|
American in Paris |
 |
|
|
 Black residents of France seem to hold no power under outmoded government policies |
France hides its racism
behind legal charade
By KENNETH DREYFACK
of TheColumnists.com
Among the long line of local people waiting to be served at my local post office one day recently, a young black guy with dreadlocks, about 20, was in a loud, passionate discussion with a short black woman. Visibly angry, the tall, scruffy guy argued that racial equality in France was no more than a masquerade perpetuated by whites.
He had come to the post office to collect papers sent from Africa, which he needed to replace his French identity documents. They had been stolen a few weeks earlier, along with his other possessions, when he had been beaten up by a gang of white toughs, because he was black.
The short woman, old enough to be his mother and laden with a heavy shopping bag, responded that the incident was no reason to hate whites. People must figure out how to live together harmoniously, she argued. A few of the whites in the line timidly clucked their agreement. Forget about the whites, replied the angry black guy as he stalked off.
The exchange provides a rare glimpse into a debate that is usually clothed in coded euphemism. More importantly, it crystallizes the unwillingness of French authorities and mainstream society generally to address the issue of racial equality. Instead of trying to foment understanding among the country’s multiracial, multi-confessional, multicultural population, official and unofficial attitudes are driving divisions deeper among different groups. Fear and hatred are on the rise.
The problem, according to French groupthink, is communautarisme. It means that, instead of joining in glorious egalitarianism, people are breaking apart into hermetic communities of uniform racial, religious and cultural origins. The guy at the post office is a good example. The ghettoes of people of North African and black African origins that surround most French cities are another. Communautarisme applies only to minorities, of course.
The solution, personified by the woman with the shopping bag, is described as integration, although assimilation would be a better name. Common values and the greater good are supposed to overcome sectarian interests as all people integrate into a single, harmonious society. This is part of what the République is all about--Liberty, equality, fraternity; the Rights of Man.
In the République all people are equal. Period. So, the argument goes, there is no need, and no room, for any law or official effort that favors one group over another. In fact, the very concept of unequal groups is anathema. It contradicts the idea of the République.
You can question the dreadlocked guy’s attitude, but not that people of black or North African origin are less equal than others in France today. Studies regularly document the difficulty of renting a nice apartment or finding a good job, regardless of means or qualifications, if your name happens to be Muhammad or Désiré.
Hard figures on unemployment or housing are difficult to find; it is anti-Republican to question supposedly equal citizens about family or ethnic origins. But the evidence is compelling: There is virtually no one of North African or black African origin in a senior position of authority in French government, politics, large corporations or leading news media.
The ceiling is not glass; it’s reinforced steel. French institutions, from political parties and executive suites to education and unions, are incredibly rigid. The white Europeans who devote their lives to climbing to the highest positions monopolize them once they get there. When they do finally retire, their places go to long-groomed successors with the same social background and schooling.
From time to time, someone does suggest that something ought to be done, that some kind of affirmative action be devised to reverse the trend. He or she is invariably scorned as insufficiently attached to Republican principles. Or someone who has succumbed to the simplistic, hypocritical sirens of Anglo-Saxon thinking, where the inherent equality of each individual has not been woven sufficiently deeply into the fabric of society.
Instead of trying to enforce the laws that exist against discrimination, politicians and authorities have invented a convenient, insidious charade known as laicité, which stands for a lay society. The idea is that, contrasting the pre-revolutionary role of the Church, contemporary France is faith-neutral. The current French government outlawed the wearing of headscarves by Muslim girls in public schools in the name of laicité. The mayor in my 20th arrondissement even declared 2004 the Year of Laicité and staged a rally, attended by thousands of neighborhood people, in defense of laicité. But no one has challenged significantly the separation of church and state in France in a hundred years!
Laicité really means that people of different origins must assimilate. It’s a modern adaptation of the lesson taught in French colonial schools about ‘our ancestors the Gauls.’ It says ‘shape up or ship out’ of French society. Laicité constitutes at best a rationale to do nothing by continuing to hide behind void principles and empty declarations of good intentions.
It would be laughable, if it did not stoke
fear and contempt among the majority while convincing people
like the guy in the post office that there is no place for them
in mainstream society. While thousands turn out for rallies to
defend a principle under no threat, hardly anyone in authority
is trying to rally people around the goal of genuine equality.
©2005 by Kenneth
Dreyfack. The cartoon is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
This column first posted May 2, 2005.
You
can comment on this column online. Please address your message
to either "The Editors" or Kenneth Dreyfack. To send
an email, click here: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|