violence

[rwx]

Violence is the hard drug of the information society. It interrupts the program, it cuts through the rhythm of stress, entertainment and boredom that passes for ordinary experience. The images of violence sear into your mind, like witnesses of the present. That's how I remember the nights of October and November in France. I can still see the images of the flames, the skeletons of the burning buses. I can still hear the strange thud of the exploding cars, I can still feel the tension that separates the police with their helmets, tear gas and flashball guns, from the ghetto kids with their hoods and scarves, their paving stones and Molotov cocktails. All that happened so close to where I live, but so far away, worlds away from the city center; I only saw it through the media.

Brian Holmes' speech at the Boell foundation in Berlin began this way, and it resonated with me. Read the text here.