Turn back the clock a couple of years or even a few months and one will see news items about French President Jacques Chirac lecturing the US for the "need for dialogue" with Islam. And when Hurricane Katrina hit the US coast and revealed the disturbing poverty beneath the US' skin, French leaders were smug, smirking and tittering that this would never happen in France.
Cut to today, when there has been more than two weeks of rioting in France. What do we see? Chirac and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy are willfully refusing to take their own advice. Sarkozy (or "Sarko," as he is lovingly called by the rioters) has thrown fuel on the fire by making comments on the need to "power clean" the "scum." Chirac in turn has thrown his support behind Sarkozy while distancing himself from his left-leaning prime minister, Dominique De Villepin.
So, are the French riots only a result of what some politician said? Of course not! The primary thing that fomented these riots is the virulent racism that has led to ghettoization and extinction of opportunities for a vast majority of North Africans living in France.
It is startling to realize the extent to which racism is practiced in a country that prides itself on its avowal of “liberalism” and “equality.” The terrible fact is that French racism isn’t a contemporary phenomenon; it dates back to its repugnant treatment of Jews. The French were willing participants in discrimination against Jews before and during World War II. The violence with which France brutalized the Algerians is legendary. And so are other countless instances including recent skirmishing in Ivory Coast.
But of all these events, the recent riots have torn through the façade of France’s sham claim to liberalism. These riots have removed the last shred of moral high ground that France has claimed time and again while lecturing other countries. It is time France puts its own house in order - and by that I don't mean mass-expatriations and other reactionary laws. A reformed France is an unlikely outcome, given how smug the French are about their culture and given how much support right-wing nutjobs like Sarkozy enjoy in their country. Pardon me for saying this, but maybe Freedom Fries were not altogether a bad idea.
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Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
thanks gaurav, a couple of things: I would guess French racism goes back farther than WWII and is rooted in colonialism, as was that of the other Euro colonial powers, which was most of them, of course.
What role does the French economic system play in this drama, and is that wha you mean by "reform," or what other reforms are you referring to specifically?
2 - Stone
Yeah, the level of racial hypocrisy in France (and most of Europe) is unbelievable. Although America is NO WHERE NEAR racial harmony, we at least confront the fac that racism exists in our socitey.
3 - alienboy
STONE: Would you put some flesh on your assertion about European racial hypocrisy?
As for the article itself, it seems to be more of an attempt to denigrate France and bolster bruised American sensibilities than any realistic attempt to address the issue.
There are racial problems all over the world and the causes and contemporary problems we face as a species to deal with this aggressive schismatic behaviour by a very vocal minority needs to be thoughtful and nuanced.
This article has not yet reached that level of understanding in my opinion. For a start, noting the comparative levels of racism in particular countries doesn't get anybody anywhere does it?
For instance, do you have any suggestions as to how we can take steps to reduce tensions worldwide or locally within Europe?
It is obvious that mistakes have been made by European and American countries for centuries, ever since these countries started plundering first West and then Eastern Africa for resources. Although in some ways the Western nations can be forgiven for taking to slavery as they did, given that it was a regular feature of life in Africa at the time and had been for generations.
There are many other shameful episodes in our common human history, the Greeks and Romans in ancient times; the English under Cromwell exiled Irish Catholics into slavery in the West Indies in the 17th century; and the African Moors of the Barbary Coast put millions of Europeans into slavery in North Africa right up to the early 19th Century.
I found this out with as much effort as it took to type "slavery" into search engine, which brought me to this fascinating article on the subject in Wikipedia which might be worth taking a look at...
4 - tommyd
Just more France bashing by arrogant Americans who reserve the right to dish it out to any nation but cry, cry, cry when they have to take it sometimes. Yawn.
BTW, although France disagreed with America's war on Iraq (and rightfully so), I've yet to see or hear them say anything even close to "I told you so". I speak and understand French and follow the news in France. Sure they report about Iraq's continuing violence and chaos but they never editorialize on the news like America's #1 Fox "News".
And so what if the French are racists? Who says they have to act any differently? France isn't a nation of immigrants, like the USA supposedly is. The French people never had a chance against the wishes of their government who wanted to import millions of unassimilable immigrants.....kinda like the same thing in America with the Mexican invasion. Who's gonna stop it.
France and America: Different sides of the same coin.
5 - Disco Stu
Speaking as an arrogant American... [deleted] France.
6 - Anthony Grande
What Disco Stu said...
7 - alienboy
Hey Stu, here's the pid you lost out of your name...
8 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Gauav Sood is just as blind to the weaknesses of America as he is sensitive to the weaknesses of France.
Suburban ghettos are not seen in the States because American urban policies generally have lead to the rotting of cities while preserving the suburbs as ghettos for the rich. But segregation is very much alive and well in all parts of the United States with a poulation of more than 50,000.
America was designed as a country for white people. People who are not whites have a lot more trouble "assimilating" into American culture than do whites. Blacks and aborigines are not really welcome there. This is one of the reasaons that the American integrative mechanism, the public schools, didn't work when faced with "integrating" blacks into American culture.
The cohesiveness of the multicultural society I live in, Israel, is built mainly on the fact that people generally hate Arabs more than they hate their fellow Jews of a different nationality.
French cohesiveness is built around two revolving poles - secularism or Christianity. The secularism is basically the dislike or revolt from Christianity. In this stucture, there is no place for Islam, the religion of most of the rioters (there is no place for Judaism either, but French Jews have made their own peace with la France - or left). Therefore, an alien structure is evolving in France. These riots are part of that alien structure.
9 - Nicolas
I wuold agree with Ruvy IF the riots were motivated by religion...