By Patrick Pike
By Patrick Pike
The lynching of Yuriy
Beyond the feelings of revolt, anger and shame that the lynching scene may have provoked occurred in Baugrenelle in the 15th arrondissement of Paris on the young Yuriy, that of revenge or reciprocity may overwhelm us, like Achilles taking up arms again< /span> learning of the death of Patroclus, and in an outburst of violence will sow terror among the Trojans whom he massacres, before killing Hector the conqueror of his friend, thus calming his anger.
But this feeling is always that dictated by the law of retaliation, probably this law that these young executioners applied to one of those whom they considered to be part of a rival gang. Was it true, was it false? The question is not there, but in the sense of honor which wants that one does not strike a man on the ground, ignored by these barbarians, as well as in the Golden Rule set up in principle since the night of the time, ridiculed by many and in particular by these young people in balaclavas, therefore without courage, never to do to others what we would not like them to do to us.
Our reaction to the sight of these images is to want to return the favor, calling them all the names that decency forbids to cite, but mocking the patent absence of virile attributes in their falzars, they who must put on ten to hit a child, masking his face sign of the scoundrel, arming himself with a hammer or a bat sign of a cowardly criminal, we say to ourselves that it would have been good to be there, take a weapon and shoot into the crowd, then conveying the same hatred as that which animated them then.
Childish reaction, a remnant of our barbarity lurking in a corner of our saurian memory. The one who guided the public to the circus games, enjoying, according to Paul Veyne, to see the bloodshed or to contemplate the death of a man, becoming merciless to claim that of the vanquished gladiator if the other had not killed him before, Roman gladiators whom Plutarch said he would never confuse these wild beasts with the noble Greek gladiators. Memory of a saurian who knows how to take over any critical analysis, as demonstrated by the Milgram experiment where more than sixty percent of the participants tortured as a punishment, fictitiously but ignorantly, on the backing of science, their alter ego incapable of answer basic questions.
Then when reason returns to us, we hope that these young people will be found and punished as they should be. And here again the first reaction is to see them sent to prison without trial since nothing more severe exists.
Finally, the analysis ending the reflection questions us about the relevance of such a punishment which never improved those who suffered it.
What should we do then? First of all to stop this spiral of violence which is sweeping our cities? Then what sanction should you choose and apply against these criminals?
On the first question, the violence rooted in each of us being, as it has always been, only the only answer to the emptiness of existence, knowing that knowledge allows reasoning and develops critical thinking, the only remedy would be to break the illiteracy, the chronic lack of culture that characterizes most of these young people with a primitive spirit without ideal, if not that of filling their wallets by indulging in drug trafficking, a scourge that would disappear with legalization. Moreover, opposing this last point demonstrates the folly of believing in the virtue of repression. The prohibition entails the will to break it, out of necessity or pleasure. Too many constraints encourage their rejection.
As for sanctions, if prison is not, far from it, the remedy, replace it with long-term work of general interest, structured, supervised, sufficiently painful and above all carried out without exemption in order to that they could acquire skills and profession, know what life is, the real one, would perhaps allow the reduction in number of these budding gangsters, some of whom will become worse, grown adults, if they succeed.
As miracle recipes do not exist, these few thoughts perhaps also to exorcise my fear of giving in to the popular vindictiveness aroused by these intolerable images of a kid being massacred by a pack of scavengers believing themselves to be men.
07/09/2023
The Anger of Achilles, Jacques-Louis David, 1819,
Le Plumier© 2023 Patrick Pike