For weeks special devices have been organized for Halloween night. The big cities sought to avoid another outbreak of riots like those experienced in Barcelona last Saturday. Reasons are sought for the trivialization of violence and Blocus is in the spotlight. Although in recent days several members have been arrested and the anonymous group has deleted clues and accounts, calls were still circulating in different cities to set it up on Saturday. But if we broaden our view to a top-down view, the similarities with the waves of altercations in other European countries perhaps suggest a multiple response.
Over the last few days, different hypotheses have been drawn up, ranging from the logic of the context (the cost of living and the crisis of institutions), the theory of foreign interference (gray zone acts or hybrid strategies that seek to fragment society to weaken a country), the infiltration of extreme, radical and anti-system groups to moral nihilism or youthful frustration. Each country has its own idiosyncrasies and although several European states face similar horizons, such as electoral ones, or similar problems, such as the high cost of living, it may be insufficient to give a single reason for each outbreak. Even more so when a justified claim is distorted and used for other purposes such as vandalism or destabilization, or when there are no banners at all.
In addition to theorizing about who is behind, it can be useful to understand who is in front: the young. In many cases, minors. There is an enormous distinction between those who demonstrate legitimately, those who do so violently, and those who take advantage of the upheaval to loot businesses and burn the streets without banners or demands. What leads a 14-year-old boy to set containers on fire for no reason?
This phenomenon can be observed from three angles. The first is the driving force, who organizes and instigates. The second is the wheel, personal reasons. The third is direction, drift. The engine can be any of the aforementioned hypotheses. The wheel is the personal situation of the young man who accepts violence and the direction is the result of contagion by context, acts of vandalism. In the absence of the first step being determined by the authorities' investigation, we are going to focus on the second and third angles.
Of the 130 arrested last Saturday the 23rd in Barcelona, more than 70 are minors. If we look at the images of any of the riots we will find silhouettes of young individuals also in the altercations in other countries. In the Catalan case, both of Spanish origin and of foreign origin, of them generally North African. But beyond the organizers or instigators, those who join the riots are mainly young people with no previous ties to extremist organizations.
The Lucifer effect is a concept developed by the American social psychologist Philip Zimbardo that explains how apparently normal people, without a special predisposition towards violence, can commit immoral acts when they find themselves in certain social circumstances. The central idea is that behavior does not depend only on personality or values, but also on the environment, the situation, group norms and power relations. In this process deindividualization comes into play. By joining a group, anonymity is increased and a lesser sense of individual responsibility is experienced. This can lead to moral disconnection, dehumanization, and group conformity.
The broken windows theory was formulated in the 1980s by political scientist James Q. Wilson and criminologist George L. Kelling. It suggests that small signs of disorder and neglect in an environment can encourage the appearance of more serious criminal behavior. Tolerance towards a certain deterioration would convey the feeling of inefficiency and non-existence of standards. Imagine an abandoned building with a broken window. If no one repairs it, it could indicate that no one is watching it. This signal may encourage others to break more items. Less protection, more risk of crime. Taken to the situation that concerns us, if a young mind is given the idea that institutions do not work, the state does not protect them, there is no future and reality is already broken, there will be fewer limits to joining in to break the order.
Can a young person commit violence simply because nothing matters to him? Could the absence of meaning, values or expectations for the future favor gratuitous violence? The concept of nihilism may also have a certain place when analyzing not so much the causes but the explanations of some individual participations. When nothing matters anymore, indifference could in certain cases lead to destructive behavior. But this alone is not enough. The context is added. The group. And the instigation. And on nights like Halloween, the anonymity of masks, alcohol, partying, and lack of inhibition are added.
