Everyone has remarked the multiplication of vigilance societies that today employ tens of thousands of people, who represent close to a third of the "security" forces (national police, gendarmes, private sector). In this domain, we have, these last few years, seen a pair of Siamese twins -- composed of A. Bauer, veteran of the UNEF-ID student union, and X. Raufer, veteran of the extreme-rightist group "Occident" -- who are self-styled specialists in "urban violence." They rely on an "objective analysis" of statistics in their presentations, which feature, as their credo, "zero tolerance," and, as their example, the United States. They say they are "campaigning" to regain the terrain "lost to delinquents who have invaded our lives." Tony Blair prefers to chase poor people away, which reduces inequality in the name of "zero tolerance." In France, the left prefers to use the term "public tranquility," with no changes in the decisions made or methods used. To return to the two "theoreticians": they describe the outer urban areas [trans: banlieu, literally suburbs] as a sort of no man's land, where none of the laws are applied, and where terror reigns in the "territories" at the hands of ghetto gangs, [lax] immigration laws, etc etc. Bauer, director of the AB Associate Company [...] sells studies and solutions: video surveillance; both judge and jury, it facilitates turn-over in a society of constant growth. For the record, he sold then-Socialist Vitrolles on his "magic potion," which Megret has clearly chosen to keep under guard. This reinforces the facts that security ideology, en vogue for the last 20 years, participates in the "Le Pen-ization of spirits," and that the "hucksters of the left," [everyone] from Chevenement to Vaillant, haven't ceased to sit within the social body.
(Included as a side-bar to Work! Someone is watching you in No to Electronic Watchtowers: Elements of Reflection on Video Surveillance. Translated from the French November 2003 by Bill Brown.)
By e-mail SCP@notbored.org
By snail mail: SCP c/o NOT BORED! POB 1115, Stuyvesant Station, New York City 10009-9998