Juan Cole on the French Suburban Youth Riots

[Dancing_Dave]

He posted at Chicago Indymedia, and he really dispells a lot of stupid propaganda myths!

"The French youth who are burning automobiles are as French as Jennifer Lopez and Christopher Walken are American. Perhaps the Steyns came before the Revolutionary War, but a very large number of us have not. The US brings 10 million immigrants every decade and one in 10 Americans is now foreign-born. Their children, born and bred here, have never known another home. All US citizens are Americans, including the present governor of California. "The immigrant" is always a political category. Proud Californio families (think "Zorro") who can trace themselves back to the 18th century Spanish empire in California are often coded as "Mexican immigrants" by "white" Californians whose parents were Okies.

A lot of the persons living in the urban outer cities (a better translation of cite than "suburb") are from subsaharan Africa. And there are lots of Eastern European immigrants. The riots were sparked by the deaths of African youths, not Muslims. Singling out the persons of Muslim heritage is just a form of bigotry. Moreover, French youth of European heritage rioted quite extensively in 1968. As they had in 1789. Rioting in the streets is not a foreign custom. It has a French genealogy and context.

The young people from North African societies such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia are mostly only nominal Muslims. They frequently do not speak much Arabic, and don't have "proper" French, either. They frequently do not know much about Islam and most of them certainly don't practice it-- much less being more virulent about it than Middle Easterners.

Aware of their in-between-ness, young persons of North African heritage in France developed a distinctive identity. They took the word Arabe and scrambled it to produce Beur (which sounds in French like the word for "butter"). Beur culture can be compared a bit to hip-hop as a form of urban expression of marginality and self-assertion in a racist society. It is mostly secular."

More great info at http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/65502/index.php

[Dancing_Dave]

1. Radical French Kids Forever Rock!

A goldmine of info on the current youth uprising is available at
Bellaciao : http://www.bellaciao.org

Some of the best stuff on this subject hasn't been translated from French to English yet, but they usually get around to it. :pals:

[Dancing_Dave]

2. Am I the only person here who sympathizes with these French kids?

Or even is curious enough to figure out what is really going on?

French cultural and intellectual life is certainly being impacted by these events... which will create ripples of influence around the world for many years to come.

[Truebrit71sbruv]

6. Not in the least Dave...

... the policy of urbanisation, ghettoisation and subsequent disenfranchisement of these groups in France - together with an increasingly reactionary state position on their issues and grievances only goes to create an environment where this kind of radical "direct-action" is the only perceived way in which their voices can be heard.

The article you quote represents amongst the most balanced commentaries on the situation as it stands. And I am very much reminded by the recent events in France of the riots that took place in Brixton and Toxteth in the UK in the 80's - and for very similar reasons.

Islam, and any other religion, plays no part in the background to this explosion of anger. The grievances of the youth of urbanised France are far more deep-seated, complex and subtle than the right-wing policy-makers of any country will admit to understanding, nor indeed will they ever be in a position to offer an amenable solution.

[FrenchieCat]

3. As a French person of color, my family left France

in the early 70s, specifically to get away from the institutional racism that has plagued France since the mid 60s. Shortly after the Algiers War, France "freed" many of it's colonies (mainly in Northern and Western Africa), and transformed others into "overseas departments/municipalities", including the Antilles Islands; Guadeloupe, St. Barths and Martinique.

France is much more ethnically diverse than many people understand. There are 4 main groups of color:
A large Asian population, primarily of Vietnamese descent due to France's colonial past in what was called Indochine.
A population of black people from the 3 Islands that constitutes the French Antilles (the French West Indies) (my mother is White French/my father from Black Martinique).
Vast numbers of Arabs mostly from Algeria and Morocco.
West Africans from Senegal and the Côte d'Ivoire.
There are also large numbers of Lebanese, Portuguese, Lybians, Tunisians and Turks. Also, most recently an influx of eastern European from various countries from the former Soviet Bloc.

Unlike America, France doesn't track it's citizens by race, but rather by land of origin, i.e., French citizens born in France, those not born in France but who claim French citizenship via one parent (my daughters are dual citizens but were born in America), Those who have naturalized. However, do not think for one moment that France does not discriminate....it certainly does.

France has for years, made attaining French citizenship easy. Mostly this was done to acquire a large labor force not possible from within due to the lack of population growth via birth required to substain it.

The institutional racism that exists in France is based on who can attain what jobs, and who lives where. Typically the Antillians work the highway repair and the hospital orderly jobs and live in the "banlieues" (cities on the outskirts of Paris, many considered sub-par) in Government highrise housing along with other minority groups. The Arabs (Algerians and Morrocans)who mostly live in "banlieues" as well and in the South of France (Marseille & Nice) are often unemployed and it can be said are the most discriminated against.

In all I would put France at about 25 to 50 years behind the United States in getting rid of institutional racism. Although it would appear, on paper, that France, because it doesn't track the various races, would be less discriminatory, in reality it is just as bad, if not worse than in America.

What we are witnessing currently is the equivalent to the Watt's Race Riots of the 70s. Young Angry French youth of color rebelling against the French government due to the lack of programs to assist making the French job market a level playing field.

That's why our family got out of there. My parents saw the handwriting on the wall, and wanted their children to have better "opportunities".

The notion of an enlightened France going back to the 1920s and 1930s of Josephine Baker and James Baldwin are long gone. Although many Americans have thought that France had transcended racism based on that period in history, this is far from the truth. Like most countries, where a large influx of immigrants suddendly appear.....racism has been alive and well in France for decades.

Will it get sorted out and will harmonious diversity one day win out? Maybe in the next 20 to 25 years.....with a lot of work and a revamping of how the French Government chooses to deal with race. They should first begin tracking the various ethnic groups, because without that kind of data, they cannot even begin to enforce policies against discriminatory practices that have blended into the beautiful French landscape.

That's why what Connelly is doing to California is the wrong approach...because the intent to be Color Blind by a government does not make racism invisible.

[xchrom]

4. ''because the intent to be Color Blind by a government --

does not make racism invisible.''

truer words were never spoken.

and we don't do it better here than in france.

but i will say this having been to france -- i think there is a strong desire to get it right -- but they are also caught in a conflict with golobalization to remain ''french'' and retain french culture in a changing world.

and for NOW those things may conflict as a part of growing pains.
but the french are wonderful, ingenious people who i think will grapple rationally with these problems and still walk away very ''french'' in their solutions.

[FrenchieCat]

8. I do agree that their intent is positive....

and if they acknowledge the real tragic problems and come up with solutions, they may at some point get there. :hi:

[Adelante]

9. A letter published on Juan Cole's site

-snip-

The remnants of France's colonial empire are now stacked, often 12 stories high, in what the French call "rabbit cages." It is easy to understand how the youth of these
underprivileged projects feel totally disenfranchised from the mainstream of French society. Many have dropped out of a very rigid education system, and the prospects for any kind of meaningful future in terms of a job, career, decent housing, a feeling of self-worth, etc., are very bleak.

And when the Minister of Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, talks of clearning up these housing projects with a "Kärcher" (a high pressusre steam cleaning machine) and refering to the youth of these projects as "racaille"* (I think the best translation is "scum", what does he expect ? Such incendiary language has no place in dealing with the victims of many decades of social neglect and has, in fact, only served as a further catalyst to the present violence.

And yet, from what I read in the French press, there are other factors at play here. Le Monde had a series of articles in the Tuesday, Nov., 8th edition where many of the kids from these projects as well as their parents are interviewed. One mother is quoted as saying that these young men (there are very few young girls involved) have no future ahead of them and yet are the victims themselves of a gang mentality that is in operation in the suburbs. They have no values other than those of money and consumerism, and drug trafficking is one of the few means they have of making money. A group of young girls is quoted as saying that alone these young men would never think of torching a car, but in the group/gang mentality they would be considered a coward if they refused to go along with the group. "They would be nothing in the neighborhood."

Another factor that is important to realize is that their actions are largely designed to attract attention to them and to their plight. The group of girls interviewed were upset that there were no police helicopters flying over their neighborhood on the particular night they were interviewed. "Seine Saint Denis get the helicopters. We are losers here."

-more-

http://www.juancole.com/2005/11/stevenson-on-riots-in-france-roger.html#comments

"racaille"* - A couple of people in the comments say the correct interpretation is "rabble" - not that it's better, but words interest me.

[enough]

5. As ever, Juan Cole gives us a dose of reality and intelligence.

Thanks for posting this.

[Truebrit71sbruv]

7. Se rebeller est juste, désobéir est un devoir, agir est nécessaire !

Alors!.....Ca, c'est vrai!