“Well I’m kind of glad to be the fuck away from all this” At some point I thought that, on that Friday 13th. After texting family and friends. I can’t even imagine what I would witness in Paris as a dude who could be considered one of them but isn’t.
I have seen enough in thirty years. I have seen how white people in France never liked arabs pretty much ever, how arabs grew sick of it, how they made white people even more not liking them etc. Being an outsider I have the privilege to have people speak their minds on this from both sides. It’s a trip to be accepted by white people and arabs, listening to them trash each other. Maybe around 1998-2000 when France was unified around a soccer ball, maybe at that time some progress could have been made ethnicity wise. Maybe France could have started to create a real Republic where we unify on the fact that we are stronger together and that diversity allows us to be smart in a way a monoculture can’t, not because of some antic artifacts like religion and secular BS. But it didn’t happen, 9/11 and fear did. France went hard with laws against muslims that were knee jerk reactions and unfair. It’s a spiral that ended with 90s born French citizens who pretty much have nothing to do with Islam, committing suicide in the worst way possible.
It’s not about Syria. At all. That’s a scapegoat for politics and international affairs. But everyone buys it, it’s so much easier than focus on what France and only France knows and needs to tackle since forever: its weird ass racism hidden in plain sight.
There’s a say in my country, “arab’s work”. It means shitty ass job. Doing some arab’s work means you’re doing the worst kind of work. You would think that this say would have gotten out of fashion through immigration, it didn’t. Way too many white people in France believe this, I’m not exaggerating. Then I will always remember that mid day news about that highly educated arab who couldn’t find a job in France because of his name and had found one in the UK. And it’s like, shit happens. Like it’s not a HUGE issue that needs to be fixed because what kind of fucking hope can you have if the best of the best is judged, stigmatized and stuck in a spiral of unemployment and incomprehension in the country he is born in. It’s just asking for anger/desperation to grow as much as it can for all the people who are not even in this favorable situation. And it did. Radical religious assholes only have to scoop them up. Those kids are craving for respect and purpose and they get that in spades with religion, it’s not rocket science.
France is this great place that encourages you to the “joie de vivre” and independence of thoughts but hasn’t been able to materialize that unless you’re white, drink wine and tolerate Jesus. France is this country that was absolutely right in not wanting to attack Iraq after 9/11 but bombed Syria 24 hours after local terrorism happened.
France can lead the West in hypocrisy, It’s painful to see. You were supposed to be better than that.