How to counter access to arms in working-class neighborhoods?

Armed violence has shaken North-East Montreal for a long time. In Saint-Léonard, a shoot-out took the life of Meriem Boundaoui on February 7. The 15-year-old was a victim of violence in this forgotten and underfunded neighborhood, where guns have become commonplace. But what is happening in these neighborhoods, and why is this happening? A look at a systemic problem.

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“Let's think about the reasons, because those who did the act are children of a family — they have a house, parents; they were not born with a gun,” said the intervener Najat Boughaba in front of a hundred citizens gathered at the intersection where young Meriem was shot dead. The crowd agrees. In the interventions, the exclamation “It's not normal! ” repeats himself about the easy access to guns in the neighborhood.

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“What used to end with hands now ends with guns”

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It was the speaker of the Saint-Michel Youth Forum Mohamed Mimoun who, deeply saddened by the death of the teenager, organized the vigil. For the past two years, he has noticed that there are weapons that are circulating among young people — “ordinary young people, who have nothing to do with street gangs,” he says. “Access to arms has become very easy, and it is well known among young people that there are ways you can get a gun. It has become banal, and the fact that it has become banal, it creates fear among some, who say to themselves: “If the others have weapons, I also want to have one”, explains Mohamed.

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“Before, you had to be a gang member — it was rare, it wasn't possible — now, if you want a gun, you can easily find one for $900,” he adds. Several young people thus get weapons to protect themselves and take them out at the slightest quarrel, tells us the speaker in a small room on Jarry Street, while young people from the Neighborhood Youth Forum are taking a course on writing.

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“What used to end with the hands now ends with the weapons,” he laments. A few days later, after school, on the second floor of a building, we meet young people from the Saint-Michel Youth Forum on a community radio station, where they prepare programs, songs, poems about identity, racial profiling, etc. — in short, the topics that turn them on. Seated in their radio studio, Philippe Thermidor and Ali Idres, aged 26 and 25 respectively, talk to us about it with Asma Mokhtari, 19, and Fatima Latifa, 17, who are joining us on Zoom.

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Meriem's death at 6 p.m., in front of a local bakery, shook them up. “It's no longer possible to walk safely on the street. You're walking outside and you don't know what's going to happen to you,” notes Fatima.

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In high school and around them, they hear about guns. “I don't know people who get them, but I hear that. They're not going to tell us how they got them, we just know that they have them,” explains the student. Those who have them, “it's for the Clout ”, to impress, the group tells us. Fatima believes that this issue is not addressed enough in the public space. Asma agrees.

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“I have already had testimonies from friends. Some saw guns for the first time in their lives in high school 1. They often don't want to have a gun, but they prefer to have one to feel protected from those who do,” Asma continues. What she is worried about is the reason for this trend in her neighborhood.

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“We're asking for pencils, not guns!”

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“Young people are not going to look for weapons in Algeria or Haiti to bring them back here. It is on the territory that we are confronted with this. It's a plague that eats away at us internally,” adds literature student and security guard Philippe Thermidor. “We, young people, when we wake up in the morning, we don't pick up a gun, we use a pencil to write. We're asking for more pencils, more notebooks, we're not asking for guns! ” he is outraged, referring to the stigmatization of young people in North-East Montreal. A stigma that creates a feeling of insecurity among young people in these neighborhoods about the future.

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“Sometimes, the things we experience in our neighborhoods make us think that we are not really as lucky as others, explains the 26-year-old man. In Montréal-Nord, a 16-year-old feels the need to go to work, because there is no financial security, so he must manage very early in life, he must survive: he arrives in a society where this lifestyle is imposed on him.”

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Moreover, for some, getting a paid job is an achievement, especially when you are convinced that you will not be able to get out of this cycle of poverty and when around you, you see your parents in precariousness and when you are exposed to other, easier possibilities. Philippe Thermidor tells us that in high school, one of his friends, who was 17 at the time, told him that she was a prostitute.

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“It felt like a punch, it destroyed me from the inside. At her age, she felt that she had to take care of herself. Therefore, the child, at a very young age, feels responsible for taking charge of himself. If there were more resources in neighborhood organizations, it could compensate a bit.” “It's not fair to pick up a gun, there's a whole process before getting a gun,” he summarizes.

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Tackling the problem at the source

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Ali Idres, originally from the same Algerian city as Meriem Boundaoui — Béjaïa — experienced the murder on an emotional level. He has a lot to say. “For two or three years, for some young people, guns have been part of an ideology,” he said, adding that many have been getting them on the Internet and without a license. With increased police surveillance, Ali fears that the war on guns could become a war on working-class neighborhoods. “Why are there street gangs here and not in Westmount?” he asks. He would like to see in-depth work done on organized crime and gun trafficking in Montreal.

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“We are going to point the finger at the young black and the young Arab, but where do they come from, his weapons? There is a whole industry behind it.” To counter this scourge, Ali wants us to tackle the problem at the source. According to him, if several young people get arms, it is out of anger. An anger that comes from social exclusion. “We are not in the logic of “We want some rights for Arabs and Blacks, be nice, integrate us into your big companies”. For me, that's not the model! I don't want that for us, I want a complete change! ”, he thundered.

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A system that does not work

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Urban security researcher Leslie Touré Kapo has worked in working-class neighborhoods in France and Quebec. “What we are facing today are inadequate responses to problems that have been raised for over 10 years,” he tells us. In his opinion, in order to counter the arms problem, poverty and security issues must be addressed. The path to guns or delinquency is outlined in the school-family-street pattern, he continues. “Faced with the dysfunctions of the school and the family, the street will work.

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It is a very classical sociological schema. And on the street there can be anything.”

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According to Leslie Touré Kapo, we must invest in leaving schools. In the north-east of Montreal, several schools take responsibility for young people after the end of classes, leaving them to themselves. “But who is responsible for leaving the schools? If it's the police, it's likely to degenerate very quickly, explains the INRS researcher. Putting in place short-term means of repression, we know that it produces more insecurity.”

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“It's circumstances, it's not a DNA”

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It is this responsibility towards young people after school that challenges Mohamed Mimoun. The counsellor tries to help adolescents, who may be vulnerable to delinquency.

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Through the Youth Forum programs, it helps them develop their self-esteem and autonomy, while inviting them to volunteer. And it works, as Philippe Thermidor, among others, testifies. “I grew up in places where I was exposed to that. Was I tempted? Yes, but have I been in there? No, because my involvement didn't give me time to get into stuff Chelous ”, says the one who has been part of the Youth Forum since CEGEP.

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For Mr. Mimoun, it is with adolescents that we must work to counter the temptation to use firearms and delinquency. “The part we are missing is between 14 and 17 years old.

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This is where we understand the reason for certain situations of poverty and exclusion.” According to him, there is not enough support in the construction of identity for young people in working-class neighborhoods. “We must work on this need to feel like someone who has a weapon.

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You don't need a gun to feel like someone, you can become a very good person and be very successful in other ways. Unfortunately, there are young people who don't believe that.” This belief is also the result of social pressure.

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“You are going to create your own law, your own functioning, when you see that the functioning of the system does not integrate you, does not recognize your chances of succeeding. And that's what I see. A gap exists between what these young people dream of doing and the rest, including with their parents, the community, the institutions.” “It's circumstances, it's not a DNA,” recalls Mr. Mimoun.

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Modernizing the community environment

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According to the speaker, we need not only resources, but also approaches adapted to the reality of neighborhoods. While the community environment prioritizes the basic needs of newcomers, the new generation has other needs. “The community environment makes the same mistakes as the school. There is no place where these young people feel welcomed.

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If you want to help them, you should not set rules. We have organizations that don't want to Dealer with young people who are experiencing certain problems.

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My challenge is to help them. When they're in a safe place, it's this intelligence and fragility that they're trying to hide that's going to show up.”

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Observations shared by the young people at the Forum.

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“If you have something to do, I don't think you're going to hang out and that you're going to think about exploring this path,” says Fatima. “When young people are happy, they don't think about that,” adds Asma.

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As for Ali, he is asking for more culture for the young people in the neighborhoods.