars with stones from an overpass. Thirty or so members of autonomous groups rallied to the area to participate in the clashes. No one was hurt, but seventeen young people were taken into custody. Acts of arson and attacks against the fire brigades continued for a half a year after the riots.

II.
Here is my translation of an article published in Dagens nyheter.

A meeting with power an evening without fires
As the sun sets over Rosengård the young start to gather as usual outside the drug store in Herrgården. A kilometer away the fire brigade at Jägersro fire station is waiting for the first alarm from Rosengård. But tonight there is no alarm. Yesterday evening the recycling station next to the drug store was burnt down to the ground. Nothing remains but the charred stone foundation and a container with some soot-covered remains.
“We needed to warm ourselves”, one of the youngsters outside the drug store says and holds out his hands as towards a fire. The other 10-15 youngsters laugh in agreement.
Dagens nyheter [the newspaper] has brought Ilmar Reepalu to Herrgården to hear his explanation of the constant fires and attacks on policemen and fire fighters. The reportage takes a new turn as we are stopped by youngsters, who are eager to talk.
“What’s your name”, the kid who appears to be leader in the group asks.
“My name’s Ilmar”
“What’s your job?”
“I try to run this city”
Ilmar Reepalu is the chairman of the municipal government since many years back and a social democratic politician.
“We’d need a space for leisure activities. Why not where the mosque used to be!”, the leader who introduced himself as Kalle says. “And we also need new recycling stations to warm ourselves”.
Loud laughter. The youngster are cocky but definitely not unfriendly. They don’t know who Reepalu is, no one reads Swedish newspapers here. But when he answers to one of their questions by saying that, yes, he’s met Fredrik Reinfeldt [the prime minister], they start to realize that he’s some kind of big shot. Not that they’re impressed, but they start listening.
“We need a space for leisure activities for us who are over 16 years”, Kalle continues.
“Burning down a recycling station is not the way you get a space for leisure activities. Things don’t work like that”, Reepalu answers.
”We do it our way. Nobody listens to us”, one of the youngsters says.
“You know why all this happened in Rosengård”, another says, “It’s because the police harasses us. They took my little brother who’s only fifteen and when he got home his face was all bruised up”. The youngsters return again and again to the harassments by the police and claim that this is the reason for the fires of the last weeks.
“But why do you attack the fire brigade”, Reepalu asks.
“We didn’t! We threw stones at the police”.
“It can’t be very fun for you yourselves if there are fires all the time in your own neighborhood”, Reepalu says. “It may be fun right now while it lasts, but not later. Tell me what you want to do yourselves to improve things here”.
Kalle draws his breath to start a small speech: “Ilmar, let me tell you something. We don’t have any expectations here. I don’t think things will be better. I tell you that straightaway. Do you know why? Well, we’ve talked to journalists, to the police and with the municipality. But nothing happens. Not a single stone has been changed. Look at that”, he says and points at a house behind a high fence. “Everything is just brown, brown, brown”.
“If you got some paint would you paint it and make it nicer?”
“If you can fix work to all of us here in Rosengård no one’ll destroy anything”
Suddenly the cocky tone subsides and the youngsters start listening intently.
“Are you ready to work here”, Reepalu asks.
“We all are”, they reply all at the same time.
“But not cleaning up!”
“Who’s going to do that then?”
“The municipality”
This time it’s Reepalu’s turn to laugh.
Kalle writes down his name and telephone number on a piece of paper and hands it to Reepalu. He promises to contact the local landlord to hear if they are interested in engaging the younsters.
“If I make it nice here and a kid comes and tries to burn it down, I’ll hit him”, Kalle says by way of conclusion.
As Dagens Nyheter and Reepalu leave the youngsters a middle-aged man calls out to us.
“You’ve just talked to the ones who’re destroying Rosengård! They’re idiots, raised in the forest instead of at home. Their parents haven’t taught them respect for humanity. They’re the one who plant all the fires”.
But this night there are no fires in Rosengård.
(“Möte med makten en kväll utan brand”, DN, 2009-03-26)

The tone in this reportage is carefully optimistic, almost sunny. But this carefully optimistic account should be read in a carefully pessimistic way, against the background of a massive reporting about the problems of Rosengård. Malmö as a whole has the greatest proportion of poor children in the country and in Rosengård, where more than 94% of the children are of foreign background, 76% of the children are classified as poor. This poverty reflects that of their households. In Rosengård 38% of the inhabitants work, to be compared with 78% in wealthier parts of Malmö. The proportion of children or young in Rosengård is far higher than average. According to a report published in April 2009, half of the area’s inhabitants are below 26 years, to be compared to 31% for the country as a whole (DN 2009-04-22). In school, their results are markedly below the average for the city as a whole. The reportage mentions spaces for leisure. One reason that such spaces are lacking is that far more people are living in Rosengård than the area was planned for. Living in overcrowded apartments, young kids are often forced outside where they drift around with little else to do (girls by contrast tend to stay at home and 58% of women in the age interval 20-25 years are already mothers, as compared to 10% for the country as a whole) (These statistics are gathered from various articles in DN from 2008 onwards; I’m not sure if they are wholly accurate but they will serve to give a general picture).
Another thing that strikes me in the reportage is the clarity with which the youngsters tell Reepalu what they want. They want more space for leisure activities, they want work and they’re fed up with police harassments. I found myself wondering why so many commentators persist in describing the riots as nothing but blind violence and the rioters as lacking in political self-awareness and unable to articulate their demands. A scurry of theories exist about what the rioters want. Some appear to be totally unfounded (perhaps I will have reason to return to these later). Others appear to be derived mainly from ideological standpoints – the idea of the riots as a protest against neoliberalism or as a slap in the face of “Western culture”. I’m not saying here that ideology is necessarily false, but the problem with ideologically derived formulas is that they can be constructed without much help of reality. Political views will of course always influence how one views what is happening in society, but when it comes to interpretations of people’s motivations I prefer those that listen to what the people in question are saying to those that don’t even bother to ask. The material I’ve read so far contains very little of such listening (although I’ll of course go on looking for more), but what I think this article shows is that the young rioters don’t lack any political awareness at all. As far as I can see they are very clear about their demands. Who said you must mention neoliberalism or “Western values” to have political awareness? Furthermore, the demands seem perfectly reasonable. The riddle doesn’t consist in the young rioters’ political awareness. It consists in the fact that these perfectly reasonable demands are refused or not heard and that those who put forward them are branded as extremists.

III.
Three young people are prosecuted for participating in the riot. Sequences from a film are shown in count in February 2009 as evidence against one of the youngsters. The film was made by the police during the riots from inside a police van and, unfortunately for the policemen, reveals not only the acts of some young activists but also an embarrassing conversation between the policemen, as they are talking in heavy southern Swedish accent while driving.

“I agree with the old man at Ica [a supermarket] in Vellinge: ‘you’ve come to the wrong municipality, dagos”.
“That fucking little monkey [Den lille jävla apajäveln]. Should I make him sterile when I get him?” Someone laughs and a colleague adds:
“Yeah, we’ll give him a treatment so he won’t be able to stand on his legs when we’re finished”. (Elin Fjellman Jaderup, Lugna Gatan: "Hatet blir större". Sydsvenskan, 2009-02-06)

As this was shown on the TV news, many were of course scandalized. The policemen, however, were not judged to have done anything incorrect. Some tried to excuse the policemen by pointing out that the word “monkey” (apa) referred to a particularly aggressive member of the Anti-Fascist Action (afa). In my view, this doesn’t excuse anything. The police shouldn’t make anyone sterile, not even a political activist. I was also intrigued by the fact that these policemen recorded the entire thing themselves and handed over the film to the court, obviously oblivious of the scandal that would ensue. Do we have here some variant of the Abu Ghraib-syndrome of soldiers or policemen being so brutalized by their business that they start filming or photographing their own violations in the belief that they are something fully normal and acceptable? Or were they simply stupid?

IV.
Let me add by a piece of news which I think is significative of the restoration of order. In August 2009, the Malmö police had been patrolling Herrgården in Rosengård for four months, 24 hours a day, at foot, by car and on horseback, and a local headquarters has been set up in a van. “We are tremendously grateful”, a fire fighter at the nearby fire station says. As a result of the surveillance, the number of arsons has declined rapidly. “Above all we haven’t been victims of violence or threats a single time since the surveillance started”, the fire fighter adds, “That grown-ups in the area now have the courage to show their support for us is perhaps even more important. As late as yesterday I was out fixing a water leakage and people came up to me and thanked me and in general showed their appreciation. That is something they wouldn’t have done half a year ago”. The article adds that the support of local residents for the police was demonstrated a week ago, when a group of autonomous activists planned a street party in Herrgården under the slogan “Reclaim Herrgården”. “The residents went out and told the black-dressed hooligans ‘Get away, we don’t want any trouble in our neighborhood’”. (“Polisinsats har gjort Rosengård lugnare”, DN, 2009-08-28).

The Riots 3: Badiou

Let me jump back to France 2005. A number of interpretations exist of the riots in the cités and banlieus. Alain Badiou’s is one of the most convincing I’ve encountered so far. He states something which upon reading it sounds very self-evident:

It is above all against the ideology of security [sécuritaire] and against the incessant police harassment that these kids are rising up, against the cops in the estates who everywhere and at all times exert their control, with insults and intimidations, even of kids of 13 or 14. (Badiou 2005a).

This is the gist of his analysis. They are rising against the police, against harassment and against daily humiliation. To illustrate these humiliations, he gives a vivid account of his adopted black son’s life:

I can’t even count the number of times he’s been stopped by the police. Innumerable - there is no other word. Arrested: six times! In 18 months. What I mean by arrested is when you are taken, in handcuffs, to the police station, when you are insulted, latched to a bench, left there for hours, sometimes kept for a day or two. For nothing. (Badiou 2005b)

Surely it’s easy for anyone with even the slightest darker skin than the average European to empathize with Badiou here and to share his indignation at the “omnipresent checking/questioning and the interruptions of their normal lives” which many immigrants have to endure.

A noteworthy point is the total and absolute support he gives the young rioters, unlike the Socialist or Communist parties and many others on the Left, whom he accuses of paralysis.

The youth must not be left to face the police alone. It is necessary to rise up against the police harassment of which they are the object. Parents must stand side by side with them.(Badiou 2005a)

We should note that he is far from romanticizing the riot. Burning cars and pelting the police with stones is not the way to stop the power of financial capital or “the politics of Sarkozy, Villepin and Chirac”. But far from arguing, as many others on the Left, that the riots are therefore confused and lacking in political awareness, he gives them his full support. No matter how misguided the riots may be when it comes to combating neoliberalism, the pure and simply anger at the endless daily insults and humiliations and the desire to get back at the police is enough to justifiy them. This anger is just, and parents should be with their children in the face of the police, not against them.

The reason that I sympathize with Badiou’s argument is not only emotional. Another reason is that, as far as I can judge, he is attentive to what the young rioters say themselves – that they are tired of police harassment – and he treats them with enough respect and fairness to take them at their word. How refreshing, compared to the stereotypical explanations we’ve been used to hearing – that the rioters are fighting a cultural war or even some form of jihad (commentators on the Right) or that they are fighting for economic reasons or a more welfare (commentators on the Left)!

A second reason is that Badiou helps us to recognize pride as a legitimate source of protest. Burning cars makes much more sense if seen as motivated by pride – by a desire to get back at the police, demonstrate one’s power and restore respect – than if motivated by economic victimization or cultural fanaticism. To burn one’s own neighborhood is reckless and irresponsible from the point of view both of economic utility and traditional ethics, but it makes better sense as a manifestation of pride – as a way of saying, “We are not victims, we are masters of this area, and we do as we please”. Whereas many commentators on the Left by reflex regard the immigrants as victims, this is a label which the rioters themselves would probably reject with scorn, at least to the extent that they are driven by pride (that in turn may be a reason why pride is not a very popular explanation of the riots among well-meaning politicians). I seldom find myself in agreement with Baudrillard, but I like this passage:

All the excluded, the disaffiliated, whether from the banlieues, immigrants or ‘native-born’, at one point or another turn their disaffiliation into defiance and go onto the offensive. It is their only way to stop being humiliated, discarded or taken in hand. In the wake of the November fires, mainstream political sociology spoke of integration, employment, security. I am not so sure that the rioters want to be reintegrated on these lines. Perhaps they consider the French way of life with the same condescension or indifference with which it views theirs. Perhaps they prefer to see cars burning than to dream of one day driving them. (Baudrillard 2006:7)

As I mention here and elsewhere a curious blindness seems to persist about what motivated the riots, which are sometimes portrayed as a kind of riddle. Take for instance Negri's statement: "This movement does not yet know what it wants". But as Badiou points out, it seems to know very well what it wants. The riots are acts of vengeance, animated by moral indignation. The riots in France 2005 were triggered by the death of two teenagers who tried to escape the police. Deaths resulting from perceived police injustice or police brutality also triggered the riots in Watts 1965, Detroit 1967, Tottenham 1985, Vaux-en-Velin 1990, Bristol 1992, L.A. 1992, and Greece 2008 – to mention only some of the most well-known cases (for more on the history of these riots, see Lapeyronnie 2006 or Wacquant 2006). This is a repeated pattern. We can turn to the riot in Kamagasaki last year for a similar example in Japan: although no-one died, this riot too was triggered by police brutality. In other words, Badiou's interpretation is not the least far-fetched. It's almost embarrassingly self-evident. He didn't need to think to arrive at it. He only needed to listen.



References:

Badiou, Alain (2005a) “On Riots that Come After Pain”, Infinite Thought (tr. of the first part of Badiou's piece from Le Monde 15 November 2005) http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/2005/11/badious-lorganisation-politique-on.asp

Badiou, Alain (2005b) “Daily Humiliation” (tr. of piece from Le Monde), http://lecolonelchabert.blogspot.com/2005/11/badiou.html

Baudrillard, Jean (2006) “The Pyres of Autumn”, pp 5-7, New Left Review 37, January-February; http://newleftreview.org/A2595; accessed 2009-09-16.

Lapeyronnie, Didier (2006) “Primitive Revolt in the French Banlieues: Essay on the Fall 2005 Riots”

Wacquant, Loïc J.D. (2006) “The Return of the Repressed: Riots, ‘Race’ and Dualization in three advanced societies”, pp 18-31, Monu: Magazine on Urbanism Vol. 5 July

The Riots 2: A bitingly cold day in 2003...

I take the bike to Rosengård, my first visit. Curiosity at finally getting a closer look at the notorious suburb with its jarred skyline. The cars plunge into the tunnel-like passage under a huge overpass, on top of which a big super market has been erected - an imposing structure which as I try to recall it take on the hazy features of a crumbled pyramid of grey desert stone. This is the big main street which shoots into the ward, or perhaps shoots out of it like a long grey tongue which it sticks out at the rest of society. That’s about as much as I’ve seen of Rosengård until now, but this time I enter it on a winding bicycle road and I’m struck by how beautifully planned the area appears. The towering buildings are thinly spread out in a gently sloping area covered with green lawns and checkered by a network of undulating paths and walkways. Between them are playgrounds. Here and there are small drug stores and kiosks with curious names like Babylon Food. I see many children. A family is out for a walk: a wrinkled elderly man with a white moustache and grim look, a woman in head dress.

I take a quick glance inside the new super market, "City Gross", its logo written in big blue and yellow characters, the colors of the Swedish flag. What's the need of such an obtrusive national statement, I thought. The absurdity of it all. I'm reminded of the function of flags to mark sovereignty in a contested terrain. It's like the reception of the Migration Board which I once visited, where the immigrants are greeted by an enormous portrait of the Swedish king, sternly smiling and in military uniform. Michael Billig once wrote a book about what he called "banal nationalism", by which he meant the "normal" and unobtrusive flagging of nationality in everyday life which no one hardly ever notices and which people don't tend to regard as connected with nationalism at all. Billig's point, I think, is that such nationalism is not harmless at all, since it easily turns into more overt and aggressive forms of nationalism in times and places of need. Now what happens in places like Rosengård or the Migration Board is that banal nationalism becomes impossible. Here the flag almost by necessity loses its innocence and becomes a symbol of a more strident and overt nationalism. At the same time, it grows to monumental, grotesque proportions, assmuming forms that would be in bad taste elsewhere. It becomes a boot in the face. Perhaps the reason that I'm so disturbed by discovering these portraits and billboards is that they offer a kind of creepy and monstrous closeup of the nationalism which also pervades the rest of society in a more banal and seemingly more harmless form. The creepiness of the king's smile derives from the fact that it is far from a mere smile. It is interlaced by a layer of implicit messages: Firstly, there is the innocuous "Welcome", which I presume may be the official meaning. Secondly, the portrait functions as a "flag", as a marker of territory, and hence of another meaning: "Don't forget where you are, this is Sweden". The third meaning is: "Here where we identify as Swedes, even if we do not always say so openly". I think of the sheer impudence of such a message, especially to people who have come here as refugees from across half the globe...

At City Gross everything seems big, larger than man: the buildings, the stacks of merchandise, the parking lot outside, the roads, society… Apart from the blue and yellow, it’s grey and feels grey. Big, boring, and meaningless, like the deafening traffic below. But close by in a few winding corridors is a bazaar-like market, which delights me with its colorful kitsch, glittering furniture and articles in gold and pink, plastic paintings of Mecca, exotic music CD’s – and above all its human scale. There are even some old men playing chess.

In this area, the Rosengård riots broke out shortly before Christmas in December 2008. More about them next time.

The Riots 1: Stones and fires

This entry will be about the recent news from Sweden: in the major cities the suburbs are on fire, we hear of burning cars, fire squads attacked by stone throwing youth, and arrests... In Gothenburg around a 100 cars are reported to have burned only this last month. In Stockholm and Malmö there are said to be fire incidents practically every night and the last few weeks the phenomenon has spread to Uppsala.

Let me state at once that I don't really know anything about this problem. In any case, I know far from enough. My first impulse as I read the news is that I should go there, listen to people, read the research. This is simply a problem which I feel is so serious that I want to understand it better. My only hope in writing this entry is that my haphazardly gathered information will yield some form of pattern, a clue to some future possible understanding. People who already know something about this problem should probably stop reading right now, since I don't want to waste their time (or perhaps they could give me a helpful comment).

Why do I feel it is so serious? Not only because of the violence, or the pain and anger which these actions seem to express, and not only because of my concern for the crisis faced by the welfare state and its unsuccesful integration policy. Isn't it also a question of urgency for many social movement activists and intellectuals? Who is posing the most radical challenge to mainstream society today? Is the "precarity" movement really a movement for the most marginalized? Isn't it time that we face up to the fact that immigrants setting fire to a car or throwing stones may represent a better example of "dissent" in Rancière's sense than a movement calling for "another world"? Is solidarity with such a politics possible? Is it desirable?

Banlieus on fire is of course not only a Swedish phenomenon. In future entries I will try to present some material, background facts and interpretations. Most will concern Sweden (in particular Rosengård in Malmö), but I will also try to check up material on similar incidents elsewhere.

To be continued...