A favourite weekend activity in Menton on my Katherine Mansfield fellowship was to walk the coastal path to Monte Carlo, have lunch and ride home on the bus. Some days in the casino cafe, we sat next to a table of men who looked as if they would be perfectly comfortable, perhaps even quite creative, with murder. Their faces, their aura, their shallow, violent eyes, all gave off a powerful Mafia vibe. They were polite, normally dressed and partook of the civilised scene. Everyone behaved nicely, and everyone got the benefit of the doubt.
This image, the killers at lunch, came to mind during debates on our new gang-patch ban. There are valid objections to the legislation. It’s a breach of the Bill of Rights. It’s whipping up trouble and creating problems for police. We want the social unity expressed by the recent hīkoi. Gangs are an expression of the alienation caused by abuse in state care, and by marginalisation of vulnerable groups, particularly Māori.
And yet … It’s often repeated, “I’d rather know who’s a gang member and who isn’t.” But would you, really? Gangs do illegal business covertly. No crime is committed in the open, so it happens with or without patches. The law’s intention is to reduce intimidation, and I wonder whether we undervalue the idea of the social contract. There is an intrinsic good in those killers at lunch blending in and behaving nicely. There is social value when everyone gets the benefit of the doubt.
I grew up in an authority-challenging, left-wing household, and I’m familiar with ideas about state overreach. But in a way because of that, my response when confronted with a group of men dressed in uniform outfits, swaggering about and asserting aggression and dominance, is to find them fascist. Whether it’s our gangs or America’s Proud Boys, I’m not impressed.
If 300 men took over my street and performed burnouts, I’d be deeply irritated, patches or not. But it’s plausible that the wearing of the patch ramps up the likelihood of aggression. It’s an assertion of pack mentality; it weaponises the group. It’s threatening, represents the worst kind of conformity, and has a negative effect on social morale. It’s not more evil than the activities of the smooth men in Monte Carlo (those guys wouldn’t be so tragically uncool). But some insignia involves jackboots and swastikas – literally.
As a mother, I’m furiously disdainful of a gang leader in his 50s, grandly rigged up in his regalia, sweeping about in his “clubhouse” (I mean, come on) while encouraging young people to commit crime. As a woman, I’m very aware of the grand old tradition of sexual violence among our gangs.
The thought of a young man designating himself an outsider is heartbreaking. Even if he doesn’t want it, and has valid reasons for feeling alienated, wouldn’t it be quite good if he were welcomed back in? Eyeing a rowdy group in a rural pub, I had the comic thought: were some of them secretly enjoying the ban? The novelty, the clothes. Everyone loves mufti day.
Gangs appear to me (despite their PR) to have aspects of malign patriarchy that would benefit from being eroded by their own women. It could be women who call time on the male aggression, grandiosity, posturing, endangerment and abuse of the young.
The Italian Mafia is traditionally a rigid patriarchal system. In recent times, clans have suffered significant damage when women tired of toxic bigotry that includes honour killings. Mothers have spirited their children away to save them from ultra-violence. Others have rebelled and turned on the group. When women find freedom, the whole of society gets the benefit.
