I don’t know if it’s the progression of time, being in Cannes in a different season or staying in a different neighborhood than before, but the people look different. Namely, there are far more minorities than I recall. On a busy Saturday morning at the outdoor market, it was amazing to me how many women in burkas and head coverings there were. There were also plenty of Africans and African-French and Asians.
That these people are part of France doesn’t surprise me. I saw many minorities in Paris. But not in Cannes.
And while multiculturalism and a racially mixed society is something I not only expect, but think is the way America should be – it intrigues me endlessly in France and the rest of Europe.
Unlike the United States, which – with the exception of the very poorly treated native population – is a nation of immigrants. Our culture is actually designed to absorb people and turn them into Americans. And when the immigrant groups have changed, our culture has shifted too. Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore has said that America’s greatest strength is its ability to absorb foreign talent. So true.
The basic rule is that if you sound like us – if your English is fluent and American sounding – you’re in. Sure, that hasn’t always been true for everyone always – but it’s been more true in America than anywhere else and it’s what our cultural values teach and dictate.
Europe, on the other hand, is composed of countries which – like most of the world – are homogenous cultures. For hundreds and hundreds of years, being French is being white. It wasn’t designed to be exclusionary – that’s just who was here. Same goes for Germans, British, Dutch, Italians and everyone else.
Europeans were so homogenous that they were able to keep careful track of and at times separate Jews – a caucasian group within their own societies. So, to take the big leap to considering women in burkas French is quite a leap forward.
Of course, just because they’re here doesn’t make them accepted or integrated. Are they regarded as French? I can’t say with any authority. But I notice that you don’t see so many of them in mixed racial groups.
I have, however seen a number of black and Asian people in mixed company and speaking fluent French.
France – along with England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy – is living in the aftermath of Empire. All of these minority groups were under French rule.
No one invited the French to pull up some boats in Vietnam and claim Indochina for France. No one in West Africa wanted to be organized into dysfunctional nation-states when their tribal existences were working out much better. And hanging onto Algeria was so elongated and involved that it brought Charles DeGaulle’s career to an end, and left France saddled with aftermath and terrorism issues for another generation.
So, now the tables have turned. If you’re going to tell them they belong to France, how can you tell them they can’t be French when they want to show up in the colonial “homeland”? Through the very concepts of the Imperialist system of yesterday, today’s Europe is no longer strictly European.
Most of us probably have the reaction that the mean colonizing white people have to learn to recognize racial and cultural equality much like the American model. I did at first – because, again – the Europeans opened the door by sticking flags on other people’s land and calling these poor people “subjects”.
At the same time, if I decide to move to Nigeria – I’ll never in my entire life be considered Nigerian. If I had chosen to remain in Thailand, Taiwan or even multi-cultural Singapore, I would still never become any of those people – even if I somehow gained citizenship. They would never accept me as one of their own because they too are homogenous cultures. Thailand is defined by Thai people. And English speaking Singapore is Chinese, Malay and Indian – but it sure as hell isn’t white and while they’d treat me nicely, I’d always be Whitey in the end.
So, to walk down the street and see African and Middle Eastern immigrants in France poses endless questions.
These aren’t just esoteric – let the sociologists and anthropologists discuss it in an ivory tower – questions. French politics are consumed with the heavy cost burden of absorbing a large immigrant population, many of whom claim France’s very generous social welfare benefits.
This has become so much so that a woman I met – a very educated, published author married to a university professor in Paris – told me that after a lifetime of being liberal and supporting the Socialist party, she actually fears that France’s welfare state will collapse under the weight of immigrants abusing the system.
Cynical me thought, “yeah, that system is only for the French to abuse, thank you very much….”
Of course, immigration isn’t the only source of racial mixing. There are African-French just like we have African-Americans. France retains numerous Carribean islands – including Guadaloupe and Martinique. Those people are French citizens and their islands are not colonies anymore, but full-fledged Departements (the French equivalent to states) of France with all the rights and responsibilities that go along with it. They can all pick up and move to Paris or Cannes or anywhere else in France at any time. Some of them do.
So, France lives with mixed citizens, immigrants and the issues of a country moving from homogenous to heterogenous. As an American – whose country invented that transition – I find myself fascinated. Does that one speak French like a native? How old is the oldest mixed group of people? Do Asians mix better with the whities than the black ones do? Just how is it all working?
I can say I’ve seen a fair number of interracial couples and the cutest French-born Algerian kid and his mom run the nearby laundry I went to yesterday. They spoke native French and couldn’t have been nicer – and seemingly more accepted by the neighborhood patrons.
On my flight into Nice, I had one of the most awkward experiences of this trip. I was sitting in a window seat and two people sat down next to me – a woman and her teenage daughter. I eventually asked them if they were French – because on a flight from Rome to Nice I had no idea what language to use. They were Iraqi. They spoke some English, some French and they had been living in Nice for two years. France – Iraq’s former colonial power – gave them a ten year residency card on humanitarian grounds.
When they asked me where I was from – for the first time in my life – when I said America, I felt badly. I could see on their faces that this was not their favorite answer. These people who have taken refuge in France are among the luckiest of their people. I could also tell from the way they described living in France that it wasn’t their ideal either. They are caught between a homeland in disaster and a foreign country that will never be home, and which doesn’t guarantee them the ability to stay in the future.
I sat and thought for awhile. Do I pretend that I didn’t see it on their faces and keep talking to them? Do I decide enough chit-chat and become busy for the remainder of the flight? Or do I say something?
I’ve never spoken against my country before – I hate it when Americans go abroad and jump on the anti-American bandwagon to be cool with the Europeans. We have our faults and issues – but I think you keep your problems at home and instead, help promote cultural understanding.
I spent most of the flight thinking about it. Finally, I decided that I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t tell them how sorry I was for what our country has done to their country. I said that many Americans feel very badly for what has happened. We try to help other countries. But in Iraq’s case, we made things worse for people.
The woman gave a heartfelt “thank you” and smiled. It clearly meant a lot to her. I didn’t want her to think Americans are heartless and self-righteous. I wanted her to know people are sympathetic and that we have good intentions. Nothing I could say would give her back her home or end her need for exile. However, I had the opportunity to promote cultural understanding and represent my country – and I think I did the right thing.
Empire and the mistakes of Empire aren’t easy for anyone. France is not alone.
Sent from my iPad
