Amendment Matters

Sundays in Paris… just delightful. A day of calm and rest after a charged Saturday of running errands, making plans and a late night out with friends. Ahhh, I wake, make myself a cup of coffee, snuggle back in to bed with my laptop to read the news and write a bit. Today is particularly beautiful… blue skies with puffy white clouds, cool and crisp, and scents of autumn lingering in the air.

Yes, it is the perfect moment to stop and reflect on the bombardment of thoughts arising from the constant collision with new experiences, new people and changed conceptions. As I reread my “project” section on my website I realize it needs massive amendments. My work with l’ASSFAM and further research has made me rethink my entire master’s thesis.

During my studies, every article, book and essay on my topic underlined the difficulty of the young Maghrebins; their psychological rupture between Islamic values and those of the Republic, their rancour for the brutality and oppression of the colonial past, the “ghettoization” of their neighborhoods, the lack of good schools and resources necessary to get a decent education and job. Result: increased violence, alienation, rejection of French culture and acute poverty…. the perfect recipe for a fatalistic existence.

In my mind, all of these things made sense… clear causal chains. But, I was wrong. There are several problematics with my original understanding of the Maghrebin issue. First, is the use of the categorical term “Maghrebin”. Originally, Maghreb was just a geographical reference, but was appropriated by the French to designate a people. This offends many Algerians whose past differs greatly from their Moroccan and Tunisian neighbors. And worse, it doesn’t take account the various peoples, such as Arab populations and the original “Berber” tribes. It was pointed out to me that using this arbitrary label was short-sited and would only complicate my work.

Second, I was expecting the Algerians to be the most obstinate group when ceding to French lifestyles. With decades of bloody war and more than a century of subjugation by the French it seemed logical, as many sociologists contend about the ex-colonized Muslim world, that backlashes occur. This manifests as a revalorization of their heritage, culture and religion as means of protest, teetering towards fundamentalism. Again, wrong. I was taken aback on my daily bus ride to work with middle and high schoolers; Lacoste trainers, fancy sneakers and 3 carat cubic zirconia in their ears. So funny. I was anticipating an angry group of young men, rejecting Western values and instead discovered the most enthusiastic imitators of the American rapper.

At the same time, I had expected to find a much larger population of women adhering to “traditional” values. Rather, most of the girls with North African origins are extremely stylish and self expressive. Very French. Even those who wear the headscarf, such as the other intern at L'ASSFAM, manage to adapt their Islamic practice with the realities of French life.

There is however a group of immigrants in France that fills all the stereotypes I believed in; the Turks. From my observations, they are in large part closed and communautarian. At the welcoming platforms for legal immigrants, the government asks the newcomers to sign a contract proving their willingness to integrate in to French society. It obliges them to a one day course on French civics and to register for free language classes if their spoken French is weak. 95% of people sign the contract. The Turks very rarely sign and the women almost never do. Many are Kurd refugees, and all immigrants with refugee status must pass by an ASSFAM social worker. As a Western woman, I can not help but be disturbed by the relationship I witness between the men and their wives. In most cases the Turkish men do not allow their wives to sign the contract because they do not believe the woman should leave the home. They feel it unacceptable that the wife go unaccompanied to classes for a language they do not feel she requires. I never knew Turkey had such a large percentage of conservative Muslims. And, I never realized how many Turks are in France. Apparently, the Turks are growing in numbers all across Europe. Up until now, Germany has taken in the largest number, causing a very tense political scene.

Third, I thought I was heading for the projects. My readings gave me the impression the banlieus were crime ridden, dangerous. But, no. Granted, there is a dramatic change in scenery with the Arabic butchers, bazaar style shops, tagging and a lower standard of cleanliness. However, these densely populated burbs are mainly made up of families. As noted before, the most flagrant feature is the shared poverty. These neighborhoods have a high concentration of government subsidized housing; tall, depressing cement complexes that stuff in as many families as possible.

And in my more recent research, I’m seeing a change in tides since my first set of readings. A growing number of statistics prove an inflated conception of the problem. One car is put on fire and it creates a sensationalist nightmare. In banlieus with a large percentage of foreign populations (by and large descendants of immigrants) the violence levels are no more elevated than the national average. And the nature of the crimes are important to note. Young North Africans are most often implicated in petty crimes such as destruction of public spaces. They tag and less often, put things on fire. Moroccans, specifically, are involved in drug trafficking, mostly hash. Culprits of serious crimes such as grand theft, rape and murders are by in large committed by the French. Terrorist style attacks are carried out by an extremely small minority involved in militant organizations who usually do not have family ties in France.

Though my original thesis is no longer valid which requires me to restructure and rework my ideas, I am excited about the process. I feel very lucky to be so engaged in the milieu I’m studying and am hoping to use these experiences to carve out an objective synthesis of what many French consider a real crisis. Is there a true crisis? Is there really a serious security issue? Are the immigrants and their descendents veritably responsible for an exhorbitant amount of government spending? These are all questions I’m seeking to answer more concretely. In a country where immigrant populations get a very bad wrap, resulting in a wide-range of discriminations (particularly in employment), combating media sensationalism with the facts seems just a noble cause as any.