This is in response to two things: First,
Jerome's diary yesterday, and second,
The Economist's recent piece on
"Eurabia", the Muslimification of Europe. I'm usually not one to read
The Economist, but Jerome hit on a fact that I had worked on in a paper this semester, that I had been meaning to post (NOTE: I've posted the paper in its entirety over at
European Tribune, so you poli geeks can go read the whole thing).
In terms of The Economist, their central argument uses the Muslim experience to argue that American citizenship works better than European notions of citizenship. The larger issue, however, seems to be a move to quantify the 2005 French Riots as some form of Muslim extremism. By avoiding the racial aspects, and further avoiding the discrimination that developed as a result of French republican tradition and imperialism, The Economist does a disservice to race and to the very problems that people were responding to.
The 2005 French riots, in the minds of
The Economist writers is
Late last year, when Muslims in many of France's slum-suburbs erupted in almost uncontrollable violence, this was seen as proof of Europe's failure either to give the newcomers a decent economic life or to confront extremism successfully.
The riots were not simply some Muslim extremist reaction. There is no evidence to suggest this beyond what Jean Marie Le Pen would like you to believe. To frame it in terms of Muslim extremism refuses to acknowledge the real problems in the French slums: an economy that has left them behind; policies that in theory are designed to help but are instead manipulated; and a historical tradition that calls for one larger "France". With the help of a nationalist movement that distinguishes between which immigrants would make good French people and which ones do not, the French riots were a function of the racial and economic tensions created by the differences in employment and housing, as well as some citizenship aspects.
In fact, they were the culmination of economic and social situations that had developed in the period following the adoption of the 1972 laws on race in France. The '72 laws were a combination of a variety of factors: post-Gaullist government; May 1968; the increase in racial violence; and the increase of power of such groups as MRAP (Movement Against Racism, Anti-Semitism, and for Peace), which had been created in the aftermath of Vichy France. The 1972 laws, in theory, were designed to make sure that someone could not be hired or fired based upon their race. This, however, is where the problems began to move further. Rather than helping bring about higher employment for these new immigrants that had come to rebuild France in the '60s and '70s, the laws instead kept immigrants in low-paying labor jobs, and furthermore kept these individuals in slums such as Clichy-sous-Bous (which was Ground Zero for the riots).
How did this occur? A few factors come into play (I spell these out over a longer period in the paper, which you can link to above): First, as noted by Robert Lieberman (2005),
"the law did not create any new institutional capacity, whether unified or fragmented, dedicated to regulating or punishing racial discrimination,"
Therefore, these laws did not actually change anything in the way American affirmative action did. Rather, the clauses, which did not have necessary enforcement procedures in place, could not be used to do so. Employers could still find other ways to discriminate, leading to employment in primarily labor-intensive fields where the pay was not nearly as good as in the service sector.
Second, on the housing aspect, the inability of leaving the banlieues was a self-perpetuating problem: individuals in the slums had no transportation to get out due to the lack of transit systems, meaning that the jobs that they could get were only those close to their homes. Furthermore, the lack of ethnic statistics (The Economist mentions lack of religious statistics but forgets that race-based statistics have been banned since the late '70s) means that any aid that could be proposed would not have been able to get to the people who most needed it. All of this is an extension of the French republican tradition of creating one greater France.
Finally, the harassment of immigrants became a part of policy, leading to such things as ID checks. This was in part the appeasment to those individuals who had begun voting for Jean Marie Le Pen's "National Front" party in the mid-1980's. The ID checks themselves went beyond simply looking at IDs. As the injured boy from the incident that led to the riots noted to the New York Times (reg. required):
"[the boys] say they are required to present identity papers and can be held as long as four hours at the police station, and sometimes their parents must come before the police will release them."
The riots did not begin because of some religious strife. They began because two African boys in Clichy-sous-Bous did not want to deal with the police harrassment and detention that would come from the ID check they came across in the slums.
This riot was not about some religious strife. I have seen no evidence that would say that. What I have seen is much evidence to say that the economic hardships created by the self-perpetuating slum system is to blame. Furthermore, a harsh and unforgiving Nationalist movement, which, through its leader, Jean Marie Le Pen, has shifted policy away from even the small changes to those that work against ethnic minorities.
I should finally note that the economic disparities and their racial factors are problems everywhere. Just look at FHA policy in the 1950's and 60s in the United States, and their aftermath on the set-up of housing in the United States (and housing rates). But in France, these policies seem to have had a particularly problematic result.