A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #367 - Culture - Read: Michel Kokoreff, "Riot" (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In about a hundred pages, the booklet "Riot" offers a solid and 
well-documented reflection to dispel widely held ideas about riots. ---- 
The tragic death of Nahel Merzouk evokes images and memories for 
everyone. It is through this current event of the 2023 riots that Michel 
Kokoreff opens his reflection, taking a long historical perspective and 
tracing the history of riots in France. The author, a sociologist by 
profession, rightly situates these uprisings within a continuum of 
phenomena that regularly reappear, from the medieval peasant revolts to 
the urban revolts of the 21st century. By placing these deadly riots 
within this historical lineage, he is able to identify the cyclical 
nature of their emergence, linked to the persistence of the same social, 
economic, and political problems. Riots, whatever their specific 
characteristics, resonate with the particular difficulties of social or 
ethnic groups.

Riots are a spontaneous, often localized, and short-lived response to 
feelings of social marginalization and ghettoization. True to the spirit 
of this book series, Michel Kokoreff examines the related and often 
confusing terminology of revolt, riot, and insurrection. The latter aims 
to establish new political or institutional relationships. Under the 
reign of Napoleon III, the distinctions between riot, revolt, and 
insurrection were blurred to facilitate legal prosecutions. The use of 
the expression "urban violence" served similar purposes. The goal this 
time was to depoliticize the causes of the events, making them less 
relevant and reclassifying them as common law. While the multiple 
underlying causes are known, they remain largely unacknowledged. The 
economic and social difficulties of working-class neighborhoods, with 
higher unemployment rates, racial and police discrimination, and a sense 
of injustice and contempt, form the backdrop to the riots. Often, at the 
start of a riot, a simple event, frequently and daily repeated, becomes 
the straw that breaks the camel's back... the match that ignites the 
flames... and spontaneously, the anger that had been pent up until then 
explodes, like a social volcano.

With the death of Nahel Merzouk, filmed and widely circulated, we enter 
a unique era of rioting. While traditionally it spread locally through 
rumor, this time the riot takes on a new dimension. Police violence and 
pervasive racism, so often present in the triggering of deadly riots, 
can no longer be ignored. Following a series of tragic deaths, such as 
those of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré in 2005, the intentionality of 
police actions is no longer in question. It is clearly and visually 
presented. The riot finds its justification. The daily realities of 
discrimination through persistent contempt, racial profiling, and 
identity checks are examined.

This short work describes this "diagonal of rage" that resonates in the 
neighborhoods, spreading through shared identification, bearing witness 
to a shared, underlying unease. First, there is a moment of collective 
indignation, followed by a period of voices from the housing projects 
attempting to explain daily life. This is met, through subservient 
media, with a flood of rumors and disinformation, even insults like the 
word "scum."

Ultimately, the author also evokes the latent danger of fascism 
generated by the persistent inability to provide responses other than 
police action, the rise of the far right, and the normalization of 
racist rhetoric. The author calls for a response based on social 
justice. Society must fundamentally address its social fabric.

Dominique Sureau (UCL Angers)

Michel Kokoreff, Riot, Anamosa, January 2025, 112 pages, 9 euros.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Michel-Kokoreff-Emeute
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