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Extreme Violence
Still the eternal drop in the ocean
I have an hour to write this post.
Anyway, I'll get to it. I read the news about the death this morning of Clément Méric, a student at Sciences Po and also a far-left activist, beaten to death last night by fascists in my town; just a few breaths away, in a neighbourhood I've been walking through regularly since my teens.
Like everyone else, I have other things to do. I have work to do; I have to rest from the work I have done. But I'm writing these few lines, which are not likely to change anything about the murderous stupidity of some of my fellow human beings, because I have to stop for an hour; because it happened yesterday while we were all elsewhere, busy elsewhere. Because it happened in my city. Because it's happening again and again, right now, everywhere. Because there is no place in the world where it is not happening; where it has not happened; where it will not happen. Because it makes me sick with sadness, fear, disgust, hate and violence. Because I'm nauseated by their violence. Yes, of their violence, which is not mine. I don't like recuperation, nor the usual good feelings, but we have to stop saying or letting it be said that everything is the same; that it also happens on the left, that all extremes are the same. This is false, very false, harmful and dangerous. The xenophobic, homophobic, ultra-violent extreme right is the extreme right and nothing else. Skinheads don't come from anywhere else, they don't refer to anything else, they don't claim any ideology other than that of the extreme right and Nazism. And I don't want to be reminded, between two remarks on the weather, that "Nazi" is the contraction of Nationalsozialismus and that there is "socialism" in its etymology. No, whatever the demagogic seduction strategy of a hateful, mediocre and ambitious Hitler was to achieve his ends, it is indeed on the extreme right today that his legacy and his followers are located. Because we are talking about today, last night, this morning, and we cannot hide behind history on every occasion. No, not all opinions are equal; not all postures are equivalent; not all thoughts implicitly support the same vile acts of infringement of basic rights. Yes, there are limits to freedom of expression and assembly when it allows the generation of "a priori hatred". A priori hatred" is not "hatred in reaction". It is based only on itself and its desire to assert the beliefs from which it springs. It is not a slap in the face after being hit; it is the fist that first strikes out to show that it is the strongest and that the other has no right to live. There is, running through the veins of our society, a latent war that our governments refuse to face; a clash of opinions that will have to be resolved in ways other than good words if we wish to avoid carnage. The desire to finesse out of political cowardice rather than out of a concern for fairness leads to a caricature of democracy itself. When gangrene gallops and gnaws away at flesh, taking advantage of the negligence of the caretakers, it is unfortunately necessary to amputate part of one's degraded limb. Democracy is not a principle of blissful attitude. I am one of those narrow-minded, undifferentiated and proud people who foolishly think that there is no crime without a murderer, no smoke without fire and no right-wing extremism... without a right-wing extremism.
I don't want to talk about the text which, in many respects, I support. I want to talk about this sentence: "Skinheads don't come from anywhere else, don't refer to anything else, don't claim any ideology other than that of the extreme right and of Nazism.
Identifying skinhead and Nazi is the same mistake as identifying, for example, gay and bear.
The skinhead movement is not a Nazi movement... But it is a movement where there are also Nazis - at one time, in England, they were called boneheads, to differentiate them from other skinheads. Other skinheads are sometimes extreme leftists - Redskins, S.H.A.R.P. (SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice), "Apos" (Like Apolitical), skinz (Or GaySkinz) and many others, ... Skinheads are even sometimes people of foreign origin who are consputed/beaten up by the Nazis
A bit of history - In 1969 ("The Skinhead Year"), skinheads were people living in England, coming from the working class and sharing certain ideas about how to change the world ("Since no one is doing anything for us, let's do something about it")... Also sharing a certain aesthetic (Far from being limited to a shaved head. There are even skinheads with long hair ; on this subject, the book "Skinheads" by Nick Knight is not bad), a love of black music (Generally of Jamaican origin) and, often, of football (When the English working class is unemployed, it goes to the pub and to the stadium?) Yes, skinheads used to hang out with the rudeboys (Yes, black people! To be politically correct, I should say "black"...) and there was no question of white supremacy.
Then, things evolved and the British National Front saw in this idle youth full of a desire to change things a perfect cannon fodder... A bit of propaganda later, the Nazi skinheads were born (on this subject, the film "Made In England" is not bad).
Some time later, the skinhead movement was imported into France. All types of skinheads can be found on our territory. But the media, because of the news, almost systematically associated skinheads with Nazis.
That's it.
And otherwise, thank you.
I sincerely thank you for these interesting and certainly very accurate historical details. I don't understand, however, beyond cultural differences and styles, how bears and gays are not linked by homosexuality, even if it is lived differently by one or the other. But perhaps there are bears who claim to be straight? It's very possible; I don't know. In any case, concerning skinheads and these few words about them, I obviously don't claim to be a historian, that goes without saying. On the contrary, and more importantly in my eyes, as specious as it may seem, I refute any historical argument, however judicious and exact it may be, as I say in the post, in order to situate myself exclusively today and according to my feeling in a perfect subjectivity. I am expressing my abhorrence of a right-wing "spirit". I fully understand that it may mean nothing to anyone else. I am a man of the stage and of images, again, and by no means a specialist in other fields. I'm glad you picked up on my error because it's important to be contradicted and for people who are better at talking about it to correct the "impressions" in favour of the facts. Nevertheless, we vote on a mere feeling, ignoring the real issues. Our lives are reduced to Manichean acts and we are forced to leave the reality of the background in the hands and minds of people trained to look at the real ins and outs. For my part, I make do with this feeling alone because it is neither more nor less accurate in the final analysis than proven facts. It is the product of their digestion by the collective unconscious and the individuals who form this collective. Knowing more about history will not prevent me from hating the arguments of the right, nor from finding those of the left often stupid. Simply because objectivity does not exist in the face of inner feeling. This is undoubtedly deplorable, but that's how it is. Having had a father who was very interested in history and yet often a falsifier, I know how much the interpretation one makes of it can change the situation. Even if I don't express it every time, it is only the spirit of things and my point of view on them that I express in these posts. There is a very complex history at the origin of each of our existences, yet it is not the reality of the facts that we appeal to in order to build ourselves, but our own analysis and feeling of the situations we have experienced. The terms are, of course, open to question, but I have often found that bringing their exact origins to the forefront only allows us to put things into perspective, to deflate the balloon and to make us conclude that we are a very poor species incapable of tempering our impulses, which we could do nothing about. I don't want the idea that there is no such thing as a spirit of goodness, whose limits must be scrupulously defined and defended, to be allowed to float in the air. For me, they exist; and "Nazi" is today less a reference to a political party than an equally precise image describing a way of being and thinking. Please believe me that I am not trying to throw the ball back at you with this response to your, once again, judicious and welcome argument. I'm simply trying to make explicit a redhibitory but salvific posture as far as I'm concerned, as I do on stage about other subjects. But is there any other in the end, for the human being, than the spirit of things? History itself is made up of the ignorant or erroneous interpretation of facts. Are they more real, well or poorly understood, than the dynamics that they compose and that lead to our lives? Were the revolutionaries of the National Convention well informed about the real personality of Louis XVI and the awareness he had of the scope of his actions when he was tried and condemned? If I were a judge, I would of course react differently, but not being one, I cannot think that objectivity can be a guide to the powerful and mobile feelings that animate people. After all, there must have been some nice Nazis, just a little too enthusiastic and sheepish? Too bad for them, I would say. So much for them, I'd say. Sorry for this long extrapolation and, in turn, thank you.