International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2018 | Page 43

International Journal on Criminology
all of its dimensions, and the blindness of certain academics, similar to that of a
very large section of the political class (which is even more serious), is not halting
its advance. Manuel Valls, then prime minister, stated in relation to terrorism that
“[ ... ] explaining is already a little bit like excusing,” 1 showing the low degree of
concern he had for understanding the enemy. It is not enough to say that we are at
“war,” we must act as a result: we must both know the enemy and be able to clearly
identify him if we want to give ourselves the means to defeat him. A number of
individuals have written well on this topic before me.
Especially since nowadays, “terrorism” is not our only enemy. It is the entirety
of criminal phenomena that, in a sad osmosis, is the true enemy of the society
we want to live in. One of the most effective current and prospective means
of protecting this society is criminal law. But we must be able to recognize and
understand this enemy.
Thus, criminal lawyers who deny criminology the place it deserves, the
place it occupies in the majority of universities around the world, are subscribing
to a sad logic that undermines the foundation of their science: without an understanding
of criminal phenomena, what meaning does criminal law have?
THE THREAT: THE CRIMINAL ENEMY
For millennia, threat (in its non-supernatural form), and the fear that it has always
engendered, has been linked to a clearly identifiable enemy. Protecting
oneself from it has essentially been associated with military, tribal, clanbased,
and subsequently national solutions.
The perception of threat is radically different today: while it is still real, it
takes on different forms, vague and complex, in a world that is, itself, confused.
The perception of threat is, above all, different because many political powers are
no longer capable of, or are no longer interested in, identifying an enemy whose
essence is altered by ideologies, by what is politically correct, and by media prisms,
and whose symbiotic nature makes it part of their electoral imperatives.
Until the end of the Cold War, the notion of threat was linked to tensions
between states and the fear of the violent confrontations that could result: threat
therefore took on the form of war. War gave rise to a specific kind of law, as well as
certain conventions, rules, and codes of conduct.
With its bloody nature, this sphere of brutality was, most of the time, standardized,
comprehensible, and familiar. And while the presence of fear was undeniable,
it was reasoned and targeted.
The Cold War seems to have reached the extreme limits of these state confrontations.
However, throughout its duration, the terms of threat had already been
modified. With the heavy weapons, tanks, transcontinental rockets, and “atomic
bombs” that conditioned the balance of the blocs under the “umbrella” that had
1 Manuel Valls, January 9, 2016
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