CVK
I just wanted to point MMW readers to two good articles about the situation in Paris. The first is from the blog Black Looks (thanks to HipHopMusic.com for this). It gives a chronological account of the events that have been unfolding, beginning with the deaths of Bouna Traore, aged 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, (pictured) who were electrocuted at an electricity sub-station in Clichy-sous-Bois as they ran from the police. The article does a good job of questioning the increasing number of references in mainstream media to “terrorists” “Islamists” and “fundamentalists”:

This kind of language is inflammatory and distracts from the root cause of the disaffection and marginalisation of ethnic communities in France. One has to ask who benefits from spreading this kind of information when the reality is that the Muslim community leaders have themselves tried to calm the situation.

And as this article points out, these riots have absolutely nothing to do with religion.

The other article I wanted to recommend is Why Is Paris Burning? by Doug Ireland on Alternet. Ireland details the 30 years of government neglect, segregation, racism, and discrimination and argues that nobody should be surprised that it has come to this.

Ireland also points out the U.S. media’s glaringly inadequate translation of prime minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s notorious comments about how he would “karcherise” the ghettos of “la racaille.” The U.S. media translated that to mean “clean” the ghettos of “scum.”

But these two words have an infinitely harsher and insulting flavor in French. “Karcher” is the well-known brand name of a system of cleaning surfaces by super-high-pressure sand-blasting or water-blasting that very violently peels away the outer skin of encrusted dirt — like pigeon-shit — even at the risk of damaging what’s underneath.

To apply this term to young human beings and proffer it as a strategy is a verbally fascist insult and, as a policy proposed by an Interior Minister, is about as close as one can get to hollering “ethnic cleansing” without actually saying so. It implies raw police power and force used very aggressively, with little regard for human rights. I wonder how many Anglo-American correspondents get the inflammatory, terribly vicious flavor of the word in French? The translation of “karcherise” by “clean” just misses completely the provocative, incendiary violence of what Sarko was really saying. And “racaille” is infinitely more pejorative than “scum” to French-speakers — it has the flavor of characterizing an entire group of people as subhuman, inherently evil and criminal, worthless, and is, in other words, one of the most serious and dehumanizing insults one could launch at the rebellious ghetto youth. Kerosene, indeed.

Obviously I can’t vouch for the accuracy of either of these sources, but they were items that I thought were worthwhile reading. There are a lot of countries in Western Europe other than France who are struggling with these racial issues. Even back in the early 80s when I lived in Belgium, my grandparents would constantly spew racist insults about the Moroccan migrant workers, complaining about how they “bred like rabbits” so that they could collect childrens allowances from the government. Nowadays of course it’s gotten even worse, and radical right parties like Vlaamsblok are gaining in popularity.

It seems to me that the larger issue here is that European countries are trying to hold onto the notion that they are essentially white countries, and that all non-white people are minorities or temporary residents. The French simply don’t recognize non-white people as French, and that’s clear from the terminology being used in the media coverage of the rioting. From Black Looks:

It should be noted that these young people are not immigrants. Their grandparents and possibly their parents are but they are born in France and are French citizens. Constantly referring to them as “immigrants” is a problem in itself and reinforces their exclusion from mainstream French society.