Comments on: Anti-Emo rioting in Mexico

By: wbb

wbb — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 02:01:39 +0000

Reading sublimecowgirl’s link (url) I’d rather be an emo/goth/pokemone in macho Mexico than in bovver-boy UK.

“All five were laughing. At one stage Herbert lifted the student’s head off the ground and asked him whether he wanted an ambulance. He replied “No” and so Herbert carried on hitting him.

Miss Lancaster was attacked as she cradled her boyfriend’s blood-spattered head in her lap.

Her killers were goading each other on as they took turns to kick her and stamp on her head and body.

When it was all over Herbert bragged to a passer-by: “There’s two moshers nearly dead up Bacup Park”.

By: spicy vicious

spicy vicious — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:44:55 +0000

im all for peace. i think we may still have a chance.
violence solves nothing
this remonds me of the holocaust.
Strongconsideration for other poeple.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 06:40:47 +0000

Can we have some anti-Homeboy Gangsta Dickhead Wannabe rioting here please. Just one day a year. It’s not murder, it’s responsible managment of the species.

By: wbb

wbb — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 03:34:50 +0000

inner city new agers vs suburban working families

That’s the nasty one.

By: Tony D

Tony D — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 03:23:09 +0000

Ahhhhh Tamagothi. If you feed your goth too much speed they turn into a raver.

By: Francis Xavier Holden

Francis Xavier Holden — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:09:47 +0000

Bikies vs straights, bodgies and widgies vs beatniks, Jazzers vs rockers, rockers vs mods, blackburn sharpies vs everyone, hippies vs broadie boys, jocks vs goths, punks vs disco, ……….. inner city new agers vs suburban working families, bloggers vs MSM…………

By: sublimecowgirl

sublimecowgirl — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 06:23:31 +0000

British teenagers hunt and kill goth girl.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/27/ngoth127.xml

By: professor rat

professor rat — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 05:59:41 +0000

In conservative countries ( GB Today!) dominated by authoritarian religion the ‘other’ – however defined – is sometimes outrageously scapegoated. Therfore it follows that we ( democratic and libertarian socialists acting in good faith) must act. And the best way now is through the net with preditcion markets. Sear
‘ James Bell assassination politics’.
It ain’t brain surgery. It’s the economy stupid. We can sure as ell minimize it by making a small positive contribution.

( Just my 2 pesos)

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:44:34 +0000

Be interested to hear her take, Klaus, given those caveats about her thesis commitments!

By: Klaus K

Klaus K — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:42:25 +0000

I’m hoping that a particular friend of mine will have something to say as she is up to speed with Mexican politics, and just returned from a trip there, but I’m not going to bug her for an opinion because she’s trying to finish a thesis.

From what I do understand of the media in Mexico, there is less of a ‘depoliticising’ of these kinds of situations with crude psyschologisation or moral panic. But then, maybe my view is skewed by the media I’ve been exposed to!

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:36:39 +0000

Yes, I’d be interested in hearing more about that – this is an example where “translation” goes beyond “translation” – as in even if you have some Spanish, a lot of political and cultural context is still missing… in translation. With any luck some of the people following this story might write something more informative in time!

By: Klaus K

Klaus K — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:32:01 +0000

Indeed it is. My bare Spanish comprehension did turn out to be useful though: the google translator seems to occasionally throw up the polar opposite of what is meant by particular phrases. From what I understand, I have to put aside my homophobia thesis in favour of your more general point about forms of masculinity, and beyond that it may actually be related to the broader political situation.

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:22:34 +0000

It is hard to judge this sort of thing at a distance.

By: Klaus K

Klaus K — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:21:17 +0000

The Mexican sources seem to suggest it is about a broader conservatism rather than narrow homophobia, but they weren’t very specific. I think I need a better grounding in contemporary Mexican politics to assess the claims being made about links to other political conflicts. From my admittedly superficial reading of those sources – my Spanish is weak, and I don’t want to go through it with the dictionary – it seems like sections of the left media area trying to claim these attacks as evidence in support of their political assumptions. I’m not sure about that, but it’s quite possible that the phenomena are related.

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:13:59 +0000

It wasn’t a hostile comment, Klaus.

I am, however, suggesting that you can perceive something meaningful about a culture from experience of it.

I’d agree that it’s misleading to attribute it to an entire country.

By: Klaus K

Klaus K — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:05:43 +0000

“Been there, Klaus? Sometimes stereotypes have a basis in reasonable broad generalisation.”

Yes, lets dredge up the category of experience as a realistic way of assessing the character of a whole nation. My objection was to attributing ‘machismo’ to an entire country, more than suggesting that machismo does not exist in Latin America. My partner is Salvadoran, so I’m not naive about the reality of the phenomenon.

By: Liam

Liam — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:57:24 +0000

Darlene and Klaus, in the Spanish and Latin American context the term ‘macho’ carries significantly greater connotations than simply hypermasculinity, and it’s really a concept of its own. Machismo isn’t necessarily homophobic—in fact in modern Spain at least same-sex male relationships, especially before marriage, are winked at even by the most macho—but it is intensely tribal and chauvinistic.
As Kim’s link suggests, there’s likely more to it than just youth cultures in conflict.

By: Eliot Ramsey

Eliot Ramsey — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:54:14 +0000

dk.au links to this about Chilean kids;

Surrounded by passing strollers, they trade partners multiple times—mostly engaging in anonymous rounds of oral sex. When the party is over, no contact information is exchanged.

Sounds like St Ives or maybe Pymble. It take it the “strollers” are “passers-by” – not those little perambulators that toddlers sit in. In which case, it would be just like St Ives or maybe Pymble.

What happens when you beat up an Emo? Do they get happy?

By: Darlene

Darlene — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:47:54 +0000

Take your point, Klaus, but would anyone object if I said that Australian working class culture has traditionally been (and still largely is) machismo?

By: silkworm

silkworm — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:47:00 +0000

By xenophobic, I mean fear of those who are different, not fear of foreigners. I should have made that clear. Emos dress differently from most of us, but there is nothing in that dress to suggest that they are practising a gay lifestyle. Perhaps it is a new phenomenon altogether deserving of its own name – emophobia, or misoemoism.