Q&A: The facts behind Brussels' urban gangs

University of Leuven researcher Elke Van Hellemont recently completed a PhD study on gangs in Brussels – a topic that’s been in the news a lot lately, following the release of the gritty box-office smash Black (pictured), directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah.

Why can’t police and experts agree on whether Brussels has gangs?
A definition has never been developed for what exactly constitutes an urban gang. In Brussels, to a large extent, this depends on the perception of the police, and what we see is that the police’s registration method contributes to an overestimation of the problem.

There are gangs in Brussels, but it’s a very complex phenomenon, so we actually call it a “gang phenomenon”, and young people participate in it in a very fluid manner. The majority of the time, gang members don’t do anything exceptional for their age; it’s only at very precise moments that they act differently.

What characterises this phenomenon?
Fiction. They construe an image, build up a certain reputation – but that reputation is only partially true. They insinuate a lot, and a lot of what we would call the excessive violence is just a very small part of the violence these young people commit. It’s a type of violence that springs from maintaining that myth – the part fiction, part truthfulness of a gang. So, for instance, when someone says their group is not a real gang, they respond with violence to make it clear that they are.

I don’t see anything that looks like gang activity when I go to the Matongé quarter
To be honest, the majority of these young people in general wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s important to understand that there’s a measure of crime there, but that crime has little to do with the gang phenomenon. It’s crime they would have also committed if they weren’t in a gang. Take for instance the overwhelming majority of the marijuana business: many young people participate in it to cover their cost of living. There are very few types of crimes that are related to the gang phenomenon.

What I found most disturbing about the movie Black was that it pretended that the most extreme thing to ever have happened in these black African groups is everyday business. We know that there have been gang rapes, but that was one extreme case. So it’s partially true, but the way it’s presented and the scope it appears to take in the film is simply the product of imagination rather than the truth.

Photo: Still from the movie Black