When Belonging Becomes a Border

The first part described a bond that fades. This one describes a bond that turns. For belonging is not the opposite of loneliness: wrongly oriented, it produces fractures of its own. A legitimate identity becomes a moral border, a word becomes a weapon, an anger becomes a doctrine, and violence ends up presenting itself as the only way of existing. Four findings follow that tipping point, from ordinary speech to the attack.

I. Identity turned against the bond

15. Tribal hatred and identity retreat

From the African Great Lakes region to the exclusive nationalisms of Europe and elsewhere, contemporary societies are experiencing various forms of identity retreat. A legitimate belonging — ethnic, national, religious, cultural or regional — becomes dangerous when it claims sole possession of truth, of land, of memory or of dignity.

The problem is not the existence of identities. An identity protects, transmits, names and connects. The fracture appears when it is converted into a moral border: some would be naturally more worthy of belonging to the We than others. That tipping point requires neither war nor an elaborate doctrine. It is enough for a population to stop being a set of persons and become a category.

The We-ism response. The Charter of the Companions of the Way states a clear prohibition:

The Knot of Destinies does not demand an abstract love of the other. It observes that societies are already bound together — by the economy, the environment, migration, security, resources and shared memories.

The border is therefore not abolished. It is reinterpreted: no longer a line meant to isolate, but a zone where responsibility becomes reciprocal.

16. Hate speech

Hate speech spreads through the media, social networks, political campaigns, ordinary conversation and the mechanisms of disinformation. It always works by simplification: one group becomes responsible for every problem, an individual is reduced to their belonging, a real injustice is used to justify generalised violence.

Its effectiveness must be acknowledged. It captures attention, mobilises a crowd, produces a powerful emotion and gives whoever listens the feeling of having at last understood the world. But its effectiveness does not make it legitimate.

The We-ism response. The Weaving Word takes up the classical model of communication — sender, receiver, message, code, context and channel — and adds to it a normative question:

Does this communication strengthen the human bond, or destroy it?

The sender may inform or manipulate. The receiver may discern or pass on without examination. The message may do justice or dehumanise. The code may welcome or confine. The channel may foster dialogue or coordinate violence. Every position therefore carries a responsibility, including that of whoever merely shares.

We-ism does not ask us to avoid disagreement. It asks us to refuse dehumanisation. One can fight an ideology, denounce an injustice and condemn a crime without reducing an entire population to a guilty essence.

II. From anger to organised violence

17. The radicalisation of young people

Radicalisation does not proceed first from the transmission of a doctrine. It is fostered by isolation, humiliation, the search for belonging, anger, the loss of meaning and repeated exposure to narratives that present violence as the only way of existing. International reports underline the significant share, in Western countries, of attacks carried out by isolated actors radicalised online.¹

The link with the previous part appears here. What social cohesion described as a disappearance can become, in this part, an offer of belonging. Violent organisations often succeed where communities have failed: they give a name, a role, brothers and a mission.

The We-ism response. Preventive Mediation aims to intervene before the rupture becomes irreversible. It presupposes a form of listening able to hear the signs of disaffiliation and anger without legitimising violent projects.

This is not about excusing the perpetrator of an act. It is about understanding the mechanisms that turn a frustration into hatred, and then hatred into a justification for violence.

Awakened Service must create places where young people can find:

• a recognition that does not pass through domination;
• a voice that is not immediately ridiculed;
• a community that does not require hating in order to belong;
• a useful project that gives direction to individual energy.

The last line is the most demanding. A community that offers no real task offers no credible alternative to those who do propose one, however murderous.

18. Terrorism and the concentration of violence in sub-Saharan Africa

According to the Global Terrorism Index, several thousand people are killed each year in terrorist attacks, and a large share of the worst-affected countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, notably in the Sahel region and in parts of Central and East Africa.¹

A global fall in the number of deaths would not mean the phenomenon had disappeared. Violence remains heavily concentrated in territories where institutional weakness, poverty, land disputes, trafficking, displacement, identity tensions and the predation of resources all combine. Terrorism there is less an ideological import than an outlet: it thrives where the state no longer protects and the legal economy no longer feeds.

The We-ism response. The Knot of Destinies sets out an indivisible conception of security. No state can durably build its own while letting its neighbour become a permanent zone of disorder — Part 5 will return to this with regard to resources and seas.

Cooperation cannot therefore be confined to military operations. It must extend to education, employment, justice, the management of resources, the reintegration of former combatants, local mediation and the protection of populations.

The Realism of Forgiveness intervenes here not as a general amnesty, but as a strategy for breaking out of the cycle. Each act of violence must be prevented from calling forth a revenge, each revenge a counter-revenge, and each memory a fresh mobilisation of hatred. Realistic forgiveness demands neither forgetting nor the abandonment of justice: it refuses to let resentment become the permanent principle of future decisions.

Four findings, one same tipping point: belonging stops connecting the moment it starts sorting.

Hate speech prepares radicalisation, radicalisation feeds organised violence, and organised violence in turn produces the wounded memories that will legitimise the next hatred. We-ism proposes three verifiable gestures: refusing dehumanisation in one's own speech, intervening before the breaking point, and treating a neighbour's security as a condition of one's own. The next part examines what happens when the fracture no longer comes from groups, but from those whose task was to protect them.