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Culture and Conflict
No. 6, Summer 1992
Urban Violence
Concerning the prolongation of urban riots, the first requirement is the analysis of urban violence present at large in western societies. What are the reasons for the violence in the cities of France, the United Kingdom or the United States ? Discussion should include politics, transnational relations and the dynamics of violence occurring during confrontations between police forces and so-called ethnic groups. Perhaps a better understanding of the reasons for the emergence of violence may come through " intermediate " theories, that is, less general and more related to the specific context of the particular events, the representations and the values of the actors.
Violence is not a homogeneous phenomenon, neither in its manifestations, nor in its significance. Regarding youth and violence, the article draws four categories, each having different causes and meanings. The first is " normal " violence which has become more acute insofar as it is no longer rooted in traditional regulations. The second belongs to a fractured society where the young defend their " territory ". The third is the " utilitarian " delinquency. The fourth - " angry violence " - is due to the absence of social conflict. Each of these categories needs to be interpreted differently and calls for different reactions.
In the United States, violence is linked to the creation of the nation and to its culture. In the past this violence was purposeful and, perhaps with the exception of race riots, usually controlled. Today's urban violence is rising and expresses despair, alienation and self-destruction to an extent that seems uncontrollable. Drug and arms traffic are constantly increasing in zones more or less abandoned by authorities and by society in general. The population of these zones is growing, characterised by a strong feeling of forming a community apart, and urban democracy has virtually disappeared. Thus violence is the ultimate message sent by these " emancipated " groups to the rest of America. Although there are numerous resemblances with certain situations in Europe, the present socio-economic context makes the United States a case apart.
Could urban riots on the scope of those that swept through the United States in the sixties - and more recently in Los Angeles - or through Great Britain in the eighties, occur in France ? To answer this question, a study is made of the process of growth of individual grievances and their combination into a type of mobilisation producing mass violence. A careful examination shows that it is the police that stands in the centre of the process : through its methods of dealing with crime ; the racist attitude and brutality of some of its officers ; its symbolic role in modern societies : collective violence is created by and against it. Urban riots are in fact mainly anti-police riots.
European societies have undergone a profound change as the reappearance of a marginal urban population, exclusions and riots show. Since the end of the 19th century, there existed a clearly defined model of integrated society, regulated by the institutions and composed of " modern " individuals. Minorities, such as workers and immigrants, were thus integrated into known socio-national groups. Today this model is dead - the correspondence between the economy and culture no longer exists. Socio-national integration has burst asunder, torn apart between an excluding economy, and a culture with an expanded " absorptive " capacity. Behavioural patterns have become discretionary, diversified and individualised. They no longer fit into traditional channels. The image of an increasing integration into a modern society has disappeared and is replaced by a post-national pattern of social segregation, estranged from any sense of progress and adversely affected by the traditional political categories.
The " hot summer " of 1981 in Les Minguettes produced a new form of governmental intervention in the urban tissue. The institutionalisation of urban policy was consecrated in 1988 by the creation of a " Délégation Ministérielle à la Ville " (Urban Affairs Department) dealing with matters as unrelated between them as public works, housing and civil rights. The author analyses the components of urban violence and warns of the danger of falling into journalistic simplifications, such as comparing the ephemeral and unstructured groupings of young people with the gangs of major American cities. Three general conclusions can be drawn from 10 years of experience : the failure of local inhabitants to participate effectively, with a tendency towards the creation of a " riot culture ", but also of local associations against riots ; the collapse of governmental on the spot action ; the inability of central administrations to adapt themselves to local demands. Governmental reaction at the national level has been faithful to a politico-administrative tradition : in France, when things go wrong, one creates a Ministry.
In former days, violence was the anti-language between two worlds : the modern world and the world of the excluded. In today's Brazilian cities, violence is the only language of society. There is thus a break, rather than continuity, with the recent past. The article examines the new forms of violence and studies different hypotheses explaining the generalisation of this phenomenon as a means of regulating human interaction.