“Peru is experiencing a historical problem of violence, not just its bars” and “we must educate from school”: an analysis of the phenomenon in the stands and streets when League 1 is played

Two Saturdays ago, Peruvian football was once again stained with blood, since two minors were shot by criminals who were “defending” their support for the Universitario de Deportes and this has caused the Government to get involved and take measures. -which some consider populist- and that really does not solve that problem. In the first instance, the president of the Council of Ministers, Alberto Otárola, announced that the Universitario de Deportes and Alianza Lima clubs will play their next matches at home for League 1 with their main popular stands closed, after the events that occurred in the district. of Santa Anita that left four people injured.

In addition to this, in a movie theater in the populous district of San Juan de Miraflores, some Universitario fans, after finishing screening the documentary “Iluminados” on Cineplanet, lit a fire torch, causing the movie chain to later desist from screening plus this audiovisual work from the cream cast.

For this reason, El Comercio spoke with the sociologist Carlos Bejarano and the sports psychologist Mario Reyes Bossio to analyze this panorama, two days of a new street massacre: a young barrista from Universitario fainted by a mob of teenagers supposedly fans of Alianza Lima, on the way to Ate.

Two questions: How to define this phenomenon in times of social networks? And how to deal with it?

Carlos Bejarano – Sociologist and Communicator.

“I believe that Peru is experiencing a problem of structural and historical violence, I believe that these measures try to solve the structural problem quickly, something that is impossible; However, I think it is a wake-up call to say if something happens next, the games are suspended or played without people, but I don’t know how effective it can be, since it is a wake-up call to the fans, but I don’t know. how effective it can be because it has happened before. It is not the first case of violence in football, since there were deaths and we were shocked by that, but in the end it ended in the same way we are now. I believe that the problem is more serious and more organic solutions are needed that have to do with different levels of life such as the Ministry of the Interior and social experts, as happened in England. What I don’t understand is what Alianza Lima has to do with this issue because their platform is suspended and that is another issue.”

“The government is telling the fans to behave well or take other measures, but I don’t think the problem will be solved, Peru is a country with a lot of violence and football is an escape mechanism from that violence, but it is not the “place where violence begins or ends, the entire city is violent,” he stated.

Mario Reyes Bossio – Sports psychologist and researcher at the UPC

“First, every act of violence must be condemned, no matter where it comes from, again we cannot continue living in anxiety in the face of what is a sporting spectacle that should be a family and fun topic. It is unfortunate that the name of two sports institutions is once again used as the events that triggered the violence. This event leads us to something greater, which is a phenomenon that involves multiple actors and its approach must be multi-causal, involving the barristas, the academic, political, police community, sports clubs, localities, regions and everything. The government, together with private and public institutions, must get involved in working against this problem.

“As it is a phenomenon that involves so many multi-causal aspects, it must also be analyzed from scientific research, which is the point of view of how to analyze social phenomena and allows us to go beyond violence. Here he analyzes the reason for committing an act of violence and there are already investigations in other South American countries where work is being done to know the origin from the bars themselves and thus we show all of this. This implies that decision-making to improve intervention work, but I emphasize that preventive work must be taken from different sectors and that does not only include violence, since larger issues must be seen. If a decision is made to only close a northern or southern sector and state that violence comes from those places, from my point of view we are taking inappropriate actions to go to the central point which is violence, because there we give an aspect of discrimination, since that all those who go north or south are violent or criminals, that is what we want to promote. That also took him to the national team matches, those who go to those stands are criminals, that is the message we want to give.”

“Beyond the actions they are taking at this moment, which I consider that if they are actions that are taken in a reasoned manner by the main entity that is the State to be able to ally the aforementioned aspects, they will be welcomed and will have to be complied with. But the issue does not end there in immediate action, but it is not only sports, it is cultural, political, social and there are many factors that are involved. This has to be an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work to take preventive actions and all of this can be achieved with public policies that involve issues of violence, bullying, gender discrimination and other issues. Here we must educate from schools, the IPD has a training area and involve issues of violence, which is very important. They should also go to the organized bars and see what is their work plan? What is your life plan? What are those motivations and values ​​that lead you to be what you are? Then, under these questions, involve the clubs to be able to participate in social works and highlight identity and not crime.”

The issue goes beyond a simple measure – closing stadium stands, not allowing banners to enter the football festival – and we must see what is happening behind this problem. In other words, get to know the new young people in depth. Intelligence to understand them. Without that, everything is pyrotechnics, smoke screens.

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