UPDATE: Upon looking into the issue further, I discovered that Feministing provided an excellent explanation of the evils of the ban when it first took effect in April:

I am so tired of having to read the qualifier from mostly white Western feminists before any discussion of the veil ban that the veil is sexist but . . . In the context of global patriarchy doesn’t this qualifier belong in front of, like, everything? It seems to me we have a lot easier seeing -isms in a cultural context different from our own, and a lot harder time seeing agency. To veil or not to veil is a question to be navigated by Muslim women – what kind of feminism supports the imposition of values and behaviors on women by a government?

I’m struck by the timing of the ban going into effect, as France re-engages in colonial violence in places like Libya. There were two major flavors of colonialism: kill everyone who was there and take the land for yourself (dominant in the Americas), and fix the backwards people by making them like us, while using their labor and their land, the preferred method of France. People raced as Muslim or Arab were brought into France to serve its economy with very little personal gain in the first place. I can’t help think about this as France engages in violence where they have clear oil interests at the same time they try to stomp out cultural diversity within the nation. The country claims to be secular, but the veil ban is a reminder leadership still holds white, Catholic values. Women are so often the targets of colonial violence, and I see the ban as part of the continued project to make them like us.

So, it would appear that the problem is, yet again, the insistence that middle class feminists are allowed to speak for women of other cultures, regardless of whether these women accept it or not.

INITIAL POST: Secular misogyny in France remains in place:

Kenza Drider's posters for the French presidential race are ready to go, months before the official campaign begins. There she is, the freedom candidate, pictured standing in front of a line of police — a forbidden veil hiding her face.

Drider declared her longshot candidacy Thursday, the same day that a French court fined two women who refuse to remove their veils. All three are among a group of women mounting an attack on the law that has banned the garments from the streets of France since April, and prompted similar moves in other European countries.

They are bent on proving that the ban contravenes fundamental rights and that women who hide their faces stand for freedom, not submission.

When a woman wants to maintain her freedom, she must be bold, Drider told The Associated Press in an interview.

President Nicolas Sarkozy strongly disagrees, and says the veil imprisons women.

Drider makes the observation that the law effectively places women who believe that, for religious reasons, they should wear the veil, under home detention, because going out in public subjects them to insults from the populace and possible arrest. Not surprisingly, she has experienced both.

Drider has therefore revealed the true motivations behind the the enactment of the ban on the wearing of the veil. First, it has the effect of segregating these woman from the rest of French society, much in the same way that early Nazi measures against the Jews, such as the requirement that Jewish businesses identify themselves with a Star of David, did in Germany, and secondly, as occurred in Germany to much greater degree, it empowers the populace to abuse them whenever they encounter them in public. The government is relying upon xenophobes, like those who have historically supported Jean Le Pen and his daughters, to enforce the ban and create a climate of intimidation instead of the police.

Upon encountering this, one wonders, where are the feminists? Are there reports of feminist support for women like Driver? I haven't encountered them, so I'd be curious if any readers have run across any. You'd think that feminists would be concerned about a law regulating the dress of women that has the consequence of driving them underground to avoid public harassment. But no, turns out that French feminists are, by and large, characterized as being proponents of it, providing ideological justification for the measure. Nabila Ramdani, a Parisian born free lance journalist and academic of Algerian descent, has stated that very few feminist groups have actually supported these women's freedom to cover-up, arguing that it is men who are invariably forcing them to do so. Beyond the harassment, the willingness of these feminists to embrace a law that legitimizes French xenophobes is particularly alarming. Combined with the enthusiastic support of some publicly prominent American feminists for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, it is not surprising that feminism is at risk of being trapped in a Eurocentric ghetto because of the cultural biases of its most visible proponents, proponents with more social acceptability and media access than those with a contrary perspective.

Driver herself is a personal refutation of the prevailing French feminist notion that the veil renders a Muslim woman as nothing more than the property of her husband, that it constitutes a form of imprisonment. She wears the veil in public, risking harassment and arrest. She engages in civil disobedience. Even more striking, she is now running for President of France. Of course, she is probably not the norm, but can we really say that there is any norm at all in regard to something so personal as one's religion and one's practice of it? No doubt, there are episodes of domestic violence involving Muslim men and women, but, as As'ad Abukhalil periodically notes, it is highly questionable whether it is more common than domestic violence involving others. Perhaps, if there are feminists who want to liberate the Muslim women of France, it might be a good idea for them to talk to these women without preconditions, and discover what sort of liberation they really need. They don't necessarily believe that banning the veil is part of that process.

Labels: Afghanistan, Eurocentrism, Feminism, France, Immigration

I don't recall if I have posted about it here, but I have ascerbically commented elsewhere upon the ethnocentrism associated with the belief that American radical pacifist Gene Sharp played a promiment inspirational role in regard to the Egyptian protests that brought down Mubarak, as reported in the New York Times in February:

Few Americans have heard of Mr. Sharp. But for decades, his practical writings on nonviolent revolution — most notably From Dictatorship to Democracy, a 93-page guide to toppling autocrats, available for download in 24 languages — have inspired dissidents around the world, including in Burma, Bosnia, Estonia and Zimbabwe, and now Tunisia and Egypt.

When Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement was struggling to recover from a failed effort in 2005, its leaders tossed around crazy ideas about bringing down the government, said Ahmed Maher, a leading strategist. They stumbled on Mr. Sharp while examining the Serbian movement Otpor, which he had influenced.

When the nonpartisan International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, which trains democracy activists, slipped into Cairo several years ago to conduct a workshop, among the papers it distributed was Mr. Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action, a list of tactics that range from hunger strikes to protest disrobing to disclosing identities of secret agents.

Well, you know, those ignorant Arabs, they would have never thought of engaging in civil disobedience unless Sharp and activists associated with his work told them about it. Because, after all, as devout readers of the Times, know, Arabs and Muslims are reflexively violent in their response to anything they find objectionable. They could have only embraced civil disobedience with the assistance of purportedly more urbane, sophisticated American activists. Until Sharp, Egyptians never engaged in hunger strikes and never disclosed the identities of people involved in the security services.

Of course, the ignorance associated with this pop culture interpretation of events surrounding the Egyptian protests is breathtaking. For example, Egyptians have engaged in hunger strikes or threatened them on a number of occasions in the last decade alone, such as here and here and here and here. While one should not discount the possibility that Sharp and his acolytes may have indirectly influenced the more recent ones, the more likely possibility is that Egyptians learned from, among others, the example of Palestinians nearby. Incarcerated Palestinians have frequently engaged in hunger strikes over the years to protest the occupation and their conditions of confinement, and continue to do so, as anyone who conducts a cursory search on the Internet will readily discover. Meanwhile, the notion that Egyptians never considered publicly exposing the identities of people in the security services as a method of resistance until coming into contact with speakers from the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict is absurd on its face.

But this narrative, no matter how implausible, does serve a political purpose outside of Egypt. For educated Americans, Zionist ones, in particular, it is a reasssuring one, an Arab revolutionary movement significantly influenced by secular, American theories of non-violent direct action. Or, alternatively, it can be described as a reassuring narrative centered around the belief that Arabs can only rebel in a way that conforms to Eurocentric values of social and cultural superiority. From this perspective, given that North Africa and the Middle East are characterized as backward societies, they can only undergo radical political transformation by reference to modern, Eurocentric approaches to protest and rebellion. An indirect expression of this ethnocentrism can be found, again, in the pages of Times, where, as As'ad Abukhalil often observes, the reporters rely excessively upon Arabs and Muslims living the US to provide insight into events in their countries of origin thousands of miles away. Because, as we all know, an Arab or Muslim living in the US, having benefitted from the social, cultural and educational advantages of our society, is a more knowledgeable source than an indigenous one.

In regard to Egypt specifically, the reverence for Sharp is especially misguided. First of all, contrary to the desperate need for American elites to describe them as non-violent, the Egyptian protests were, in fact, quite violent, and they were as violent as required to overcome the repression of the Mubarak security forces, as explained by Hossam el-Hamalawy:

Suez was dubbed as Egypt’s Sidi Bouzid during the 18 day uprising. The city witnessed some of the bloodiest crackdowns by the police, and also some of the fiercest resistance by the protesters. In the video above, shot on the Friday of Anger, January 28, the revolutionaries in Suez after storming the police stations and confiscating the rifles, are using them to fight back the police.

One of the biggest myths invented by the media, tied to this whole Gene Sharp business: the Egyptian revolution was peaceful. I’m afraid it wasn’t. The revolution (like any other revolution) witnessed violence by the security forces that led to the killing of at least 846 protesters.

But the people did not sit silent and take this violence with smiles and flowers. We fought back. We fought back the police and Mubarak’s thugs with rocks, Molotov cocktails, sticks, swords and knives. The police stations which were stormed almost in every single neighborhood on the Friday of Anger–that was not the work of criminals as the regime and some middle class activists are trying to propagate. Protesters, ordinary citizens, did that.

Egyptians understand well what a police station is for. Every family has a member who got abused, tortured or humiliated by the local police force in his/her neighborhood. And I’m not even talking here about the State Security Police torture factories. I’m talking about the ordinary police.

Other symbols of power and corruption were attacked by the protesters and torched down during the uprising. Revolutionary violence is never random. Those buildings torched down or looted largely belonged to Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.

In a number of provinces like in N Sinai and Suez, arms were seized by protesters who used them back against the police to defend themselves. State Security Police office in Rafah and Arish, for example, were blown up using RPGs, hand grenades and automatic rifles, while gas pipelines heading to Jordan and Israel were attacked.

Amazingly, there is a revisionist, pro-Sharp response to Hamalawy. Eric Stoner of Waging Nonviolence actually condemns the Egyptian protesters for attacking the forces that had subjected them to such repression:

No proponent of nonviolence would ever argue that by using nonviolent action protesters will not face violence from the state. In fact, in most cases, when facing repressive regimes violence should be expected.

Moreover, no one that I know ever claimed that there was absolutely no violence in Egypt. We acknowledged the violence of the protesters on this site and were critical of it.

That said, to argue that it was the rocks, Molotov cocktails, sticks, swords and knives that won the day in Egypt is crazy. Could anyone really think that these crude weapons were any match for Egypt’s military and security apparatus?

Rather than being a key to their eventual victory, the moments when protesters resorted to violence were the closest points during the uprising that they came to losing control. The throwing of rocks was about as useful strategically in Egypt as it is in Palestine. Such desperate acts distract onlookers from the cause they are fighting for and provide a ready excuse for state repression.

The truth is that most people in Tahrir Square and throughout Egypt did face violence without responding in kind and their nonviolent discipline was a key to their success. If most people had responded with violence the death toll of the revolution would have been dramatically higher and Mubarak may very well have prevailed.

So speaketh the sanctimonous American pacifist, who pompously proclaims that El-Hamalawy doesn't understand non-violence. If given a choice between a failed non-violent protest movement, or one that resorts to violence and succeeds, Americans like Stoner will choose the latter every time. Even worse, people like Stoner would relegate the peoples of the lesser developed world to imperial subjugation until they can overcome their masters non-violently. If that can't be done, well, too bad, things well get better when they ascend to heaven. No wonder the Times embraced Sharp in the service of its fictional characterization of the Egpytian protests as his insistence upon non-violence transforms a potentially immediate, radical, often violent revolutionary movement against the governments of US client states in North Africa and the Middle East into a long term, evolutionary one that is likely to preserve the prerogatives of capital, if it succeeds at all.

Clearly, the emphasis upon non-violent protest methods disseminated in Egypt by the International Center, as with the comical exaggeration about the importance of social media, is also about obscuring the class aspect of the Egyptian protests. There has been growing labor unrest in Egypt over the last decade as the clientelist policies of the regime began to be supplanted by neoliberal ones. While it would, of course, be an exaggeration to ascribe the success of the protests to the emerging labor movement in Egypt, it did, undoubtedly play a significant role, as explained by here and here by Joel Beinin. Labor protests in 2007 and 2008 against employers supported by Mubarak foreshadowed much more massive ones against the regime this year. By exaggerating the role of Sharp and social networking media, the Times, and other news agencies that did so as well, sought to persuade the American public that the protests were classless. Had Mubarak prevailed, it is likely that they would have been described in different, more ominous terms.

But I have digressed badly. I started this post with the intention of showing how Egyptians have responded to the claims of Sharp's importance to their protest movement. Here is a sample of some of their comments:

@3arabawy: I was happy all my life under Mubarak, but suddenly #genesharptaughtme I must rebel.

@Zjen1: #GeneSharpTaughtMe how to grow and eat garlic and breath in my enemies faces so they will faint.

@M_Alhalaby: #GeneSharpTaughtMe that washing eyes with Pepsi lessens the effects of tear gas.

@CVirus: #GeneSharpTaughtMe how to dodge bullets.

اي اتظاهر تضامنا مع قانون منع التظاهر@moneloky: #GeneSharpTaughtMe How to protest in support of the law that bans protesting

@prof_mostafa: #GeneSharpTaughtMe how to make a Facebook group

@alaa: #GeneSharpTaughtMe how to throw rocks at thugs, baricade myself behind burned out car hulks, dodge petrol bombs

Personally, I like these three best:

@deetaha: #GeneSharpTaughtMe that social networks is the only method to communicate, even when the Internet is down.

@nermin79: #GeneSharpTaughtMe that the west always wants to be sure that white men get credit for all the great things that happen

@ArabUprising: #GeneSharpTaughtMe that backward brown & black people need the permission of the white man to #revolt against his puppets

Apparently, the Egyptians have learned a lot from Gene Sharp, and fortunately, it is different than what the Times would have us believe.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Egypt, Eurocentrism, Neoliberalism, New York Times, Palestine

UPDATE 1: As contemplated in paragraph 1 of the original post:

A Texas school district says a teacher won't return to work after being accused of mocking an American-born Muslim student by asking if she was grieving because her uncle had died, a reference to Osama bin Laden.

The teacher was put on leave after making the alleged remark May 2, hours after bin Laden was killed in a U.S. military raid.

INITIAL POST: The death of Bin Laden brings an old question to the forefront: why is it that people are willing to accept state violence, no matter how extreme and indiscriminate, while responding angrily to acts of individual or group violence that are minor by comparison? In the United States, it appears that many have a vicarious relationship with the violence of the government, exulting in a sense of collective superiority associated with its use against others, particularly those with whom they have developed a pre-existing bias. Socialists have always struggled to overcome this nationalistic sensibility, partially because of the gratification connected to such violence. Not surprisingly, to the extent that the people of another culture are different from the still predominately European, Christian one of the US, the use of violence against them is frequently considered an unavoidable necessity.

There are many examples: the near extermination of Native Americans, the continued support for the use of nuclear weapons upon the civilian populace of Japan to end World War II, the bombing of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and, of course, more recently, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a larger war on terror. During the 19th Century, European Americans believed that it was impossible for them to coexist with Native Americans on the North American continent unless Native Americans were violently suppressed and, thereafter, socially controlled, and such a perspective is central to the current approach to the peoples of North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, an approach that is an extension of prior European imperial practice. The US military made the connection explicit when it selected Geronimo as the code name for Bin Laden prior to the raid on his compound. Both constitute modernization projects based upon the principles of the Enlightenment, one in which the peoples of non-Eurocentric cultures must be forcibly incorporated into a neoliberal, nation state system that had its origins in, first, Western Europe, and then, in North America. Significantly, most people on the left supported this effort in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, and some still do, with people like Christopher Hitchens and Fred Halliday being prominent examples.

Of course, this is one of those binary oppositions that has little basis in social reality. The peoples of North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia are not monolithic, and they do not live in inferior, debased societies that evolved as a result of a separation from the peoples of other parts of the world, such as Africa, Europe, South Asia and East Asia. In other words, this effort is based upon a mythology of social superiority that has no basis in fact. There were, and remain, less violent, more collaborative alternatives of transformation, ones that the proponents of the purist Eurocentric imperialist vision cannot accept. But, beyond such an academized, abstract discussion, there is a more immediate, direct problem. Why is it that so many people that otherwise have no connection to it so strongly support this violent enterprise? An enterprise, that, if Libya is an indication, is now gaining more and more European participation? If there is any possibility for Osama Bin Laden to be embraced as a martyr, despite his heinous qualities, it resides in his symbolic opposition to American and European imperial domination. To the extent that this domination becomes even more remorseless, the greater the prospect that Bin Laden's perverse failings will become less and less prominent in future representations of him.

Labels: "War on Terror", Africa, American Empire, Eurocentrism, Europe, France, Imperialism, Italy, Libya, Neoliberalism, Osama Bin Laden

UPDATE 1: Now we know what prompted Blanc to issue a public apology:

Mohammed Belkacemi, a respected official responsible for liaising with young players in suburbs and highrise estates, on Wednesday admitted he was the whistleblower who had recorded the controversial meeting in November 2010 where race quotas were discussed. It is believed he gave the tape to other officials rather than directly to the media.

The French national coach Laurent Blanc first flatly denied any discussion about quotas, then apologised for any offence about certain terms he used.

The recordings show officials were debating French players with dual-nationality who could train in France but leave to play for other teams. Several officials suggested limiting these players. Blanc reportedly talks about black players' morphology. He says of the training centres, which produced French champions such as Thierry Henry and Nicolas Anelka: You have the impression that they really train the same prototype of players, big, strong, powerful … What is there that is currently big, strong, powerful? The blacks. He said other criteria should be used to bring in players with our culture, our history.

One can only imagine how the players at this meeting reacted to hearing their national coach talk like a Klansman.

INITIAL POST: From The Guardian:

France has been plunged into a fresh race crisis after claims that football officials tried to limit black and Arab players on youth training schemes to make the French team more white.

The French football federation has opened an internal investigation after website Mediapart reported that top management approved a quota system to limit young black players and those of north African origin emerging as candidates for the national team. The alleged plan involved limiting non-white youngsters as young as 12 or 13 from entering the selection process through training centres and academies.

For the top brass in French football, the issue is settled: there are too many blacks, too many Arabs, and not enough white players in French football, the website said.

According to Mediapart, one of the most senior football federation figures wanted to set a cap of 30% on players of certain origins, but insisted at a meeting the quota should be kept quiet. At another meeting, the French national team coach Laurent Blanc allegedly backed changing youth talent selection criteria to favour players with our culture, our history. Sources claimed Blanc cited current world champions Spain, saying: The Spanish, they say: 'We don't have a problem. We have no blacks'.

In response, the technical director of the French Football Federation, Francois Blauquart, has been suspended pending an investigation. But it just seems to get worse with every new revelation:

On Saturday Mediapart published further claims about a meeting at which Blaquart, the France coach, Laurent Blanc, the under-21 coach, Erick Mombaerts, and the under-20 coach, Francis Smerecki, among others, allegedly debated African players with dual nationality who were groomed in France but opted to play for their country of origin.

We can mark out, in an unspoken way, a sort of quota. But it needs to remain unspoken, Blaquart was quoted as saying by Mediapart. Blaquart told RMC radio's website: I cannot not acknowledge these remarks. But they have to be put in their context. We acknowledged the fact that there were many players with dual nationality ... we had to control the management of these players who might be leaving us. There is nothing more to it.

Blanc, who played in the 1998 World Cup-winning team that was dubbed Black-Blanc-Beur (Blacks, Whites and Arabs) by French media, has often raised the issue of dual nationality players, but rejected the claim he was in favour of quotas based on race. On Friday he said: No such project has been revealed to me. It's a lie. You cannot have quotas in football. It does not exist. Football is made of diversity. It really bothers me because it's against my values. To me, this is totally false.

Last night Blanc said in a statement: I do not withdraw what I said yesterday. I admit that some remarks made during a work meeting, taken out of their context, may be misinterpreted and, as far as I am concerned, I apologise if I have hurt some feelings. But I, who am against any form of discrimination, do not stand being accused of racism or xenophobia.

Note the deviousness of Blanc's emphasis upon the loss of players trained in France because of their dual nationality. By speaking critically of it, he motivates even more French Arabs to play for their countries of origin, insuring that the French national team is predominately constituted of players with our culture, our history. No need to worry, though, we can sure that Sarkozy will get to the bottom of it, given his empathy for Arabs living in France.

Labels: Eurocentrism, Europe, France, Immigration, Racism, Sarkozy

UPDATE 1: Oh, by the way, if you are a woman, and show silent support for a woman wearing a niqab, you'll get arrested, too:

Halima, a 53-year-old mother from Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, who wears a normal headscarf, was detained by police for standing silently with the niqab-wearers at Notre Dame. She said: This is the first time I've ever protested over anything. I'm not in favour of the niqab, I don't wear it myself. But it's wrong for the government to ban women from dressing how they want. Islamophobia is on the rise in France. First it's the niqab, then they'll ban the jilbab, then it will be plain headscarves outlawed.

She was, you see, participating in an unauthorized protest.

And, then, there's the Saudi exception:

Shop-owners said luxury fashion boutiques near the Champs Elysées were unlikely to call the police to detain female tourists in niqabs from the Gulf. This would create a two-tier system between rich tourists and poor French people, one trader complained. Emmanuel Roux from the police union, Syndicat des Commissaires de la Police Nationale, said the law would be infinitely difficult to apply and infinitely little applied.

Roux no doubt understands that the poor Muslim women of France are the precisely the intended targets of this measure. After all, Hugo would have appreciated the care with with which the authorities drafted it:

The law is worded to trip safely through legal minefields: The words women, Muslim and veil are not even mentioned. The law says it is illegal to hide the face in the public space.

While Italy also has a law against concealing the face for security reasons, France's law was the first conceived to target veil-wearers. Sarkozy said he wanted a ban, and that the veils are not welcome in France.

INITIAL POST: The more things change, the more they stay the same. The French Communist Party, the PCF, supported the war in Algeria in the 1950s, and, now, if media reports are reliable, the French left supported the ban on the niqab as well. The level of police harassment associated with enforcement of the ban is ludicrous, consider, for example, the following:

The guide sent out last week to police notes that the burqa ban does not apply inside private cars, but it reminds officers that such cases can be dealt with under road safety rules.

The police presence in front of Notre Dame today, where 12 women participated in a protest against the ban, was predictably over the top:

Scores of plain clothes police, a riot van, several police vans and long police buses drivn in to take away 2 small women in a niqab

Sarkozy certainly spares no expense when it comes to street theatre for the purpose of entertaining the racist, sectarian part of his base. Women who wear the niqab now attract more cops than anarchists! The use of plain clothes police is particularly interesting. Will we soon be hearing of an effort to infiltrate the niqab movement by female undercover officers wearing the niqab themselves? All of this effort because of between 350 and 2,000 women in France who wear it. As Chuck D. of Public Enemy rapped decades ago, it takes a nation of millions to hold us back.

More seriously, though, there is a subtext here. And, you've probably already figured it out. In France, people like Sarkozy put forward the sinister notion that liberty, fraternity and equality are uniquely French, uniquely the creations of the European enlightenment. So much so, that, if necessary, they can be imposed upon balky people from purportedly feudal cultures, like those in the Islamic world, for example, by the police. Or, on a more international scale, they can used to justify the subjection of civilian populations in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan to military violence. No wonder that Sarkozy took the lead in launching airstrikes in Libya.

Labels: Eurocentrism, Europe, France, Islam, Libya, Police, Religion, Sarkozy