Gangsters warn youth of perils of membership

DEATH or prison is the only fate that awaits any Irish youth who joins a gang, former gangsters warned yesterday.

More than 60 ex-gang members from around the world were among 200 people who attended the start of an international conference in Dublin yesterday.

The Summit Against Violent Extremism, organised by Google Ideas, a think-tank, was also attended by victims of terrorism, including the September 11 attacks in the US and the July 2005 London bombings.

“I tell kids if you are going to get involved in a group I can’t stop you, but remember you are going to end up dead or in prison,” said TJ Leyden, a former neo-Nazi from the US.

Mr Leyden, who joined the white supremacist group Hammerskin Nation at the age of 14, said the biggest enemy for gang members was other members of the gang.

“I didn’t fear being killed by other gangs, I was more scared of being killed by people inside my group.”

He said that since he left the gang and set up StrHate Talk, he has taken 89 people out of the supremacist gang.

Susan Cruz, a former gang member, said gangs kill their members.

“It’s a slow-motion suicide. You identify yourself as someone waiting, basically, for something bad to happen. When does it become okay not to make it to your 18th birthday, to see your friends die? The attitude is, sooner or later, we are going to die.”

Ms Cruz set up a group, Sin Frontiers, to rehabilitate gang members.

“We need to take the allure out of gangs, the sexiness,” she said, but added there was “no blanket solution”.

She said to young Irish people thinking of joining a gang: “I would say take pride of who you are and to explore what it means to be from Ireland, what does it mean to be from your community, your family?

“Gangs fill society’s void at a very high price. I think young people need to find a way to fill the voids in their lives, through history, connectedness, through families, through heritage. Ireland has such a rich history, heritage and culture.”

Speaking alongside former Islamic extremists, London bombings’ survivor Gill Hicks said she was “without hatred”.

Ms Hicks, who lost both her legs in the attack, said she was “filled with love and humanity” towards the ex-militants because of what united them — the desire to end extremism.

She said she “realised the secret of life” from the bravery and humanity of her rescuers, who risked a possible second bombing targeting rescue workers, as had happened in the 2004 Madrid terrorist attacks.

“I am only here because of their actions,” she said. “It didn’t matter to them if I had a faith or no faith, if I was black or white.”

Google chief Eric Schmidt said the web giant has no political goal in setting up the forum. However, he said Google believes more information and transparency leads to better governments.

Mr Schmidt criticised the cynicism he has experienced “over and over again” about tackling the issue of violent extremism, adding that society only moves on when it tries something new.

“It’s time for us as a society to take charge on these things,” he said.

“Phenomena begin, phenomena end. They do, in fact, and new problems emerge. Let’s work on some new problems, fix the old problems.”

Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas and a former adviser to US secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton who spent time interviewing militants in the Middle East and gang members of central America, said Google’s role was more than just a corporate responsibility strategy.