Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Gangs are usually created by people in desperate needs. A need there is from place to place. Needs comes from the basics of getting the food to controlling the anything, distribution of food, distribution of drugs and illegal activities to extreme violence, to control people, to create fear. So those are the basics of the gangs everywhere on Earth. How do you get rid of them? You and I we need to do better than we have done. Whatever we have done has not helped. We continue having gangs and difficult times in which we lose life unnecessarily every single moment of every single day of every single year. So when those people, the individuals become educated and trained in human experience, hopefully we will be able to lift them up to new level of reality within them. So they will see a better use of the energies for advancement of mankind. Stephanie, the world needs your help. I pray to the Great One that you are willing to come forward and help people. Me, I’m willing to help you to the best of my abilities to stop the unnecessary violence within our homes, within our communities, within our nations and within our Earth. Thank you.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: I think the danger of the question is that it plays into potentially the idea that the main source of violence in inner cities is gang violence or that it is an individual question of a choice between participating in gang activity or valuing education, placing importance on education. We live in a society that denigrates education and then also glorifies violence of a particular kind, when it serves the interest of powerful groups in the society, when it is carried out by the state or by the police or by the army or by the military, and then violence is acceptable; it’s glorified. And the glorification of violence is not just hypocritical, but goes hand-in-hand with very racist ideas about the source of violence in inner cities, which are predominantly people, colors -- communities of color and really the source of violence in communities of color is first of all overwhelmingly violence against those communities, violence by police, the daily violence of inequality and oppression, oppression in the workplace, oppression in structural violence that exists in those communities, and then on top of that structural violence, on top of the oppression of police forces, the sources of violence that exists in these communities overwhelmingly leads to poverty, inequality, block of job opportunity. Every increase in the rate of unemployment is correlated directly with an increase in violence in our communities. If you could provide full employment, you could eliminate much of the violence that exists today and also, you could take much greater resources and put them into education, and it’s not a question of individual’s value, education is a question of – as a society to evaluate and we do not.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala: My opinion, first, we have to prevent the import and export of arms, ammunition and drugs. And I think we have to give the youth education -- proper education, [family] education so that all these issues so as to motivate and mobilize them to be a better citizen.

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: Well, I think one way that we can actually stop gang violence and motivate young people to place importance on education instead of killing each other is actually by respecting and honoring the young people. If we actually respect and honor them, we are teaching them to respect and honor the other. We have to make sure that we have an education system that is actually educating. We would need a different kind of education system, not one which is different at inner city areas compared to the fancy public schools in richer areas in the suburbs. So, we will have to build an education system which can deal with the existing inequities, an education system, a public education system where taxpayers money goes to actually build a rich educational system, which can deal with the hypocrisies of the society that the young people are confronted with, an education system which respects and honors them as individuals, as human beings so they learn to value each other. So, it is really about not just an education system but actually honoring our younger generation. It is time that we not just see them as leaders of tomorrow but to recognize they can be leaders of today; and they are leaders today.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: I think the question of gang violence in the inner cities again is symptomatic of a deeper malaise in the culture at large. And we should look at it in that context. Because if we are going to stop gang violence, we need to stop the kind of mentality that is behind and generates gang violence as a particular symptom of a larger cultural illness. And again, I keep going back to the diagnosis of an egocentric, ego-mental, ego-based culture in which the ego is separated from its true connected self and separated from the other, which already is the beginning of gang violence. Whether in the inner city of wherever you are, the ego mind is always living a gang violence. A cultic form of life that is always going to gang against the other. So there are many levels and layers and metaphors of gang warfare and cultic life, where it’s us against them. And, it doesn’t have to be just with knives and guns and chains and whips and all the weapons. But it could be in the words, which you use against each other. as one cultural gang, gangs up against another or one portion of a culture, gangs up using its wealth and elitism and so forth against the other. So we should see it in this more expanded sense. So that to truly stop gang violence and the alienated youth. And it’s not just gangs in the inner city. There are cults and gangs and cliques within the most elite high schools, for examples, junior high schools. We know there is tremendous clique violence going on amongst groups within. That’s all part of the same dynamic of egocentric us versus them thinking. Me versus you, that comes from egocentric culture. Rather than a culture of awakened global citizenship and compassion, where one discovers one deep connectivity with the other and is not alienated. Where we find true meaning and true life flowing. When that is interrupted, we get to the deep source of gang violence and the alienation that comes in that particular form. So if you see it in this generic sense, as a symptom or wider malaise, the key to stopping gang violence is to transform the ego-based culture that produces that kind of alienation across the culture. Then we could just redirect the power of the youth.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: We have to understand the dynamics of gang violence. What is it that motivates people to belong to gangs? What role and function are gangs providing and fulfilling that our educational institutions, our cultural and societal institutions are not? And to the extent that gangs provide a sense of self-esteem, a sense of identity, a sense of belonging but in ways that are potentially damaging and violent and not productive, then we really need to see that that is not -- those, the gangs are not promoting the kinds of values that we want our children to have and yet what is picking up the vacuum in our children's lives that would promote their belonging to gangs in the first place? So this is really a societal condition, a social ill that needs to be studied and remedied and see how we can as a community provide our children with ways of enhancing their self-esteem, of empowering them in productive ways that value their lives, that enhance their lives, that gives them a sense of identity that's positive and that will ultimately nurture not only themselves but their families, communities, and the bigger global family. -- This also is not taken within the context of a void, because we also have to look at the entire economic, political, and societal structures that create these disparities of wealth and poverty, that don't allow for parents and families to be on board for their children because they have to, mothers and fathers have to work. Or to not even live with their children, to find jobs in other countries. So this is not something that takes place in isolation but is connected to a bigger picture.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: This is a question of education and possibilities in life. If every young person has the same possibilities in life like the other, possibilities in education, in work and development, they won't join gangs. They won't follow a false prophet. You follow a false prophet, if you don't have any prospects, if you are frustrated, if you are hopeless. Unfortunately, a part of the young people is still in such a situation today. They are growing up in such a situation. So it is really the job of the states to organise economy and society in such a way, that every young person has some kind of hope in their life. And if they have hope, they are not looking for something different. Naturally, there are some, you cannot educate. There are some, you cannot convince. There are some you cannot give hope, these people you have to fight with the help of the police. It seems that we'll always need police. But for most of the young people there is an alternative. Free enterprise is indispensable for economical development. But it needs to have some guidelines too. It shouldn't be like a jungle. If it really has the right guidelines, controlled by the state, without limiting the initiative of the individual, then I believe we will arrive at a point where all young people have a future und then they won't follow a false prophet any more.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: To stop gang violence in inner cities, we need to give them something to else to do. We need to provide alternatives to the streets. We need to provide alternatives to the way in which they function, and the way in which they are -- the boxes in which they are put into. We need to stop dismantling the family core. Why people turn into gangs is to feel included, is to feel inclusions within their local peer groups, to feel they have a purpose and to do something to take some action. We gave alternative to this that would turn their focus, to whatever it is that we are providing. If we work on strengthening the family bonds, that provide a good stable family support and if we give alternate models of, let’s say, growing food in the inner city. To provide for good health for these people, because if you feed someone processed foods, if you feed them garbage, and you give them not clean water, or good air to breath, you pollute their minds, you pollute themselves, they will then pollute their environment through graffiti, through killing each other. Graffiti is an art too, right? That’s how I view it. But, I’ll go back to providing good examples. If we have some good ways that they can channel all that energy, all that youthful energy into where there is growing food, or providing trainings to be economic leaders or community leader within their groups. This can have huge ripples out and to harness that youthful energy in a good positive way. Man, you can make some changes because that is really why we were all here as for this youth and for the future that we’re leaving behind. Yeah, let's grow more food in the inner city, some more healthy organic food. Education, improving the family bonds, and having good education.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: Definitely, inner city violence is a cycle of never-ending violent aspects. And it's really to - to think about it, because everyone is involved in a community. You are a part of it. And there is exactly this sense that we are part of the solution need to came up, and we need to create healthy families, families where values are really being positively given to young people, for them to really become stronger people, with a strong self-esteem, and self-determination to make the right choices, where dialogue, and space for talking, space for arguing, space for finding solution to problems and to conflict, would be the way out of the violence that we see everyday in our communities. So we have to make those steps to insure that we free our communities from this type of violence.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: First we should give the young people possibility of education, of employment, of the productive live. This means we should work on the increscent of general culture, education and social welfare. It’s sinless to tolerate intellectual garbage on TV or elsewhere and a miserable, dogmatic, restrictive education system and then expect a generation of not frustrated, sensible and pleased young people, which don’t kill the pharmacist to come to the drugs. Young people are very special people, and dominion in modern world which we should take good care of and not look upon as upon our own colony.

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: It’s a difficult question, a very difficult question. Maybe it would be a good start, basically, to introduce nonviolent communication programs at school. I guess really, if you think about it, to go back to the very early periods in a child’s life. These programs need to be started very, very early before kids get into the sort of adolescent years when all that testosterone is swirling around the human system looking for a place to go. But it’s been a kind of I suppose head butting; there’s been a trend throughout history. I mean if you look at ancient cultures, often they use, particularly the male uses – often would be sent out into the wilderness to become “braves” like a right of passage where they could test their strength. Not in terms of killing each other, but by testing their strength with each other in a climate of safety and where there’s some rules. Maybe we need to reintroduce that into modern life, because it really is an amazing time to go through adolescence. Acting out these shifts that occur in our minds and bodies around that time through violence and death is really foolish and it’s not a very effective way of, again, becoming a brave. In fact, true bravery does not include inflicting pain on another person. True bravery is about, actually, helping another person release their aggression. Good martial arts training would be a great way to go. But yeah, I think it’s a right of passage and, in fact, it could be a reintroduction of those very ancient culture knowledges would [audio ends]

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Catherine David: This is also a very vague and naive question. I believe that it is not good in anyone’s opinion that young people kill each other and I think the question is more complex than this. The question is: what are young people doing in the streets? What makes that people less than 15 years old do not have other horizons, other desires, other activities than to get illegally hold of the consumer goods they desire. I believe this has something to do with economical questions, social questions and questions of urbanism. As long as these questions are not even asked or even partly answered, we do not have to be to astonish that some young people do not have other horizons than to risk their lives in order to get hold of a certain number of material and symbolic goods in a diverse and illegal way. I think that the symbolic goods exist and they have to be considered. I believe that it is not always a question of getting hold of watches, cars and branded baskets. I believe the most difficult thing to solve is the symbolic war and this will not work with two or three meaningless petitions.

by Catherine David

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi: It is important question because for so many kids, they think it's cool to be a gangster or to kill. I can tell you that it's not cool to kill. I know many child soldiers. I know I was myself one from a child soldier and when you get to know the other side of life; the other side of life where there is no killing; the other side of life where there is no blood seen by your eyes. When you get to know the beauty of being down to earth and not do such things because you want to be cool, it's a beautiful life. I think we have to teach them to know, to let them know that there is a life without violence. And to teach them that everything they can achieve, what they think they can achieve with violence, they can achieve without violence. I think the most important is we have to be very concerned and put enough money, enough funding, so that you rehabilitate them; give them three years, give them two years, but make sure they are living okay so that they get to learn, to think over. And maybe if it's possible, because sometimes it could be very difficult for someone to leave the gang and still living in the same city, maybe he was afraid they would come and kill him. If we have enough resources, we could take this very person to another city, to another state, so that it’s away from his group and rebuild him as a new person.

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: The violence in the cities, the violence in the conflicts of the suburbs, in the "banlieus" in France during the last months, as well as in England, in the cities, the violence in the USA is a question of misguided urbanization, of the non-integration of ethnical and religious minorities in the whole social political process, in the working life. Urbanization nowadays is a very complex field, and the problems there cannot be solved by governmental violence. It resembles a volcano which is covered and will break open in another place. Like a spring or well where you can only hold back the water artificially, but a few hundred feet further on it will bubble back to the surface anyway. A misguided urbanization of non-human ways, without any green sectors, a urbanization that is only controlled by the wish to maximize the profits in architecture which has been carried out in the western industrialized cities for a long time. These are the conditions for urban violence. Only if there is a way of urbanization under human aspects it will improve. I think of Frey Otto (?) e.g. who has now deservedly won the price "prior imperiale" (?). He has always tried to practice a human architecture, no abstract or technical architecture of high achievements, but an architecture under human aspects. As well e.g. Oskar Niemeier, with his urban planning in South America, or Roberto Bolemarx, the great landscape and garden architect, has tried in all his forms of landscape and garden projects to give cities a human face to avoid the inner violence. Problems in urbanization are nowadays often unsolved because the green sector as a balance, as the lung in an urbanized world is not considered enough.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Cornel West: Gang violence is rooted in lack of opportunities regarding quality education and lack of opportunity regarding job with a living wage, lack of love in too many other families and the lack of cohesion in too many other communities. There’s a structural and institutional dimension that is fundamental that has to do with the war priorities of a society that’s willing to spend more time and more money and resources on prisons than on education. There’s a structural and institutional dimension that has to do with refusing to create jobs with a living wage, for the lower echelons of the labor force. And, as an individual and personal dimension it has to do – it’s too much self-hatred, too much self-violations, not enough love and respect in families, not enough love and respect in neighborhoods. The structural and the institutional dimensions and the personal and individual dimensions go hand in hand; and we wipe out gang violence to a significant degree when we provide those high quality jobs, high quality education, high quality healthcare and also enable families and communities to hang together in such a way that moral love and self-respect and self-regard become available to people, especially young precious poor people.

by Cornel West

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 12:45:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: For me gang violence is just symptoms of a deeper problem. What I mean is there is a need to root out the cause of gang violence, and by rooting out the problem, we provide a proper intervention based on the roots - respond to the problem based on the roots. And, if the roots of the problems are in the lack of access to education by the youth, then perhaps it would be necessary to make alternative solutions by providing - encouraging the youth to go back to school. In this way, gang violence will be minimized. But, most importantly, I think we should bear in mind that gang violence is just a symptoms of a deeper problem. I think we should consider all that. And, if we know the root causes as I said of the gang problem - the deeper problem, that’s the time we can design strategies of trying to solve in such a way that gang violence may be minimized or better if it’s terminated because one of the reasons why there is gang violence is there are lots of youth who are not in school who are being attracted in the streets and maybe perhaps more efforts from the social services program of its government should be invested on those kind of problem intervention. And, that’s the only way to respond to the problems according to its needs.

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas