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In Paris … Born to be Violent
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By
Doaa Abd el Aal**
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Dec.
12, 2005
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Four
years ago when I arrived in Paris, I said to myself, “Paris
really is the City of Lights.” Lights of every kind beam from
the Eiffel Tower, which shines with millions of stars at night,
to the theaters, cinemas, cafes, literature gatherings, and
meetings. I told myself that this was the place of my dreams.
I
am an Egyptian who lives in Cairo, a city that emits lights from
the outer surface but deep inside contains a savage heart and
lives on the blood of its people. A city where lights have long
ago been extinguished due to ignorance, carelessness, and
injustice. Cairo’s people are those who run all day to ensure
that they have bread in their houses, blankets for winter, and
money for their children’s schools. As a result, they don’t
have time to turn on the lights.
My
first impressions upon arrival to Paris were very positive. I
saw it as a place where one could live with dignity and rights.
A city where one could press a button connected to the traffic
lights to make cars stop and cross the street without fear (I
later discovered that most cities around the world use the same
system). A city that has a merciful heart and allows people to
protest against violence and terrorism.
Several
weeks after my arrival, I was having lunch with the Algerian
French secretary in the company where I was working. She
suggested to take me on a shopping trip, the only outside
activity that I engage in regularly and that eats up all my
income. She told me that we would go shopping at stores where I
could find good prices. Visiting these places with her helped me
to discover the brutal heart of Paris. It is these areas that
are mainly inhabited by people from Arab, Muslim, and African
origins. They came from all the areas labeled on the map as
“underdeveloped countries.”
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My
first impression was that there were different streets for
different people. People had familiar faces but spoke with
different French accents and other languages. They reminded me
of people in Cairo’s streets who run to catch the bus home
after work on a hot day. For people in Paris with non-French
origins, it is not easy to melt into French society. They are
never “French” unless they pay with their blood. They pay
the price of mixing their blood with pure French blood by
producing children with French minds and tongues, who think that
Islam is about eating halal food.
The
other option is to stay stuck in the poor areas with the lowest
paying jobs, if they can even find a job with their dark skin.
Some of them might hold French nationality, especially if they
are the second or third generation from an immigrant family. But
still, they will have different, non-French names and their dark
skin that will never give them a chance to hold the same basic
rights as those of French origin.
So
I was not amazed when I heard about the violence and riots in
Saint Denis in Paris. Violence is the child of injustice. But it
is not only injustice that pushed those young people to the
streets. It was also the lack of identity. Talking to them makes
you feel that they don’t know which side of the sea they
belong to. They want to be French so they can find jobs, but
society hasn't given them this chance. In the end, they are left
with mixed identities. They choose to have no identity. They
want to be themselves. They choose special clothes and haircuts.
The ones who are Muslims know nothing about Islam. When you ask
one of them if they pray, the answer is “my father does.”
They never read a verse from the Qur'an either in Arabic or
French translation.
Their
sufferings are reflected in new types of art, music, and songs
that they enjoy. Try listening to rai music or the new
type called beurre (have someone help translate the
lyrics for you if necessary), and you will find it to be full of
pain. The pain that expresses their feelings of belonging
nowhere and of being rejected in their own society. The result
of all this is violence. A child born to a Muslim family in
Paris will have the dark hair and eyes and the stigma of
“being born to be violent.”
A
French colleague considered me uncivilized when I commented once
that a Muslim woman can only marry a Muslim man. He saw no
connection between social relations and religious matters. I
tried to explain the logic behind this law, but I recalled that
I had seen many cases where Muslim women were married to
non-Muslims or men who pretended to be Muslims but whose hearts
Islam had never touched. I told myself that no matter what I had
said, his views on reality would defeat my arguments. When he
sees girls and women trying to imitate the habits of the French,
perhaps he passes them off as trying to be modern.
Muslims
will often change their names. For example, a Turkish girl named
Shokran might change her name to Soso and will marry a French
man who converts to Islam only for the sake of marriage. The
couple will then have children and give them French names and
raise them on anything but Islamic values. A case like this is
only one of thousands of cases of mixed identities. Identities
are like hats: People wear the suitable one according to the
specific situation.
To
be accepted as a Muslim, one must be French all the time. I
can’t generalize, but I believe that this is the case for most
Muslims living in non-Muslim countries and maybe in Muslim
countries as well. People ignore the fact that mixed identity in
a world that views Islam as the source of terrorism can cause
the violence. You can be either French or Muslim but not
“French Muslim.” What an irony in the country of liberty,
fraternity, and equality!
Mixed
identity, injustice, and high unemployment rates are all reasons
for what went wrong in the suburbs of Paris where the
marginalized population lives. Other reasons might be the
influence of American gang life as portrayed in famous American
movies. In many of these movies you can see gangs of African
American youth shooting guns, acting violently, robbing stores,
frightening innocent people in the streets and then mugging
them. A wave of "prestigious" American values is
hitting the Parisian suburbs where the poor and unemployed live.
At the heart of this wave is violence.
Read
More:
Listen to Rap Music from French youth:
** Doaa Abd el Aal is a volunteer with Islamonline.net. She can be contacted at
youth_campaign@islamonline.net
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