The Versatility of Gang-Eruptions

Here's a troubling thesis being put forward by the chair of the Defence Management Studies Program at the School of Policy Studies, Queen's University. That Canada's future looks, at this juncture, fairly close to what has become of Mexico. Mass lawlessness, fuelled by powerful, violent drug gangs. Vicious gangs that have become so insolently secure in their control of areas of Mexico that they provoke and threaten the police, the legal community, the armed forces.

And kill at random, and through careful selection, both innocent civilians and governing authorities, along with police chiefs and opposing gang members. The thrust of their warfare on society itself is simple enough; complete and utter control of 'their' territory and their commerce, brooking no interference by authority. They are, in effect, the only authority, since their deadly attacks have succeeded in demoralizing what authority remains.

The irony is that the drug trade that has become so universal, so appealing, so compellingly profitable has made for some peculiar bedfellows, as it were. With the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan receiving much of its funding through the encouragement and imposition on local Afghan farmers to poppy-farming resulting in widening of the opium trade. And the Taliban now working with Mexican drug lords.

Here's the other uncomfortable side-light; this wide-based and -ranging enterprise responds to demands from within Europe, the United States and Canada largely. People who have become accustomed to recreational drug use. At all echelons of society. And those who are hopelessly addicted not to the societal fun of engaging in its use, but those whose lives have been deranged by the need to consume drugs.

Tribal, ethnic, ideological, criminal gangs are appearing everywhere throughout the world, from Colombia to Pakistan, Russia to Mexico, China to - well, Canada. CSIS revealed in 2009 that up to 750 national and transnational criminal organizations were present and active within Canada. From Italian mafia to Chinese gangs, Sikh separatist groups to - yes, aboriginal gangs dedicated to violence. So it's not just drugs, although drug peddling is often a useful funding vehicle.

Violent aboriginal gangs who hide under the moral protection of aboriginal complaints about neglect and oppression, involve themselves with smuggling of tobacco, drugs, alcohol, firearms and human beings. While they lay claim to land they insist is theirs, and guilt-flushed politicians and law enforcement refrain from confrontations, allowing violence and illegal activities to flourish, native gangs are becoming more bold and entitled.

Canada is now witnessing the steady emergency of third-generation criminal gangs; children of children of immigrant populations who have been coerced or intrigued into joining gangs involved in running drugs and weapons; young black men whose sole-parent Caribbean-originated families have been unsuccessful in discipline and role-modelling.

Our most immediate concerns appear to revolve around the threat of young Muslim men feeling dislocated and disaffected, unable to connect with society around them; easy picking as fresh recruits for violent jihad. The problems seem to lie with the fact that integration does not occur as it might when immigrant populations feel more comfortable in setting themselves apart from the mainstream, find comfort in numbers of others like themselves.

No society is perfect at representing as all things to all people. Within Canada the matter has become more complex because simply put, there are so many 'peoples', within the people. The cultural, traditional, heritage backgrounds that separate people by emphasizing differences were originally viewed as positive, that everything would meld into a beautifully exotic brew, not that ethnic groups would prefer to remain isolated.

The kinds of home-grown spiteful dissent and spurning of societal norms relating to international politics, economics, diplomatic relations that has 'social-activists' spurning their countries' and their governments' values and directions, brings us the society-averse antics of violent 'activists' like the Black Bloc, like obsessed anarchist groups, like Quebec-based radical political groups who agitate for 'change' through violent action.

Within Canada, we have gangs based on ethnic groups, political-ideological groups and, simply, criminal groups, becoming more aggressive, picking up increasing members from disaffected youth, invading towns and cities, causing problems and pervasive unease among authorities who don't seem to have any of the right answers to the questions now beginning to surface.

What do we do about this growing problem?