This title may recall Lewis Carroll, but rather in Voltaire's Candide that can compare my questions, because I feel that there is something naive to ask why and how, and before that on the existence of racism in the country told Human Rights: France - who plays the role of questioning this "best of all possible worlds" dear to Dr. Pangloss. Candor that said I think assumable because it has something heuristics (such was the candor of the heuristic character of Voltaire) against all contemporary Pangloss whose name Sarkozy , Gueant , but also Holland , Zemmour , Fourest or Finkielkraut , and tell us that everything is for the best if not the best of all possible worlds, at least in the least racist countries possible.
All in one sense already said - I will return - in the singular form, "the least racist countries as possible," which concentrates in itself all the specificity of contemporary French racism, everything has both confusing, odious and grotesque. But my question for now is this: what is this racism, or more precisely how this particular racism revolves he theoretically and practically a political regime and who profess the dominant ideology of human rights?
My purpose is not intended to be exhaustive, it will focus on anti-African racism - anti-black, anti-Arab - and anti-Muslim, which does not exhaust the subject of racism, anti-Semitism still exists, and other forms of racism as racism or anti-Asian racism against Roma. By racism I mean a particular way of understanding and treating certain populations, based on the combination of several operations:
differentiation, that is to say, the mental construction of a difference on the basis of an arbitrarily chosen criteria (race, culture, religion, skin color ...);
the deterioration of the difference (the stigma transformation, that is to say, marker or inferiority infamy);
focusing on this criterion and the reduction of the individual to his stigma (whoever is - among other things - black, Arab, Muslim or Jew, becomes a "Black", "an Arab," "a Muslim," "Jew "and each of his actions is explained in this unique identity);
naturalization, the essentialized amalgam, ie: the crushing of all the differences of time, place, social class or personality that may exist between themselves carry a stigma ("blacks" "Arabs," "Muslims" or "Jews" are "all the same");
legitimize the unequal treatment of racialized any dignity (they "deserve" to be excluded or abused as dangerous or incompetent research).
This point of definition is important because it distinguishes racism from what we almost always reduced in the dominant discourse in France: the simple combination of hostility and a cognitive process of generalization, disregarding any social relations of domination, denial of any right of any question of unequal treatment - which led in particular to qualify as racist, as well as the very real, too real anti-black racism, anti-Arab or anti-Muslim, expressions of anti-French revolt antiblanches or, when they have the misfortune somewhat essentializing "the French" or "white", and even when they do not practice elsewhere essentialization. Criticism against "France", allegations of systemic racism in French society structuring is thus disqualified as anti-white or anti-French racism - a trial recently crystallized the issue: the lawsuit against Houria Bouteldja , spokesman for Indigenous the republic, named for the French simply called strain, giving them the nickname "souchiens" .
Without going into detail, there is definitely racism in the country of human rights because amalgam malware circulating on some populations are linked directly with radical with fundamental human rights:
jobs reserved by law or in spite of it ;
conditions of detention of undocumented;
access to health care;
double punishment ;
fogging laws (affecting the right to education as well as the right to religious expression);
police violence and impunity ;
justice exception (I think including "trial de Villiers le Bel" ).
The concept of human rights I find it useful, whatever legitimate criticisms that can be made on how such rights have historically been built and in which they were used, as precisely as it overcomes the definitions reducing racism in terms of simple hostility or in terms of single delinquent acts (abuse, physical abuse, desecration of mosques, etc.) speak in terms of human rights, fundamental rights, and therefore in terms of denial of right or inequality of rights, it is back to the basics of what racism - a social construction which, far from anomie, and institutions involved in the first state. There are, to put it more bluntly, a state racism in the postcolonial French Republic, which I call racism Republican and maintains with the "human rights" a special relationship.
From a strictly theoretical point of view, the contradiction between racism seems insurmountable and human rights, at least if we consider the most valuable core of the notion of human rights: the idea that there are fundamental rights inalienable and that every human being has, simply because it is just a human being. In other words, those of Étienne Balibar, human rights postulate "equaliberty" [1 ], that is to say, equal freedom of all of us, it is to protect, which clearly opposes any racism, again considering the essence of racism and its concrete manifestation most consubstantial: denial of right or unequal rights.
What starts to become problematic, of course, is that in practice, historically, was colonized in the name of human rights, by allowing arguments simply racist. I will return for the contemporary Republican racism draws its roots in precisely this colonial genealogy .
To describe the relationship that racism qu'entretient particular with the notion of human rights, I will go to just to show a specific difference, a canonical analysis of racism, or rather the analysis of racism that is precisely another racism analysis that Jean-Paul Sartre offers anti-Semitism in his Reflections on the Jewish question. Before going further, I said that in my opinion, this analysis remains relevant to a certain point to speak of contemporary racism, as evidenced by analyzes based on it explicitly - that of Pap N'Diaye on the condition that the black or filmmaker Karim Miské in an article published by Le Monde , about the Islamic condition.
But one of the peculiarities of African anti-racism - anti-black, anti-Arab - and anti-Muslim is precisely the special relationship - and narrow - it maintains with what might be called the philosophy of human rights . In his Reflections on the Jewish Question, Sartre emphasizes the contrary, so quite convincingly the close relationship and consistency between the deep anti-Jewish racism of the early twentieth century and what Jacques Rancière would call "hatred of democracy " , namely: the hatred of the idea of the individual and individual freedom or equality of treatment in favor of a model of society and authoritarian organicist - what Popper called a closed society, and summarizes the name of Charles Maurras. In short, as the analysis Sartre Semitism, racism, and antidémocratisme antidroitdel'hommisme walk hand in hand, logically.
However, it is precisely on this point that racism anti-black, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim stand: not only do they acclimate well with human rights, not only do they live to be compatible with them, but in a extent they allow for human rights, as in colonial times - it is now time to specify how.
For this, one last detour is necessary to Reflections on the Jewish Question. Sartre devotes a beautiful passage in this way has racist thought collectivize nationalize racialize and historical figures to transform into sum of singular geniuses geniuses in national and transform these into a national geniuses "national genius" impersonal involving , quasi-mystical, all nationals of the said strain, and which are also excluded non-mechanically souchiens - especially Sartre discusses the implacable verdict of Charles Maurras
"A Jew will always be able to understand this verse of Racine:
Desert in the East which became my boredom. "
What is remarkable, and a little evil is that today, a similar process takes place, except that it is not only the artistic genius of Racine is nationalized and racialized but also political genius, especially progressivism, feminism, secularism, the libertarian spirit, the spirit of revolt and even a climax, anti-racism. Indeed return to the phrase "We are the least racist world," of which I spoke in the introduction, the structure of which is as paradoxical as the paradox of the Cretan liar - because "we" national opens the sentence means of outset a racialization.
We are open paradox, full absurdity, but this is in a sense the prevailing view on racism in France: Racism is sick, we vomit, and the fact that we Puke makes us a people superior to all others, and especially to some others who, themselves, do not vomit at all, quite the contrary. We are the smallest of the world, we are the least chauvinistic world, or to put it in terms more clearly paradoxical: we are the superior race of men who do not believe in races - while blacks and Arabs ( which they speak of race, use the word, think and say blacks or Arabs) are the racists and race so inferior race.
This paradox rests on a fallacy of course particularly odious to overcome situations of discrimination, we must fight, we must fight to denounce, to denounce the state and must state it to be named White and Non- white, whereby the Non-white who wants to get out of racist discrimination can quickly find qualified anti-white racist.
In this first fallacy is to add a second: to be heard must be strong and to be strong must regroup, so much so that blacks or Arabs are coming together quickly accused of communalism , of preference for their peers, refusal to mix, short of racism, even if the groups in question are oriented claim equal access to the same rights and the same social spaces as whites.
This paradox is of course an old story. I think I read somewhere, I do not remember where, that there was something of this kind among the Athenians of antiquity: we are superior to other cities because unlike them, we are democrats, we know we design and we treat each other as equals. There was in any case that the legitimacy of the colonial system: we proclaimed the equality and therefore we are superior to Africans, themselves, oppress their women and the esclavagisent each other.
This racism Republican, one of the most striking expressions of course, was the presumptuous Dakar speech by Nicolas Sarkozy. These are indeed the principles of progressivism that were invoked - the celebration of the human spirit, the ability to pull the cyclical time of nature and tradition and to equalize conditions, especially between men and women. It is indeed a progressive matrix which turned into its opposite being Europeanized ("this part of Europe you" Sarkozy said when he spoke of the desire for freedom and equality), while Africa was so strong Hegelian reduced to the rank of "people without history" living "the eternal return of the same" to "seasons."
More recently, at the beginning of this year, Claude Gueant is located in the same vein when he said - when he was still for a few weeks, Minister of the Interior - that "all cultures are equal not. " It is indeed forbidden to be racist in two stages - a time when racist and a racist. The timing of the racist argument has been to say that I do prioritize values. Respect for others, equality between men and between men and women, are better than their opposite, who would dare to challenge, and what is this racist? The time racist, that racialization, came soon after, when the minister said it was "only" ... Islam!
The best media philosopher Alain Finkielkraut finally produced an apology learned, sophisticated, worthy of Pangloss, the Ministerial About: highest intellectuality, he explained during his show "Replicas" on France Culture, implies curiosity, centering, self-criticism, openness to others - and thus including other cultures - but again, after these premises perfectly humanistic, progressive, anti-racist, he continued his syllogism by a pure and perfect process essentialization and racialization: "Western civilization", he said, has grown this high intellectuality (ie: we are all Westerners as open-minded as Montaigne, Rabelais also libertarians, as Dreyfus and Zola, as sexist that Beauvoir also relativistic Levi-Strauss) and only that Western civilization has grown (ie: Africans and Muslims are equally obscurantist, anti-Semitic and lapideurs women than most fanatical zealots).
It is in this double operation to essentialisation reversed fronts that racism is evident. In the same vein, it is common to hear that France is the Resistance and Vichy is not France - while also Bin Laden is Islam, but that Islam humanist and respectful of others can not be a "moderate Islam"! Just such an attack in the name of Islam committed against a newspaper for all authorized commentators rise in generality and evoke a "problem of Islam with freedom of expression" .
The conclusion of the syllogism is therefore needed finkielkrautien obvious: we can say, but not racist, based rather on racist premises, universalist, humanist, that the West is a superior civilization, and Islam an inferior civilization.
Finkielkraut has the merit of expressing it perfectly clear what I call the paradox of antiracist racism - racism or racialized. I do not extrapolate: it is himself who said explicitly that "just as we say that there is no inequality between civilizations, we are to show our superiority" . The statement said the equality of civilizations, but their statement said inequality - because, again, we are only thinking and practice equality! I do not caricature when I summarizes the point: we are racist, so superior to other people who are racist.
This paradox of antiracist racism is of course rarely expressed with such candor, transparency and radical than Finkielkraut, but it seems to me much structure for the speech and the general perception of blacks, Arabs, Muslims and whites by themselves in contemporary France. Jordan with prose as much Finkielkraut make without knowing.
All in one sense already said - I will return - in the singular form, "the least racist countries as possible," which concentrates in itself all the specificity of contemporary French racism, everything has both confusing, odious and grotesque. But my question for now is this: what is this racism, or more precisely how this particular racism revolves he theoretically and practically a political regime and who profess the dominant ideology of human rights?
My purpose is not intended to be exhaustive, it will focus on anti-African racism - anti-black, anti-Arab - and anti-Muslim, which does not exhaust the subject of racism, anti-Semitism still exists, and other forms of racism as racism or anti-Asian racism against Roma. By racism I mean a particular way of understanding and treating certain populations, based on the combination of several operations:
differentiation, that is to say, the mental construction of a difference on the basis of an arbitrarily chosen criteria (race, culture, religion, skin color ...); the deterioration of the difference (the stigma transformation, that is to say, marker or inferiority infamy); focusing on this criterion and the reduction of the individual to his stigma (whoever is - among other things - black, Arab, Muslim or Jew, becomes a "Black", "an Arab," "a Muslim," "Jew "and each of his actions is explained in this unique identity); naturalization, the essentialized amalgam, ie: the crushing of all the differences of time, place, social class or personality that may exist between themselves carry a stigma ("blacks" "Arabs," "Muslims" or "Jews" are "all the same"); legitimize the unequal treatment of racialized any dignity (they "deserve" to be excluded or abused as dangerous or incompetent research). This point of definition is important because it distinguishes racism from what we almost always reduced in the dominant discourse in France: the simple combination of hostility and a cognitive process of generalization, disregarding any social relations of domination, denial of any right of any question of unequal treatment - which led in particular to qualify as racist, as well as the very real, too real anti-black racism, anti-Arab or anti-Muslim, expressions of anti-French revolt antiblanches or, when they have the misfortune somewhat essentializing "the French" or "white", and even when they do not practice elsewhere essentialization. Criticism against "France", allegations of systemic racism in French society structuring is thus disqualified as anti-white or anti-French racism - a trial recently crystallized the issue: the lawsuit against Houria Bouteldja , spokesman for Indigenous the republic, named for the French simply called strain, giving them the nickname "souchiens" .
Without going into detail, there is definitely racism in the country of human rights because amalgam malware circulating on some populations are linked directly with radical with fundamental human rights:
jobs reserved by law or in spite of it ; conditions of detention of undocumented; access to health care; double punishment ; fogging laws (affecting the right to education as well as the right to religious expression); police violence and impunity ; justice exception (I think including "trial de Villiers le Bel" ). The concept of human rights I find it useful, whatever legitimate criticisms that can be made on how such rights have historically been built and in which they were used, as precisely as it overcomes the definitions reducing racism in terms of simple hostility or in terms of single delinquent acts (abuse, physical abuse, desecration of mosques, etc.) speak in terms of human rights, fundamental rights, and therefore in terms of denial of right or inequality of rights, it is back to the basics of what racism - a social construction which, far from anomie, and institutions involved in the first state. There are, to put it more bluntly, a state racism in the postcolonial French Republic, which I call racism Republican and maintains with the "human rights" a special relationship.
From a strictly theoretical point of view, the contradiction between racism seems insurmountable and human rights, at least if we consider the most valuable core of the notion of human rights: the idea that there are fundamental rights inalienable and that every human being has, simply because it is just a human being. In other words, those of Étienne Balibar, human rights postulate "equaliberty" [1 ], that is to say, equal freedom of all of us, it is to protect, which clearly opposes any racism, again considering the essence of racism and its concrete manifestation most consubstantial: denial of right or unequal rights.
What starts to become problematic, of course, is that in practice, historically, was colonized in the name of human rights, by allowing arguments simply racist. I will return for the contemporary Republican racism draws its roots in precisely this colonial genealogy .
To describe the relationship that racism qu'entretient particular with the notion of human rights, I will go to just to show a specific difference, a canonical analysis of racism, or rather the analysis of racism that is precisely another racism analysis that Jean-Paul Sartre offers anti-Semitism in his Reflections on the Jewish question. Before going further, I said that in my opinion, this analysis remains relevant to a certain point to speak of contemporary racism, as evidenced by analyzes based on it explicitly - that of Pap N'Diaye on the condition that the black or filmmaker Karim Miské in an article published by Le Monde , about the Islamic condition.
But one of the peculiarities of African anti-racism - anti-black, anti-Arab - and anti-Muslim is precisely the special relationship - and narrow - it maintains with what might be called the philosophy of human rights . In his Reflections on the Jewish Question, Sartre emphasizes the contrary, so quite convincingly the close relationship and consistency between the deep anti-Jewish racism of the early twentieth century and what Jacques Rancière would call "hatred of democracy " , namely: the hatred of the idea of the individual and individual freedom or equality of treatment in favor of a model of society and authoritarian organicist - what Popper called a closed society, and summarizes the name of Charles Maurras. In short, as the analysis Sartre Semitism, racism, and antidémocratisme antidroitdel'hommisme walk hand in hand, logically.
However, it is precisely on this point that racism anti-black, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim stand: not only do they acclimate well with human rights, not only do they live to be compatible with them, but in a extent they allow for human rights, as in colonial times - it is now time to specify how.
For this, one last detour is necessary to Reflections on the Jewish Question. Sartre devotes a beautiful passage in this way has racist thought collectivize nationalize racialize and historical figures to transform into sum of singular geniuses geniuses in national and transform these into a national geniuses "national genius" impersonal involving , quasi-mystical, all nationals of the said strain, and which are also excluded non-mechanically souchiens - especially Sartre discusses the implacable verdict of Charles Maurras
"A Jew will always be able to understand this verse of Racine:
Desert in the East which became my boredom. "
What is remarkable, and a little evil is that today, a similar process takes place, except that it is not only the artistic genius of Racine is nationalized and racialized but also political genius, especially progressivism, feminism, secularism, the libertarian spirit, the spirit of revolt and even a climax, anti-racism. Indeed return to the phrase "We are the least racist world," of which I spoke in the introduction, the structure of which is as paradoxical as the paradox of the Cretan liar - because "we" national opens the sentence means of outset a racialization.
We are open paradox, full absurdity, but this is in a sense the prevailing view on racism in France: Racism is sick, we vomit, and the fact that we Puke makes us a people superior to all others, and especially to some others who, themselves, do not vomit at all, quite the contrary. We are the smallest of the world, we are the least chauvinistic world, or to put it in terms more clearly paradoxical: we are the superior race of men who do not believe in races - while blacks and Arabs ( which they speak of race, use the word, think and say blacks or Arabs) are the racists and race so inferior race.
This paradox rests on a fallacy of course particularly odious to overcome situations of discrimination, we must fight, we must fight to denounce, to denounce the state and must state it to be named White and Non- white, whereby the Non-white who wants to get out of racist discrimination can quickly find qualified anti-white racist.
In this first fallacy is to add a second: to be heard must be strong and to be strong must regroup, so much so that blacks or Arabs are coming together quickly accused of communalism , of preference for their peers, refusal to mix, short of racism, even if the groups in question are oriented claim equal access to the same rights and the same social spaces as whites.
This paradox is of course an old story. I think I read somewhere, I do not remember where, that there was something of this kind among the Athenians of antiquity: we are superior to other cities because unlike them, we are democrats, we know we design and we treat each other as equals. There was in any case that the legitimacy of the colonial system: we proclaimed the equality and therefore we are superior to Africans, themselves, oppress their women and the esclavagisent each other.
This racism Republican, one of the most striking expressions of course, was the presumptuous Dakar speech by Nicolas Sarkozy. These are indeed the principles of progressivism that were invoked - the celebration of the human spirit, the ability to pull the cyclical time of nature and tradition and to equalize conditions, especially between men and women. It is indeed a progressive matrix which turned into its opposite being Europeanized ("this part of Europe you" Sarkozy said when he spoke of the desire for freedom and equality), while Africa was so strong Hegelian reduced to the rank of "people without history" living "the eternal return of the same" to "seasons."
More recently, at the beginning of this year, Claude Gueant is located in the same vein when he said - when he was still for a few weeks, Minister of the Interior - that "all cultures are equal not. " It is indeed forbidden to be racist in two stages - a time when racist and a racist. The timing of the racist argument has been to say that I do prioritize values. Respect for others, equality between men and between men and women, are better than their opposite, who would dare to challenge, and what is this racist? The time racist, that racialization, came soon after, when the minister said it was "only" ... Islam!
The best media philosopher Alain Finkielkraut finally produced an apology learned, sophisticated, worthy of Pangloss, the Ministerial About: highest intellectuality, he explained during his show "Replicas" on France Culture, implies curiosity, centering, self-criticism, openness to others - and thus including other cultures - but again, after these premises perfectly humanistic, progressive, anti-racist, he continued his syllogism by a pure and perfect process essentialization and racialization: "Western civilization", he said, has grown this high intellectuality (ie: we are all Westerners as open-minded as Montaigne, Rabelais also libertarians, as Dreyfus and Zola, as sexist that Beauvoir also relativistic Levi-Strauss) and only that Western civilization has grown (ie: Africans and Muslims are equally obscurantist, anti-Semitic and lapideurs women than most fanatical zealots).
It is in this double operation to essentialisation reversed fronts that racism is evident. In the same vein, it is common to hear that France is the Resistance and Vichy is not France - while also Bin Laden is Islam, but that Islam humanist and respectful of others can not be a "moderate Islam"! Just such an attack in the name of Islam committed against a newspaper for all authorized commentators rise in generality and evoke a "problem of Islam with freedom of expression" .
The conclusion of the syllogism is therefore needed finkielkrautien obvious: we can say, but not racist, based rather on racist premises, universalist, humanist, that the West is a superior civilization, and Islam an inferior civilization.
Finkielkraut has the merit of expressing it perfectly clear what I call the paradox of antiracist racism - racism or racialized. I do not extrapolate: it is himself who said explicitly that "just as we say that there is no inequality between civilizations, we are to show our superiority" . The statement said the equality of civilizations, but their statement said inequality - because, again, we are only thinking and practice equality! I do not caricature when I summarizes the point: we are racist, so superior to other people who are racist.
This paradox of antiracist racism is of course rarely expressed with such candor, transparency and radical than Finkielkraut, but it seems to me much structure for the speech and the general perception of blacks, Arabs, Muslims and whites by themselves in contemporary France. Jordan with prose as much Finkielkraut make without knowing.
PS
This text is the introduction of an intervention at the annual meeting of the African Literature Association, which was held on 11, 12, 13, 14 and April 15, 2012 at Southern Methodist University in Dallas (USA) around the theme of human rights. I want to thank Hervé Tchumkam who contributed with fruitful discussions as to develop the content.
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