 | If you can’t think of anything, may I gently suggest that you have always felt heard. What would it take? What could make you throw a brick or rush a fence? What could make you do something illegal? |
| If you were hungry? If your children or parents were hungry? If you couldn’t pay your bills no matter how much you worked? If your family members had been threatened or injured or murdered and your government did nothing? If you had nowhere to turn and no one listened to you? If you can call the police when something goes wrong and know they will come take care of it, you have been heard. If you successfully call for an ambulance when your loved one collapses, you’ve been heard. If you went into a bank and came out with a loan, you’ve been heard. If you decided to move to another country (like I did) and apply for and receive a visa, you’ve been heard. If your child gets bullied at school and you and the teacher figure things out, you’ve been heard. You’re probably used to being heard. But what if you did those things and were never heard? What if the police and ambulance didn’t respond, and you couldn’t get a loan, and you needed to move but couldn’t? What if that happened to you just like it had happened to your parents, and their parents, and your neighbors, and you didn’t know what to do? What if your job didn’t pay the bills, and you had no hope? |  "Hear the people's anger" |
France has a long history of protesting and striking, and the French usually view these incidents as inconvenient but inevitable. It’s just built into their DNA, and it works because the government usually listens. It’s not always successful, but it often is. Ever since the French revolution, unheard people, usually victims of systemic prejudice and oppression, have been rising up and striving to be heard.
 Gilets Jaunes pupper |  Gilets Jaunes Santa |
That’s all fine, we say, because striking and peaceful protests are fine. But property damage is another thing altogether! Violence is never the answer! I agree, but I’d like to suggest that the people throwing rocks and torching cars are a protest-within-a-protest. The Gilets Jaunes protests are for workers whose salaries don’t get them through the month because of low wages and high taxes. There’s another problem in France, though. An ongoing problem.
Paris has been moving its poor out to the suburbs since the 1850s when Napoleon III hired the architect Haussmann to bulldoze the slums and build those nice wide tree-lined boulevards we enjoy today. They did it again after WWII when they followed Le Corbusier’s model of urban planning and pushed immigrants, former colonists, and the poor to high-rises in the suburbs. (I do not like Le Corbusier. Come at me.)
French people who live outside of Paris have no particular affection for Paris. It’s like if you took Washington DC and New York and Hollywood (Holly York DC?) and rolled them all up into one big main city, everybody in American would have a reason to hate it because that’s where all the rich/spoiled/government/artsy/elite types would live. That’s Paris.
The people who have been pushed out of Paris have a different life than the charmed existence that is Paris. For generations, they’ve been struggling, right next to (arguably) the most beautiful city in the world. That’s why people in France are throwing rocks. That’s why they’re torching cars and spray painting threats on the walls. They haven’t been heard. Again.
Paris has been moving its poor out to the suburbs since the 1850s when Napoleon III hired the architect Haussmann to bulldoze the slums and build those nice wide tree-lined boulevards we enjoy today. They did it again after WWII when they followed Le Corbusier’s model of urban planning and pushed immigrants, former colonists, and the poor to high-rises in the suburbs. (I do not like Le Corbusier. Come at me.)
French people who live outside of Paris have no particular affection for Paris. It’s like if you took Washington DC and New York and Hollywood (Holly York DC?) and rolled them all up into one big main city, everybody in American would have a reason to hate it because that’s where all the rich/spoiled/government/artsy/elite types would live. That’s Paris.
The people who have been pushed out of Paris have a different life than the charmed existence that is Paris. For generations, they’ve been struggling, right next to (arguably) the most beautiful city in the world. That’s why people in France are throwing rocks. That’s why they’re torching cars and spray painting threats on the walls. They haven’t been heard. Again.
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I don’t know how this round of protests is going to end. The French are looking for someone to hear them. If the government doesn’t, historic precedent says that an extreme group will court them. Fascists or communists or religious extremists. That’s when things get ugly for everybody.
Martin Luther King said the riot is the language of the unheard.
If you can’t imagine throwing a brick, consider yourself lucky. Consider yourself heard.
Martin Luther King said the riot is the language of the unheard.
If you can’t imagine throwing a brick, consider yourself lucky. Consider yourself heard.
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Feel free to comment. I’d love to hear from you.
(Sam went downtown and took all the action photos above while I watched it on tv.)
(Sam went downtown and took all the action photos above while I watched it on tv.)