The StuSie

Guerre Urbain en Paris: The New City of God?

After a brief respite from politics, der Mistfink is back on the pulpit to talk about assimilation, immigration politics, and the effect of global capitalism in urban life. The outer regions of Paris, along with poverty-stricken areas of perhaps a half dozen other French cities are aflame, both literally and figuratively. A seemingly insignificant incident, in which two youths were electrocuted during a police chase, has sparked the rage of minority and poor populations throughout France. Over 3,000 cars have burned to the ground, and dozens have been injured. What is the real cause for this frustration, and why has this reaction broken out now?
In starting with the most simple and mundane of the causes for this violence, we need only look to the ministry of the interior, where the Polish-born Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to don his brass knuckles and single-handedly knock the teeth out of every piece of "scum" living in the now not-so-romantic city of Paris. What he really means is that he wants to rid the city of the troublesome lower classes living in the outskirts, who also happen to be minorities. I find it somehow ironic how the immigrants themselves often seem to be the most harsh on other immigrants (see the policies of the esteemed Mr. Schwarzenegger in California). But obviously, the hardened youth of Paris aren't going to let some skinny-ass white guy in a €1000 suit and a turned up nose call them "scum" without doing anything about it, are they?
But really, calling this the cause for thousands of burned cars, dozens of injured policeman, and the ensuing spread of violence to other French cities is naive. What we're looking at here is a much more deep-rooted problem that has managed to bubble its way to the surface. In order to get to the bottom of it, we have to discuss the idea of urbanism, immigration, and tendencies of capitalism. Let's start with an example: most of us, if not all of us, has seen the film City of God, in which we are put in the middle of the massive ghettos of Rio de Janeiro. The point of this film is not just to make us hate cops even more, but to introduce us to the idea of segregation in a large city. It is an inevitable reality that there are extremely rich and extremely poor people in large cities. There is literally no exception to this rule in the world. Somebody is always polishing the gold-leafed toilets of the executives. The problem is, the rich people don't want the dirty poor people to stick around after they're finished removing the also-stinky shit from expensive toilets; hence, the birth of the ghetto, or slums, whatever you want to call them. In any case, we have this fundamental idea of segregation, where the poor stick together and the rich do anything possible to keep them away, more or less. In the case of Rio, the police are not there to serve and protect, but to sell weapons and drugs to the poor so that they are too preoccupied with in-fighting to plan any kind of 'rebellion' in the city.
So we have this idea of segregation that is seemingly unavoidable. Now let's look back at the specific policy of France with respect to the immigrants, who essentially also represent the poor population. Since the days of colonialism began, France has always been the die-hard, gung-ho assimilators. In other words, they were going to do whatever the hell had to be done to make those savages French whether they liked it or not. In Algeria in the 1800's, this seemed to work alright, until the African people realized they were being fucked over, bound together, and basically caused enough trouble that the French eventually decided to give up the mission. The significance of this historical example is that the French policy basically hasn't changed, though the location has. The millions of immigrants now living in France largely originate from the former colonies, and the French government still has every intention of making these people as French as possible. Banning headdresses, suppressing religion to a certain extent, and tacit or overt use of discrimination are all within the bounds of fair play for the government. The problem is, like in Algeria, eventually you reach a breaking point: people will only quietly tolerate such measures for so long, and when they realize that raising a little hell will get them a little attention, they're sure as hell going to do it (plus its super entertaining to watch an object as large as a Citroen go up in a ball of flames). This then raises the question: what can or will the French government do to stop the unrest, and what will other governments do to avoid situations like those going on in France?
In judging the first responses of both Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Chirac to the violence, we see that it actually is true that politicians behave like a 10 year old boy whose arch enemy has just set foot on his lawn. Both men have promised to eradicate the causes of this violence, arresting hundreds upon hundreds of people and promising to push these cases through the courts doubletime. Well, congrats, fellas, just toss 'em all in the clink, and problem solved, right? I'm so relieved that politicians these days are so decisive and logical in times of need. Seriously, though, we can obviously see the lack of logic in this response so I won't spell it out.
But for the countries where violence hasn't yet broken out, the responses are much more interesting. In Germany, for example, politicians have called for new attention to immigration policy, specifically in the area of language requirements. The interior minister of Bayern has said that Germany must step up 'integration', as it is called, so that minorities like the huge Turkish population have more of a chance to improve their living conditions. In short, teach them German so they can get quality jobs and make money. A German-speaking immigrant is apparently a happy immigrant, and a happy immigrant doesn't throw Molotov Cocktails, right? Well, once again, this response simply doesn't cut the Muenster. First of all, teaching them German does nothing to eradicate the deep-rooted prejudices that are attached to Turks living in Germany, and second of all, we return to this idea about big cities: there always has to be someone to sweep the streets and occasionally wash the graffiti from the walls of Runzmattenweg. If you overeducate the people you've designated to fill these positions, you're left in a two-fold quandry: there's shit all over your toilet, and the guy that used to clean it is now competing for your job.
If the other countries of Europe (and even the good ol' US of A?!) are going to really tackle these problems, they need to get a little bit more sophisticated than telling the perpetrators to get outta their respective yards. Fifth grade logic doesn't really work all that well in the real world. Urban arpartheid, as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung calls it, is a reality that will only worsen as the effects of globalisation magnify the current ethnic structure of the world's big cities. Even if we elect people like LePen or Haider who are willing to go to extreme measures to keep the riff raff out, multi-ethnic cities are here to stay, so we might as well start looking for ways to make them work. We either have to take our advice from the Brazilians and arm them to the teeth and get them all so high that they mow each other down, or we have to rethink the idea of assimilation (or integration, as the master euphemists have put it) and go back to the drawing board. Me, I'm getting a car that's made outta the same stuff as those fire-proof matresses. Now that's a solution, if you ask me.

posted by der Mistfink @ 07:20