French Suburbs: 10 Questions

[Michel Collon <michel.collon at skynet.be>]

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French Suburbs: 10 Questions
MICHEL COLLON

1.	Will France Abolish Apartheid?
We are witnessing a strange phenomenon: French political leaders are all
rushing to appear on television with a pleasant but hypocritical tone: "We
understand you, and we're going to do something for you." Everyone knows
the cause of the problem and everyone knows what has to be done.
But then, if you already knew what to do, then why have you been doing the
exact opposite for the last thirty years? And most of all, why did you
persist doing the exact opposite in recent years? Why, over the last two
years, has the French government ended support to local initiatives? Who
cut 15% of the funds allocated to the 2006 budget to fight unsanitary
housing? Who replaced the local police with the CRS [Compagnies
Republicaines de Securité, i.e., the French riot police] and their
humiliating systematic and arbitrary arrests, which even Amnesty denounced
as violent and racist in character in their most recent report?

2.	What Are You Hiding?
One of two things. Or else you leaders would really know what was the cause
of the problems, namely, social injustice, the "no future", and still you
did nothing, then why should we trust you from now on? Or else you don't
have the solution, because social injustice is at the heart of your system,
and you don't want to touch the privileges of the wealthy, and then why
should we trust you in the future?

3.	"Violence Solves Nothing"?
One more time, good Sirs. Would you please be so kind as to indicate to the
poor what method of struggle you would suggest to them since none other has
been understood and that their situation is only getting worse!
And most of all, please be a bit less hypocritical! By what method did the
French bourgeoisie begin to build its great fortunes if not on the slave
trade, and the subsequent plundering of Africa's wealth? Were the French
going to bring bouquets of flowers to the Algerians, the Moroccans and
other peoples that they occupied and massacred? And, even today, in several
neocolonies which create fortunes for multinationals like Total and
Bouygues, but create misery for local populations?

4.	Where Lies the Greatest Violence?
What word should be used to qualify a system which, on the one hand,
accumulates colossal fortunes while always destroying employment, and
which, on the other hand, piles millions of people into ghettos, unsanitary
housing, deteriorating housing projects, low quality schools, little jobs
with no future, and "in your face" police harassment?
Each year, more and more people must survive on insufficient incomes while
all levels of government keep lowering taxes for colossal fortunes. Each
year, hundreds of people die on the streets of Paris. What word qualifies a
system that gives a young person no way out: "I don't care about going to
prison. My life is already wasted as it stands now." Isn't this system
violent itself?

5.	"Well, We're not in the United States?",
said the European media during the Katrina-Bush scandal. But aren't we
going down the same road at top speed? With the European Constitution and
Bolkestein and all those measures applied throughout Europe after the
Lisbon Accords (2000), aren't we witnessing an all-out offensive that is
lowering salaries, pensions, and social spending? Aren't we about to catch
up with Bush and his 40 millions people on the threshold of poverty?
Isn't the present obsession of making older people work longer before
retirement the best way of producing a mass of unemployed young people who
have no hope? Is it normal that the workers at Shell-Netherlands had to go
on strike in order to save their right to a pension when the profits of
this multinational exploded (18 billion dollars in 2004, and 68% more this
year)? Isn't it necessary, on the contrary, to radically reduce the number
of work hours in order to save jobs? And isn't the only obstacle the
untouchable character of the super-profits of big corporations, that are
modestly draped by the lovely word "competitiveness"?

6.	Human Beings Hurled into the Garbage?
When young people set fire to cars, the media care. But why the silence
when their lives were going up in smoke? Can we still believe in the myth
of climbing the alleged "social ladder" when we hear one more great Western
economist coldly declare: "There are six billion people in the world, of
whom five billion will never be made use of"? Aren't we living in an
inhumane system? Some are exploited to the very core of their being, others
are litterally "hurled" into the garbage? Must the society of the future be
based on the profits of multinationals or on the needs of humanity?

7.	A Strategy to Divide?
Of course, to burn your neighbor's car in the suburbs is playing in the
cards of the regime. Because this car which your neighbor uses to go to
work (to be exploited to the max), this neighbor is also a victim of a
European policy imposed by multinational corporations. Just like the
pensioner who is plunged into financial insecurity when the powers that be
whittle away his means of existence.
And aren't the powers that be rightly afraid that the various resistance
movements are uniting against such exploitation? Isn't racism deliberately
fed by presenting inflated statistics and distortions of small delinquency
while those in white collars are protected? To present the Muslims as
dangerous when there are extremists everywhere; isn't the criminalization
of the wearing of headscarves voluntarily concealing the social question
behind a false problem of religion? In order to better pit the victims of
exploitation against each other.
The strategy, a brilliant stroke of genius, has been to lock up the poorest
in ghettos and erect a wall of cops around them in order to divide and
break the resistances. As long as the little Whites Boys keep taking it out
on little Black Boys and little Beurs [North Africans born in France of
immigrant parents, Translator's Note], the very wealthy (whose money
doesn't have any color) can sleep tight.
And the big problem is that Sarkozy's demagoguery is doing very well. When
this big bourgeois prepares an antisocial policy along the lines of Bush,
his discourse goes over very well with the majority of workers not only in
France but also in Belgium. We've got a big job on our hands there!

8.	What Is Sarkozy PushingFor?
Of course, his rivals are hypocritically trying to make him take
responsibility and knock him out of the presidential elections. But at the
same time, they're happy that he's doing the dirty work for him. Because
everyone knows that the social problem is only just beginning, and that the
revolt will not disappear. Hence, his usefulness.
Well before the riots, Sarkozy had prepared liberticidal laws that target
us all and that are going to be put in place throughout the entire E.U.:
wiretapping, Internet espionage, extraditions for political offenses,
arbitrary expulsions.... Sarkozy, after having deliberately created
tensions, is going to exploit them in order to pass such anti-democratic
legislation. Which he will also use against social and labor movements. And
against our freedom of speech (don't forget that he had a young immigrant
imprisoned for having "insulted" him).

9.	What Solutions Present Themselves?
Those who "well understand the restlessness of the young" are assuring us
that some more money is going to be spent for the suburbs, and they will
let return local police and social workers whom they eliminated. However,
cops and social workers will only be able to keep things calm for a short
period of time, and they won't be creating any jobs. You need a real job in
order to integrate into society, and you have to make some real money.
But as long as the system is based on the interest and maximum profits of
the few, how will it be possible to create the necessary jobs and satisfy
the needs of the population? If we want them to stop dumping people into
the garbage, isn't it time to replace the law of the jungle by a superior
form of human relations? Today, it is perfectly possible to end world
hunger: that would cost less than a quarter of the annual budget of the US
Army. Well, then?

10.	To Leave them in their Ghetto?
It is too easy to reproach the young people in the suburbs for not having a
program, and for missing the mark. At the beginning of the existence of the
working class, overexploited workers started breaking the machines, which
was just as suicidal. The real question is: where are their clearly
articulated demands going to come from, and the analysis of the causes of
their suffering?
What did the labor movement, what did progressive intellectuals do to
overcome the division between these young people and all the other
exploited classes of people ? To overcome such divisions, it is absolutely
necessary to make bridges and communicate the experience acquired during
past struggles. But, before becoming a professor, one has to be a student.
Stay tuned. Because the "hatred" of these young people is not a negative
feeling. It is indignation against injustice. And this feeling has always
been, throughout history, the point of departure for resistance and for
changing the world.

And Now?

Now, here are just a few questions to launch the debate. You can react to
them by sending commentaries, testimonies to: michel.collon at skynet.be A
forum called «Banlieues» (in French) will make its appearance on
www.michelcollon.info which also offers other texts and testimonies (see
below).
In two weeks, we're going to be publishing a short book « Bush, the
hurricane » that covers these same questions. How can we explain in a
simple and straightforward fashion to those around us these infamous
economic laws that lead to poverty, war and crime? Sarkozy, but other
leaders, as well, are copying what Bush is doing to the USA, and are
preparing such policies for France and Europe. It is thus a question of
understanding our social system as an ensemble.
-	Where are all these poor people coming from?
-	Why unemployment and misery are necessary.
-	What purpose does the State serve?
-	The great media taboos.
-	Is Europe any different from Bush?
-	Five billion people are useless?

In order to be advised of the publication of the book, and to debate:
michel.collon at skynet.be

THE FRENCH SUBURBS: See ALSO (in French):
Saïd Bouamama - « On est dans une économie qui sacrifie les pauvres »
<http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-10%2007:47:23&log=invites>http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-10%2007:47:23&log=invites

Tariq Ramadan - « C'est l'ensemble de la classe politique française qui se
trompe »
<http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-14%2000:17:43&log=invites>http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-14%2000:17:43&log=invites

Sebas Bédouret - « Pardon de le dire mais tout ceci est justifié »
<http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-07%2009:39:54&log=invites>http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-07%2009:39:54&log=invites

Témoignage d'un chômeur - « Combien de temps pourrai-je encore tenir ? »
<http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-14%2000:09:02&log=invites>http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-14%2000:09:02&log=invites

Peter Mertens - Des situations à l'américaine au coeur de l'Europe
<http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-14%2000:15:32&log=invites>http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-14%2000:15:32&log=invites

Pierre Tévanian - Analyse du discours dominant sur la violence et
l'insécurité en banlieue
<http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-14%2000:02:52&log=invites>http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-14%2000:02:52&log=invites

Mouvement balkanique - « Nous offrons nos bons services à Chirac »
<http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-10%2007:57:01&log=invites>http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2005-11-10%2007:57:01&log=invites

Et aussi Sarko dans notre rubrique Humour :
<http://www.michelcollon.info/humour.php>http://www.michelcollon.info/humour.php