Paris is worth a Salah
The news stories only really broke over here three nights in, and seven days later the British public are remarkably uninterested in what is going on in the suburbs Aulnay sous Bois and Clichy sous Bois to the north east of Paris. News programmes report it one item before ‘and finally’ and the stories are to be found filling a 3 by 6 column space on page 9, next to the happy news that Abigail Witchell is finally going home.
However uninterested we are, we certainly cannot say we are disinterested. As the comments on Jonathan Pearce’s piece at Samizdata highlight, this is, in the minds of many, about disaffected Muslim youths, feeling alienated from the authorities and economy of their native country. That sort of thing would never happen in Britain though. Right?
I was listening to the French news on the radio today and the reporter revealed that a further 500 cars were torched last night, bringing this year’s total so far in the Ile-de France area to 28,000 “vehicules incendies.” It might be particularly hot in these banlieux (suburb is a dirty word in French) right now, but if that figure tells us anything, it is that this kind of violence and vandalism is not unusual.
At the absolute heart of the problem is the 100-year old policy of “laicite” where the state and religion are officially separate. No bad thing, but France takes their committment to integration to the extreme that they do not keep figures on ethnicity or faith. Once someone is French, so the theory goes, there are French. Fini.
Of course, this means there aren’t figures on racial discrimination in social housing, or on religious discrimination in employment, and so on. When the unemployment rate for under 25s is estimated at 50% 22%* and minorities from immigrant families tend to live like immigrants in giant housing projects in the suburbs, you can imagine that they might feel somewhat ignored and marginalised by their own country.
A friend of mine, native French citizen, educated in France, was talking with me about French grammar. At one point, he rolled his eyes, gave that quinessentially Gallic shrug and said “what do I know though, hein? I am just a beur.” This is the verlan word for Arabe, used as a slur by whites, and considered perfectly acceptable by everyone. The willingness to accept that kind of racism is, I believe, an indirect and terrible effect of the bline eye to racial and religious differences laid down in law by laicite.
For example, the so-called headscarf ban, widely cited as one of the propellants of discontent within Muslim communities in France, is actually part of a court ruling on the ban of all religious insignia on school grounds, on the grounds that as state buildings for education, they must be kept free of symbols which could be interpreted as glorifying religion, any religion. Crucifixes and rosaries are removed too. But that’s not how it feels in the banlieux. Although a blanket ruling, it seems like no ruling was thought by political elites to be required until the religious insignia on display were non-Christian.
French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy quite rightly says that the minute you start shooting police you are no longer disaffected youths but rather thugs. The riots should not be tolerated and must be put down, and the CRS, despite their fearsome reputation for brutality (perhaps because of it) will do just that. But what Sarkozy also believes, and argues for strongly, is the rejection of laicite as an official policy as a means to helping France help its Muslim population to integrate, without ignoring their own customs. He wants to see French Islamic schools, as well as Catholic schools, in an attempt to negate the need for foreign teachers, often from extremist countries, preaching against the host country of their congregation.
I don’t know all the facts of the situation, nobody does, especially not the police, nor, do I believe do the rioters themselves. But if this is integration in the name of equality, you can keep it.
*INSEE figures for 2004 And not as high as Poland or Slovakia. Feeling a bit sheepish about the 50% figure…. must have read it somewhere and not checked.
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I’m surprised the rioting has gone on this long, given that the French state presumably has the resources (riot police, army) to enforce calm.
Although not really an answer to your question, it is a little known though interesting fact that police in France are technically part of the army. Police are categorised as part of the defence budget. Also of interest is the fact that municipal police forces are not allowed in towns beyond a certain size without special dispensation because originally it was a worry that other cities might use their police as an armed threat against the supremacy of Paris. Interesting eh?
The unemployment figures echo an argument that I was having with Neil Harding over at The Kitchen, about the Birmingham riots.
The real question here is how much of the rioting, both here and in France, is really about economics and how much is it about how the indigenous civilisations are not bending over backwards far enough to accommodate Islam adherents?
DK
I’m sorry Katie but I just don’t get your second paragraph. How does the comments thread at Samizdata illustrate the psychology of muslim youths? Did you spot a single muslim in the comments thread? Plenty of ugly racist illiterates there but none that I could see were recogniseably muslim.
Slightly OT, but can anyone explain why so many sites link to Samizdata? There are never any real debates there, and when was the last time there was a post of real interest? It’s said to be one of the most widely read UK sites yet how many of the posts actually rate a trackback? Has someone set a US voting machine on the stats?
there’s nothing particularly “Islamic” about the youths in these suburbs; they happen to be North African Arabs, but they drink alcohol, don’t attend mosques and dress like normal French teenagers. The riots are all about racism and economic deprivation; such things still exist, even after 9/11, although you won’t necessarily realise this from reading the Guardian.
DK, I couldn’t say, I don’t know Birmingham at all. I barely know the areas involved in the riots in Paris either. Despite being part of the 18% EU under 25s who are unemployed and feeling my beliefs in classical Liberalism not being bent over backwards for by either my regional or national parliaments, I’m not torching anything.
constablesavage and dsquared, well, if you read carefully, I am talking about the perceptions of the commenters at samizdata being that this is all about islam.
I think you’re probably right, it’s thugs using islam as an excuse while they lack the understanding of, belief in and reverence for their religion. No more of a perversion of real faith than, say, Christian Voice’s ridiculousness about jerry springer the opera.
I think race, masquerading as religion, plays a larger part than we’re all willing to admit, especially considering what the laicity laws do for ignoring racial differences and hence permitting racial discrimination. Religion and race are lumped together a lot in france. I’m a dirty anglo-saxon, for example. What do they mean by that? Ethnically, I’m originally celtic. Well, I reckon they mostly mean money-grubbing protestant. So the racial epithet’s characteristics mirror those of my (inherited) religion. That is very, very dangerous thinking, and why Jews had such trouble sixty years ago (and beyond).
I disagree about samizdata though. You’re right, its writers espouse a common world view. As does Harry’s Place, also very popular. I don’t particularly have a problem with either site, although I read both only when the feed summary piques my interest.
I think polemic on the internet serves a great purpose, which is that things people would never normally say in face to face conversation, they have no compunction about dashing out online. It’s great, people actually say what they think, which gives us all the chance to dispute it. Loverly. The key to avoiding the blinkered nature of some of the commenters in both places is to read widely, not just sites you agree with. Not many people subscribe to both DK and Chicken Yoghurt, but I am terribly proud to do so.
At the end of the day, nothing is about religion. It is always about economics. Even the reformation and inquisition used religion as an excuse – the reformation because certain German princes wanted to expand their “businesses” without the Pope’s interference ( cf Henry VIII) and the inquisition because the then King and Queen of Spain wanted to suppress economic activity that was weakening their power.
The same applies in France today – religion may be an excuse but its all about “wanting” things – and thats economics, not religion
Ed from Katie: Much as I would have liked to have written this, it was in fact my Dad using the same computer as me.
22% sounds about right for youth unemployment. But you can probably double that for first and second generation immigrant youth. Your 50% wasn’t too far off the mark in those suburbs that are going up in flames.
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Shadrach Woods was a pupil of Corbusier and he forecast the problems, analysed their causes and effects. He had experience of urban housing in Algeria and Morocco.. and esepcailly understaood the urban probelsm of the North African diaspora.
Woods wrote the essential book (well it is for me) for understanding the modern city ,“The Man in the Street†A Polemic on urbanism, it was available in the mid – 70’s as a Penguin but no longer, the recently published Tom Avermaete, Another Modern, The Post-War Arch-itecture and Urbanism of Candilis-Josic-Woods Nai Publishers Rotterdam Paperback, 432 pages / ISBN 90-5662-473-3, € 42.00 helps put their work in perspective.
The Man in the Street is the tale of the urban space that we all, rich or poor, young or old, do inhabit at some time; where we find a place to live out our destiny in its houses , factories, offices, schools, buses, and streets. A series of questions might be asked. The question is, who shall decide, govern and profit from the machines that cities are? (Vide Corbusier “a house is a machine for living”)
There is the current answer, the national rulers. (Central Government Grants – with ring fences, targets etc.,)
Woods hoped for another possibility: The man in the street, in the city.
The question ? What will be the basis of the city system? The traditional answer is, one one hand the system of speculation and privilege, the other, disenfranchisement despair and poverty.
There could be another answer, a system of communal action and tranquillity, public service and shared amenities. The question is, what form shall the city take? The traditional answer is the centric city with power concentrations and suburban dispersal, slightly modified into a automotive megapolitan mess with peripheral power concentrations and more widespread dispersal.
Another answer might be the communal, non-hierarchical, continuous, de-centered city of integrated, close-by activities designed for human intercourse restoring neighborliness and urbanity as human pursuits. This vision is the city that Shadrach Woods described, in words and maps, and that he made in his buildings.
Read his book and the problems of the city he outlined – mainly from a French perspective with a deep knowledge of the North African diaspora – and the riots in France were foreseen 30 years ago.
Deterioration and squalor he saw as a variety of urban chaos, interacting negatively with efficiency, safety and liveability. The public realm is particularly damaged by the violence of decay and collapse: “we have been unable to create and maintain even a minimum standard of environmental decency across any of our western cities.” In addition, pollution of the public air, water and and sound-space has proceeded apace. Overcrowding is endemic in the ghettos of the poor and a common feature of middle class redoubts, (brown field site congestion, overloaded roads) adding to the forces of deterioration and abuse of every part of the urban fabric.
In a struggle for power and growth, human values become perverted: the bureaucrat becomes timid and power hungry, public service is demeaned, jobs lose their value in the interest of consumption, love of country becomes the chauvinism of the military state or the nationalism of hatred, the man in the street is disenfranchised from the planning process and is set against his neighbor in the struggle for economic power.
Woods’ description of the problems that the city was facing was a mild tonic compared to his outcry at the shortcomings of our society: a society that he saw as devoted to endless economic development – with expansion and exploitation joined together; top of the heap individualism; management by overwhelmed, unresponsive bureaucrats (Surely not ?); rabid nationalism (BNP, Le Pen, Islam); and misuse of resources on a global scale. He saw the city as the front-line battlefield in this societal system, where interest groups, ethnic or economic or both devoted the lion’s share of the worlds resources to the seizure and maintenance of their own hegemony. (Sound familiar)
On November 14th his personal Archive is being donated to Columbia University NY NY by his widow (he died in 1975) and his work celebrated with seminars, talks, and a massive exhibition.
That’s fascinating ed… I’m very into the role that design plays in urban communities in my day job, so I might just put that one on my Xmas list…
At the end of the day, nothing is about religion. It is always about economics.
True enough, but religion can have an effect on economics as neatly summed up here by Chris at Strange Stuff.
DK
Katie, are you sure about your idea of who pays the French police, and the nature of their evolution? I was under the impression that the Gendarmerie were formally part of the army, while the Police National, (including the CRS) are not.
To be honest, I read both in a book called “60 million frenchmen can’t be wrong” whereas the two canadian authors, of course, might be. I’ll check and get back to you.
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