Gentle Reader, I just pulled this little paragraph from Wikipedia:
"It became a moral mission to lift the world up to French standards by bringing Christianity and French culture. In 1884 the leading exponent of colonialism, Jules Ferry declared; "The higher races have a right over the lower races, they have a duty to civilize the inferior races." Full citizenship rights – assimilation – were offered, although in reality "assimilation was always receding [and] the colonial populations treated like subjects not citizens."[4] France sent small numbers of settlers to its empire, contrary to Great Britain, and previously Spain and Portugal, with the only notable exception of Algeria, where the French settlers nonetheless always remained a small minority."
To continue my letter to French Society:
Read carefully this quote from that dreadful Jule Ferry and perhaps you will have a little more insight about what is wrong with your country. It is not sufficient to say that that was the way they thought in the Nineteenth Century. That kind of imperialist, racist arrogance dies very slow and very hard and the resulting hubris ends up paying itself forward for generations, even centuries, to come. It's not to say that the British or the Spanish weren't any better: this arrogant, racist hubris was a general plague throughout Europe. Now in the Twenty-First Century in Latin America we see even today the bitter fruit of the greedy, rapacious violence that the Spanish visited upon the indigenous peoples of Latin America as well as the poverty and squalor that many of our own aboriginal people languish in here in Canada.
To hear French people whine and lament about the invasion of all those dreadful Muslims to their precious white, secular Gallic shores is ingenuous and rather stupid, to say the least. When the French visited on various people in North Africa and the Middle East their own brand of cultural imperialism they had no idea of the monster they were creating, and that one day it would return to bite them in the ass. Many French seem determined to convert their culture into a toxic fossil or at least a laughable caricature of itself (baguette, Brie and Bordeaux). The resurgence of the far right indicates that the old time French racism has not only survived since the Nineteenth Century, but that it is now alive, well and perfectly able to breath unassisted.
Like much of Europe the French government began inviting citizens of former colonies to come and work in France, but the racism and cultural intolerance being what it is, they were never invited to fully participate as complete citizens, even when they became French citizens. Being shunned and ostracized by mainstream French society many Algerians and other Muslim immigrants stuck to themselves in their own enclaves, ghettoes, arrondissements. North African and Middle Eastern Muslim culture-in-exile came to thrive in French cities, co-existing without much love from the local French gentry. Then came Islamic extremism, terrorist attacks, and Charlie Hebdot stirring the pot.
I see the whole problem with French society as being something very simple: fear of change. They have so codified and embedded various sacred cultural icons and symbols as to leave absolutely no room for growth, change or meaningful evolution. Very unlike what many white Eurocentric folks would care to believe, culture is not static. Indeed, for any culture to survive, change and exterior influence have to be accepted, welcomed, and integrated. This is not the same as assimilation, rather it is leaving room for fusion so that the fruit, the result of this coming together of different cultural influences becomes something altogether different, vibrant and living. The French, and other European cultures and countries have become so entrenched and fossilized in their inherent racism and resistance towards change that is it any wonder that there is the fear of being overrun by foreigners who dress and worship in ways that are deemed unacceptable, because they are different?
This brings me to the theme of the burkini. When I first heard about it I went, yeah right, more Islamic backwardness. But then I looked a little more carefully and thought of some of the Muslim women in Vancouver, Canada, where I live, who choose to go veiled in public. I didn't like this for the longest time, still don't, but I think I understand it now and can accept it. To my knowledge, none of these women go around veiled because they have been told to. It is their individual choice for individual reasons. For some it is their way of honouring Allah through dressing modestly (even if |I see overkill here), or they simply want to feel free and unmolested by the male gaze. It is also an expression of self-respect about their own bodies as they choose not to put themselves on public display as though they are prize heifers in a country fair cattle competition. Perfectly acceptable reasons. But in Canada we are more accepting of diversity and we are not so insecure about being secular that we welcome as diversity of expressions of faith and belief in the public sphere. It isn't perfect but by and large everyone does get along, there is considerably more mixing between various ethnicities and, I think, more intermarriage (it's a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say).
Now I have to admit that I personally find the burkini ugly and I feel sorry for any self-respecting Muslim woman who would be seen wearing one in public. But this is their choice. They also have a right to enjoy the beach and really why should they have to opt to have to lay or strut around almost naked just to please the so-called secular French values, especially when this is offensive to them, their faith and everything they hold sacred? Why can't more French people get over their hostile racism and intolerance, their exaggerated self-importance and their cultural arrogance and simply live and let live? And yes, this also means to get over the trauma of the recent terror attacks. Why summon police to publicly traumatize and humiliate these poor women by stripping them in public?
I am glad to hear that the French supreme court has successfully overturned the ban on the burkini and I really hope that more French citizens can take advantage of this first baby step towards inclusivity, tolerance and good relations with an unjustly hated and hugely misunderstood minority.
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