What turns working class people against each other?

[communard resolution]

This year, neo-nazi street violence in Russia has left behind more than 70 corpses and counting.

As for the UK, 27 teenagers were killed as a result of street violence in London alone (see link).

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20080926/tuk-27th-teenager-lost-to-city-violence-6323e80.htm

In the first instance, the explanation seems simple: mainstream politicians using nationalist rhethoric, media and neo-nazi groups agitating against immigrants, lack of employment opportunities leading to misdirected anger.

But the murders in the UK do not appear to be ethnically or "racially motivated", as they call it.

In both instances, the result is the same: young, predominately working class people assaulting other working class people to the point of murder, for no good reason, without any plausible motivation, and to no one's gain.

What are the reasons particularly in the UK? Are the two instances I cited closer related to one another than may appear at first glance? Or are these two different pairs of shoes?

[spartan]

In the major cities young kids usually form themselves into gangs who control their "territory" (ususally the limits of the council estate they reside in).

When members of other gangs go into a rival gang's "territory" they are set upon by the territories gang and usually stabbed (in some cases shot).

It's sad to say but most of the kids killing and being killed in youth street violence in the UK are black and this little fact hasn't been lost on far-right parties like the BNP who, with the help of their one elected member of the London assembly Richard Barnbrook, even tried forming a "mother's against knives" group before they found out the name was already taken!

This is as far as I know on this subject but I am sure there are members here who may know alot more.

Either way I think a friend of a boy recently murdered in London put it best when he said that crime and violence is getting way out of control, and that if you are walking down the street and look at someone the "wrong way", or they wrongly perceive you as looking at them the wrong way, they will just start on you.

[communard resolution]

In the major cities young kids usually form themselves into gangs who control their "territory" (ususally the limits of the council estate they reside in).

When members of other gangs go into a rival gang's "territory" they are set upon by the territories gang and usually stabbed (in some cases shot).

This seems to happen everywhere in the world, no matter what system. We had the same in Poland when I was a kid, but we never took it beyond fisticuffs or maybe throwing rocks at each other. Still, it was the same territorial 'our estate' mentality. But back then, Poland was still a part of the Eastern Bloc. Maybe this kind of territorialism and aggression have nothing to do with capitalism after all?

[redarmyfaction38]

This seems to happen everywhere in the world, no matter what system. We had the same in Poland when I was a kid, but we never took it beyond fisticuffs or maybe throwing rocks at each other. Still, it was the same territorial 'our estate' mentality. But back then, Poland was still a part of the Eastern Bloc. Maybe this kind of territorialism and aggression have nothing to do with capitalism after all?
this kind of behaviour, having been a "gang member"/"football hooligan" as a youth, comes from a lack of anything worth believing in.
the solidarity and respect of friends is more important than family, social or political ideals.
the economic crisis of the thatcher years in britain,the creation of a working class political organisation "the militant", dragged me back from that kind of allegiance, somebody threatened everything we all held dear.
capitalsm and stalinism are systems created from above, they do not include or empower individual workers or their children, everything is organised for them and slanted toward directing them into the states way of thinking, dissent of any kind becomes the stand point of dis satisfied, angry and wanting respect youths. imo.

[communard resolution]

this kind of behaviour, having been a "gang member"/"football hooligan" as a youth, comes from a lack of anything worth believing in.

I should have been clearer, when I said "I was a kid" I meant literally a kid: younger than 10, too young to be a 'football hooligan'. I stopped indulging in this sort of behavior when I hit my teens (which is when I got into music). I'm not sure if children younger than 10 are capable of truly believing in things they can't understand, except maybe religion.


the solidarity and respect of friends is more important than family, social or political ideals.Again, too early to believe in political ideals. Even if I had been older then, my sole ideal would have probably been to emigrate. As a rule, Poles weren't very receptive to leftist ideas in those days...

As for solidarity and respect of friends... I don't know, I would say it was just "normal". It wasn't about joining a gang or anything like that, it was just a normal thing to do as kids. Still, I wonder where kids all over the world get this kind of territorial mentality from. EDIT: What are they imitating? They aren't aware of world politics, nationalisms, etc.

I'm not sure you can call 1980s Poland "Stalinist"?

[Yehuda Stern]

Maybe this kind of territorialism and aggression have nothing to do with capitalism after all?

Or maybe the Eastern Bloc was just capitalist?

[communard resolution]

Or maybe the Eastern Bloc was just capitalist?

Society was very different to the society in Western capitalist countries. For all the extremely negative aspects of the Eastern Bloc, competition was not the one's main driving force. There was no sense of "the meaning of life is to be better than others, therefore it's legitimate to fuck others over". No rat race, no elbowing everybody else out of the way. There was a greater sense of community. The reason why was probably because most people were in the exact same crappy situation, but still: society didn't have the individualist characteristics of Western capitalist societies.

This is why I was wondering: where did we kids get those competitive, aggressive, territorial impulses from? Who or what did we imitate?

[Kitskits]

My personal opinion is this. The main problem that turns working people against each other is idealism. It comes into many forms and during unsuspected periods in your life. It doesn't mean you are an idiot but things happen and you develop ideas that are wrong.

For example, years I go I was a sexist, I just saw it coming, I had a sense that men are better than women but I didn't decide to fight it, so I became a sexist. It took me years to get over it. It is just ideas that for some reason enter the mind but people need the education to KNOW that they MUST get over it. Of course under a capitalist ruling class, education can never be so insightful, it will be the same hypocritic shit we've been through.

For example look at Yugoslavia, the fascist idealist shit managed to fuck the country up and make innocent people fight each other to death. It is really disgusting, I really feel sorry for what happened in the 90's, it is so sad.

[communard resolution]

My personal opinion is this. The main problem that turns working people against each other is idealism.

But how does that account for the completely pointless, meaningless and unmotivated yet murderous violence among Britain's working class teenagers?

[Yehuda Stern]

I would very much question that there was no competition in the Soviet Union. While there wasn't competition in the sense of 'free enterprise,' by that time that didn't really exist in the monopoly-dominated West. You are right, though, that competition was a lot more 'under the table' in the East.

But so what? I don't think that educating people to compete is necessarily what causes the violence. What causes it is a sense of hopelessness, just like the senseless fighting between and among ghetto gangs in the US (notably the whole Bloods-Crips dispute).

Back in the day, when Marxism had its authority and working class youth were political, these things did not happen. Even back when the nationalist-Maoist Black Panther Party had some authority among black people, the sort of brutal violence that exists in the ghettos today simply was not there (sad thing is, historically, black street gangs were created due to the breakup and realization of failure of the BPP and other such organizations).

[Kitskits]

But how does that account for the completely pointless, meaningless and unmotivated yet murderous violence among Britain's working class teenagers?

They seem unmotivated to you but not to them. There are material conditions that shape these 'ideologies' and generally make these people think that they are superior to other working class people. Narcissism always generates pleasant thoughts and that's what happens, and I also believe that this has to do with the alienation that comes with capitalism. People forced to work (working class), they are bored as fuck because they didn't chose their job, and want something passionate to be involved in.

[Kami]

There's a multitude of things that cause the working class to turn against each other; nation, religion, what football team you support or which neighbourhood you live in (That kids in London actually divide themselves by postcode amuses me no end).
When it comes right down to it, it's tribalism. The "them" and "us" mentality we have drilled into us from childhood.