Boris Kagarlitsky It's
easier to spout cliches than to figure out what's really happening, of
course. But if our talking heads had taken the time to watch the
television news more attentively, they would have realized that at
least a third of the rampaging youths in France are not Arabs but the
children of black African immigrants. And if a few of these wise men
and women had bothered to stray from the usual tourist spots or to talk
with the locals on their trips to Paris, they would have discovered
that the Arab teenagers living in the working-class suburbs not only
speak no language other than French, but they also have no clue about
Islam. This is doubly true of young French blacks.
It goes without saying that there are plenty of orthodox Muslims in
France who observe Ramadan, never let alcohol pass their lips and
forbid their daughters from appearing in public with their heads
uncovered. But these people have absolutely nothing to do with the
current unrest. Conservative French Muslims keep their distance from
the rest of society. They do not allow their children to adopt depraved
local mores and attempt to shield them from contact with Christians.
Such orthodox Muslims present no problem for the authorities. Like any
other conservative community, they seek to avoid contact with the
outside world. By attempting to bar Muslim girls from attending school
in headscarves, the authorities did much to provoke a conflict, but
this is another matter. There is a big difference between the
complaints of religious conservatives and teenagers rioting in the
streets.
Russian analysts love a good conspiracy theory. It is generally assumed
that someone has instigated, ordered and/or bankrolled every major
crisis that comes along. Strangely enough, however, they didn't take
this line with regard to the events in France, although "The
International Herald Tribune" noted on Nov. 3 that "like everything
else that happens in France these days, the rioting has become
embroiled in the political succession war between the prime minister,
Dominique de Villepin, and the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, both
of whom canceled foreign trips to deal with the crisis." The riots have
proven disastrous for the prime minister, while they have given Sarkozy
grounds for demanding additional powers. This may explain the strange
ineffectiveness of the police during the early days of the uprising.
In fact, the causes of the crisis must be sought not in the areas of
religion, culture or backroom political maneuvering. Around 150 years
ago Europe was shaken by riots very similar to those we're seeing
today. In France the unrest occurred in the very same suburbs, the same
streets. No cars were torched back then because they didn't yet exist,
of course. And police, not yet constrained by any concern for humane
conduct, opened fire on the unruly crowds without much warning.
Fashionable sociologists have long been discussing the "disappearance
of the proletariat" in Western countries. What they seem not to have
noticed is that the proletariat has returned to these countries in its
original form and has inhabited the same depressed suburbs in which the
current middle class began its rise up the social ladder. Just like the
proletariat of the mid-19th century, today's working poor have few
rights, no native country and nothing to lose but their chains. This
huge group of people doomed to labor in low-paying jobs when they can
find work at all are naturally not distinguished by any particular
loyalty to the state or respect for the law.
Benjamin Disraeli described the rich and the poor as two separate
nations. Today, this is quite literally true, since the proletariat and
the bourgeoisie generally belong to different ethnic groups. As a
result, liberal society can close its eyes to social conflict by
attributing all of the problems that arise to religious and cultural
differences and the difficulties of assimilation. No one wants to see
that the teenagers in the streets of France today are fully
assimilated. They have broken with their cultural and religious roots
and become part of European society, but they have not gained equal
rights, and this is why they are rioting.
A shift in social policy to the left or the right will change nothing at
this point. The only way to solve the problems of the proletariat is to
change society, a point made more than a century ago by an immigrant
living in London: Karl Marx.
Boris Kagarlitsky is director of the Institute for Globalization Studies.