Sympathy For the French Rioters?
Ralph Peters of the New York Post has ruffled a few feathers on the Right this morning with an op-ed piece entitled "France's Intifada" that argues passionately that the rioters' anger is a just demonstration of rage directed at a fundamentally racist country. The piece ends with Peters arguing that "every American who believes in racial equality and human dignity should sympathize with the rioters, not with the effete bigots on the Seine." The idea that one of our premiere opinion writers on the American Right could be supporting what is obviously a jihadi-influenced uprising is not as strange as one might believe at first glance. In fact, Peters' essay reveals a little-noticed but fundamental feature of America's political culture that the current Administration would be wise to pay attention to, as it provides the key to securing Democratic, liberal and progressive support for the wider War on Terror.
As a university student in Paris in the late 1980's, I lived in an international dorm called the Cite Universitaire in Paris' 14th Arrondissement. The Cite is a wonderful place, with many nations having their own dorm buildings (Japan House, German House, U.S. House, etc.) on a beautiful campus, centered on common buildings that contain a cafeteria, a cafe, a bookstore, a theatre and a post office. As students, we took all our main meals at the cafeteria, though, truth be told, we often went to the cafe instead since the food was generally a little bit better (Croque-Monsieur anyone?). It was there that I had the most interaction with other students, both French (the Cite also houses a lot of French students from the provinces) and other Europeans, not to mention the occassional African or Latin American.
I mention this because one of the effects of this exposure was that I found myself after a short amount of time being the guy other people would come to if they wanted to discuss America or America's foreign policy. Most of the people who approached me did so in the manner of someone seeking out a strange being, for here was a creature who could actually explain why Ronald Reagan, an obvious buffoon (times really never change, do they?), had won the Presidency with such overwhelming support. It was, in fact, a bit touching to find people steeped in a reflexive anti-Americanism seeking out discussion and debate, enriching both parties in the process. I have always thought the experience the very essence of what international education should be all about.
After a while, I recoginzed the duality of the French students' thoughts on race. To them, America was and is a fundamentally racist country, a place where American Blacks are endlessly downtrodden, oppressed and in desperate need of Gallic solidarity. This was a given, impervious to discussion or reason. Yet, at the same time, under questioning by me, they would slowly answer my questions, quickly coming to grips with what I was getting at: "No, we don't have any non-white deputies in the National Assembly....No, you're right, we've never had an Arab-Frenchman or and African-Frenchman achieve flag rank in our military......Yes, it must be admitted, we have never had a non-white minister of state......Okay, I see your point, one never sees a black or brown skinned fireman or police officer here in Paris.....and, yes, of course, our business leaders are uniformily white."
It was through the course of these discussions that I would relent and admit that the U.S. has always had a problem with race, but counter that it was one we were confronting and dealing with, while the French have always blithely assumed that everyone is French and would like to be French if they weren't. A racism that is unconscious and the product of republican ideology is still racism.
So, when Peters argues, as he did this morning, that "[t]here is no Western country more profoundly racist than France," he is on to something important. In this morning's Financial Times, a French official is quoted as claiming that for "bureaucratic reasons" firemen for the Paris area are all recruited in the low-minority southwest of France (Pyrenees-Atlantique), which, naturally, is a good French explanation for how it is that an enormous city with a large minority population has not one Arab or African fireman.
This is not the racism of Bull Connor, but, rather, the subtle racism of the Fifth Republic, where, somehow, someway, the rules--dispassionately taking no notice of race or ethnicity--always manage to ensure that France-in-power remains 100% French and 100% white.
In our political culture, this result would be unacceptible on a number of levels, not the least of which would be the moral unacceptibility of such an outcome that stands in stark contrast to the American way. When Peters writes that "[t]here's nothing resembling equal-opportunity programs or affirmative action" in France he is not advocating those particular remedies as such but, rather, noting as I did in Paris so long ago that while we have our problems we are addressing it in a wide variety of ways, while the French are not.
The result--though some of us would like to achieve it via a color-blind and inclusive meitocracy while others want to achieve it via government dictated "positive" discrimination--is that at no time in American history have minorities been better intregrated into mainstream American society.
For while Hurricane Katrina has revealed that we still have a problem when it comes to a segment (that is, a part, not the whole) of the native-born African-American population, as well as the Native American population, the fact is that both groups are declining in relative numbers as compared to more recently-arrived immigrants who are doing spectacularly well,including non-native born Blacks (both African and Caribbean), Hispanics, Indians and Koreans and, yes, Muslim Arabs. (Non-Muslim Arabs have always done well here, not least because of their appreciation for a land where one's religion does not set in stone one's relation to one's neighbor). While it is a particular East Coast, and thus European, error to view the state of American race relations as a matter of Black and White, we here in the West have always known that "minority" isn't just another way of saying "Black."
On the contrary, growing up in Southern California, especially now, is proof against such past-their-prime generalities, as well as against knowing what being a "minority" even means. (Sidenote: You'd be surprised how many non-Californians assume that the struggle against affirmative action in University of California admissions was an argument in Black and White and not, as it actually began, an inter-minority fight that largely pitted recently-arrived Asians against Blacks).
This belief in racial equality and individual liberty, as opposed to the tenents of multi-culturalism, is a deeply rooted American value, one that is shared by large portions of both the left and right in America. France's practices in this regard are a direct affront to those values, which is why a good conservative like Peters can look at the rioting and feel some sympathy for the devil.
As a university student in Paris in the late 1980's, I lived in an international dorm called the Cite Universitaire in Paris' 14th Arrondissement. The Cite is a wonderful place, with many nations having their own dorm buildings (Japan House, German House, U.S. House, etc.) on a beautiful campus, centered on common buildings that contain a cafeteria, a cafe, a bookstore, a theatre and a post office. As students, we took all our main meals at the cafeteria, though, truth be told, we often went to the cafe instead since the food was generally a little bit better (Croque-Monsieur anyone?). It was there that I had the most interaction with other students, both French (the Cite also houses a lot of French students from the provinces) and other Europeans, not to mention the occassional African or Latin American.
I mention this because one of the effects of this exposure was that I found myself after a short amount of time being the guy other people would come to if they wanted to discuss America or America's foreign policy. Most of the people who approached me did so in the manner of someone seeking out a strange being, for here was a creature who could actually explain why Ronald Reagan, an obvious buffoon (times really never change, do they?), had won the Presidency with such overwhelming support. It was, in fact, a bit touching to find people steeped in a reflexive anti-Americanism seeking out discussion and debate, enriching both parties in the process. I have always thought the experience the very essence of what international education should be all about.
After a while, I recoginzed the duality of the French students' thoughts on race. To them, America was and is a fundamentally racist country, a place where American Blacks are endlessly downtrodden, oppressed and in desperate need of Gallic solidarity. This was a given, impervious to discussion or reason. Yet, at the same time, under questioning by me, they would slowly answer my questions, quickly coming to grips with what I was getting at: "No, we don't have any non-white deputies in the National Assembly....No, you're right, we've never had an Arab-Frenchman or and African-Frenchman achieve flag rank in our military......Yes, it must be admitted, we have never had a non-white minister of state......Okay, I see your point, one never sees a black or brown skinned fireman or police officer here in Paris.....and, yes, of course, our business leaders are uniformily white."
It was through the course of these discussions that I would relent and admit that the U.S. has always had a problem with race, but counter that it was one we were confronting and dealing with, while the French have always blithely assumed that everyone is French and would like to be French if they weren't. A racism that is unconscious and the product of republican ideology is still racism.
So, when Peters argues, as he did this morning, that "[t]here is no Western country more profoundly racist than France," he is on to something important. In this morning's Financial Times, a French official is quoted as claiming that for "bureaucratic reasons" firemen for the Paris area are all recruited in the low-minority southwest of France (Pyrenees-Atlantique), which, naturally, is a good French explanation for how it is that an enormous city with a large minority population has not one Arab or African fireman.
This is not the racism of Bull Connor, but, rather, the subtle racism of the Fifth Republic, where, somehow, someway, the rules--dispassionately taking no notice of race or ethnicity--always manage to ensure that France-in-power remains 100% French and 100% white.
In our political culture, this result would be unacceptible on a number of levels, not the least of which would be the moral unacceptibility of such an outcome that stands in stark contrast to the American way. When Peters writes that "[t]here's nothing resembling equal-opportunity programs or affirmative action" in France he is not advocating those particular remedies as such but, rather, noting as I did in Paris so long ago that while we have our problems we are addressing it in a wide variety of ways, while the French are not.
The result--though some of us would like to achieve it via a color-blind and inclusive meitocracy while others want to achieve it via government dictated "positive" discrimination--is that at no time in American history have minorities been better intregrated into mainstream American society.
For while Hurricane Katrina has revealed that we still have a problem when it comes to a segment (that is, a part, not the whole) of the native-born African-American population, as well as the Native American population, the fact is that both groups are declining in relative numbers as compared to more recently-arrived immigrants who are doing spectacularly well,including non-native born Blacks (both African and Caribbean), Hispanics, Indians and Koreans and, yes, Muslim Arabs. (Non-Muslim Arabs have always done well here, not least because of their appreciation for a land where one's religion does not set in stone one's relation to one's neighbor). While it is a particular East Coast, and thus European, error to view the state of American race relations as a matter of Black and White, we here in the West have always known that "minority" isn't just another way of saying "Black."
On the contrary, growing up in Southern California, especially now, is proof against such past-their-prime generalities, as well as against knowing what being a "minority" even means. (Sidenote: You'd be surprised how many non-Californians assume that the struggle against affirmative action in University of California admissions was an argument in Black and White and not, as it actually began, an inter-minority fight that largely pitted recently-arrived Asians against Blacks).
This belief in racial equality and individual liberty, as opposed to the tenents of multi-culturalism, is a deeply rooted American value, one that is shared by large portions of both the left and right in America. France's practices in this regard are a direct affront to those values, which is why a good conservative like Peters can look at the rioting and feel some sympathy for the devil.
