From an Haaretz.com article, What sort of Frenchmen are they?:
Alain Finkielkraut. "When an Arab torches a school, it's rebellion. When a white guy does it, it's fascism. I'm 'color blind.' Evil is evil, no matter what color it is. And this evil, for the Jew that I am, is completely intolerable."What sort of Frenchmen are they? [/] By Dror Mishani and Aurelia Smotriez
PARIS - The first thing the French-Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut said to us […] "I heard that even Haaretz published an article identifying with the riots."This remark, uttered with some vehemence, pretty much sums up the feelings of Finkielkraut - one of the most prominent philosophers in France in the past 30 years - ever since the violent riots began on October 27 in the impoverished neighborhoods that surround Paris and spread with surprising speed to similar suburbs throughout the country. He has been following the events through the media, keeping up with all the news reports and commentary, and has been appalled at every article that shows understanding for or identification with "the rebels" (and in the French press, there are plenty). He has a lot to say, but it appears that France isn't ready to listen - that his France has already surrendered to a blinding, "false discourse" that conceals the stark truth of its situation. The things he is saying to us in the course of our conversation, he repeatedly emphasizes, are not things he can say in France anymore. It's impossible, perhaps even dangerous, to say these things in France now.
Indeed, in the lively intellectual debate that has been taking place on the pages of the French newspapers ever since the rioting started, a debate in which France's most illustrious minds are taking part, Finkielkraut's is a deviant, even very deviant, voice. Primarily because it is not emanating from the throat of a member of Jean Marie Le Pen's National Front, but from that of a philosopher formerly considered to be one of the most eminent spokesmen of the French left - one of the generation of philosophers who emerged at the time of the May 1968 student revolt.
[…] Finkielkraut: "In France, they would like very much to reduce these riots to their social dimension, to see them as a revolt of youths from the suburbs against their situation, against the discrimination they suffer from, against the unemployment. The problem is that most of these youths are blacks or Arabs, with a Muslim identity. Look, in France there are also other immigrants whose situation is difficult - Chinese, Vietnamese, Portuguese - and they're not taking part in the riots. Therefore, it is clear that this is a revolt with an ethno-religious character.
"What is its origin? Is this the response of the Arabs and blacks to the racism of which they are victims? I don't believe so, because this violence had very troubling precursors, which cannot be reduced to an unalloyed reaction to French racism.
[…] "Anyway, this team is perceived as a symbol of an open, multiethnic society and so on. The crowd in the stadium, young people of Algerian descent, booed this team throughout the whole game! They also booed during the playing of the national anthem, the `Marseillaise,' and the match was halted when the youths broke onto the field with Algerian flags.
"And then there are the lyrics of the rap songs. Very troubling lyrics. A real call to revolt. There's one called Dr. R., I think, who sings: `I ##### on France, I ##### on De Gaulle' and so on. These are very violent declarations of hatred for France. All of this hatred and violence is now coming out in the riots. To see them as a response to French racism is to be blind to a broader hatred: the hatred for the West, which is deemed guilty of all crimes. France is being exposed to this now."
In other words, as you see it, the riots aren't directed at France, but at the entire West? [/] "No, they are directed against France as a former colonial power, against France as a European country. Against France, with its Christian or Judeo-Christian tradition."
[…] Over time, he also became a symbol of the "involved intellectual," as exemplified by the postwar Jean-Paul Sartre - a philosopher who doesn't abstain from participation in political life, but instead writes in the newspapers, gives interviews and devotes himself to humanitarian causes such as halting the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia or the slaughter in Rwanda. The danger he wishes to stand up to today, in light of the riots, is the growing hatred for the West and its penetration into the French education system.
[…] "We need to be clear on this. This is a very difficult question and we must strive to maintain the language of truth. We tend to fear the language of truth, for `noble' reasons. We prefer to say the `youths' instead of `blacks' or `Arabs.' But the truth cannot be sacrificed, no matter how noble the reasons. And, of course, we also must avoid generalizations: This isn't about blacks and Arabs as a whole, but about some blacks and Arabs. And, of course, religion - not as religion, but as an anchor of identity, if you will - plays a part. Religion as it appears on the Internet, on the Arab television stations, serves as an anchor of identity for some of these youths.
"Unlike others, I have not spoken about an `intifada' of the suburbs, and I don't think this lexicon ought to be used. But I have found that they are also sending the youngest people to the front lines of the struggle. You've seen this in Israel - they send the youngest ones to the front because it's impossible to put them in jail when they're arrested. But still, here there are no bombings and we're in a different stage: I think it's the stage of the anti-republican pogrom. There are people in France who hate France as a republic."
But why? For what reason? […] "Why have parts of the Muslim-Arab world declared war on the West? The republic is the French version of Europe. They, and those who justify them, say that it derives from the colonial breakdown. Okay, but one mustn't forget that the integration of the Arab workers in France during the time of colonial rule was much easier. In other words, this is belated hatred. Retrospective hatred.
"We are witness to an Islamic radicalization that must be explained in its entirety before we get to the French case, to a culture that, instead of dealing with its problems, searches for an external guilty party. It's easier to find an external guilty party. It's tempting to tell yourself that in France you're neglected, and to say, `Gimme, gimme.' It hasn't worked like that for anyone. It can't work."
But what appears to disturb Finkielkraut even more than this "hatred for the West," is what he sees as its internalization in the French education system, and the identification with it by French intellectuals. In his view, this identification and internalization - which are expressed in shows of understanding for the sources of the violence and in the post-colonial mindset that is permeating the education system - are threatening not only France as a whole, but the country's Jews, too, because they are creating an infrastructure for the new anti-Semitism.
"But in France, instead of fighting his kind of talk, they're actually doing what he asks: changing the teaching of colonial history and the history of slavery in the schools. Now they teach colonial history as an exclusively negative history. We don't teach anymore that the colonial project also sought to educate, to bring civilization to the savages. They only talk about it as an attempt at exploitation, domination and plunder.
"[…] The same is true of slavery. It began long before the West. In fact, what sets the West apart when it comes to slavery is that it was the one to eliminate it. The elimination of slavery is a European and American thing. But this truth about slavery cannot be taught in schools.
"That's why these events sadden me so greatly; not so much because they happened. After all, you'd have to be deaf and blind not to see that they would happen. But because of the interpretations that have accompanied them. These dealt a decisive blow to the France I loved. And I've always said that life will become impossible for Jews in France when Francophobia triumphs. And that's what will happen. The Jews understand what I've said just now. Suddenly, they look around, and they see all the `bobo' (French slang for bourgeois-bohemians) singing songs of praise to the new `wretched of the earth' [Finkielkraut is alluding here to the book by the Martinique-born, anti-colonialist philosopher Franz Fanon - D.M.] and asking themselves: What is this country? What's happened to it?"
[…] Finkielkraut continues: "[…] And I have been just horrified by these acts, which kept repeating themselves, and horrified even more by the understanding with which they were received in France. These people were treated like rebels, like revolutionaries. This is the worst thing that could happen to my country. And I'm very miserable because of it. Why? Because the only way to overcome it is to make them feel ashamed. Shame is the starting point of ethics. But instead of making them feel ashamed, we gave them legitimacy. They're `interesting.' They're `the wretched of the earth.'
"Imagine for a moment that they were whites, like in Rostock in Germany. Right away, everyone would have said: `Fascism won't be tolerated.' When an Arab torches a school, it's rebellion. When a white guy does it, it's fascism. I'm `color blind.' Evil is evil, no matter what color it is. And this evil, for the Jew that I am, is completely intolerable.
[…] "This problem is the problem of all the countries of Europe. In Holland, they've been confronting it since the murder of Theo van Gogh. The question isn't what is the best model of integration, but just what sort of integration can be achieved with people who hate you."
And what will happen in France? [/] "I don't know. I'm despairing. Because of the riots and because of their accompaniment by the media. The riots will subside, but what does this mean? There won't be a return to quiet. It will be a return to regular violence. So they'll stop because there is a curfew now, and the foreigners are afraid and the drug dealers also want the usual order restored. But they'll gain support and encouragement for their anti-republican violence from the repulsive discourse of self-criticism over their slavery and colonization. So that's it: There won't be a return to quiet, but a return to routine violence."
So your worldview doesn't stand a chance anymore? [/] "No, I've lost. As far as anything relating to the struggle over school is concerned, I've lost. It's interesting, because when I speak the way I'm speaking now, a lot of people agree with me. Very many. But there's something in France - a kind of denial whose origin lies in the bobo, in the sociologists and social workers - and no one dares say anything else. This struggle is lost. I've been left behind." [My ellipses and emphasis]
