Some Thoughts on Identity and Context

Sarah Carmona is a Roma historian and academic. When she is with other Spanish Roma, she identifies by her family’s trade group – as a Canasteza or Latera person. With non-Spanish Roma, however, she refers to herself by an ethnic designation – as Kali or Ole. Among non-Roma, she calls herself Gitana.

The level of identity that we communicate partially depends on the comprehension of those who receive it.

Consider “place” as a marker of identity. I attend a hypothetical meeting on issues facing residents of the island of Oahu. A round of introductions is called, and each participant is required to say where they are from. I say that I am from Kailua, a town on the Windward Side. The name is immediately recognizable to everyone in attendance, and evokes certain ideas about who I am. The fact that I’m from Oahu is taken for granted. My identity in this context hinges on which town I call home.

I attend another meeting. This time it's statewide and there are representatives from every island. Another round of introductions is called. I tell the others that I’m from Oahu. Being from Kailua is less significant.

And so on. The meetings continue. In Washington, I’m from Hawaii. Abroad, I’m from the U.S.

During this fellowship, I have become used to introducing myself as “American." HIA’s U.S. Fellows come from across the North American continent. In France, our relative geographies, and our relative identities, converge.

To some extent this is the result of language and a desire to be understood. I can’t expect a non-American – or even someone from the U.S. mainland -- to know what I mean when I tell them that I’m from Kailua. The specificity of that identity doesn’t translate.

This is not to say that our other identities are no longer present – just that they are not prominent or visible in context. Obviously, Sarah does not stop being Canasteza, Latera, Kali, Ole, or Gitana simply because she does not express those context-sensitive identities. At the same time, however, practice feeds perception, and perception practice. I tell people that I’m American and begin thinking of myself as an American.

"[W]ithout crossing conceptual, geographical, and material borders in pursuit of shared problems, how would we ever find W.E.B. Du Bois in Warsaw?"

Dear Fellows,

A close friend brought to my attention an article that was published in the Yale Journal of Criticism in 2001 that is not only interesting in and of itself, but also reflects and enriches some of the conversations we've had in Lyon over the past several weeks. What is more, its point of departure is provided by the observations made by a famous American scholar's visit to Warsaw in 1949. "W.E.B. DuBois in Warsaw: Holocaust Memory and the Color Line, 1949 - 1952" by Michael Rothberg revisits an article W.E.B. DuBois published in Jewish Life in 1952.

For those of us unfamiliar with the life and work of W.E.B. DuBois, the Harvard University Institute for African and African American Research named in his honor provides this biography.

The heart of the article's analysis is how DuBois's visit to Warsaw (his third, in fact) during its reconstruction spurred a reconceptualization and expansion of his famous assertion that, "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." Rothberg also treats the concept of memory by devoting considerable analysis to the Nathan Rapoport's monument to the Warsaw ghetto fighters which was unveiled five years after their uprising began. From the article:

Both Du Bois and [Nathan] Rapoport suggest in their different media that, on the one hand,   experiences of particular suffering can be brought into dialogue with each other and that, on the other hand, emblems of universality need to be understood with specific historical and political contexts. As a framework for thinking about the Nazi genocide, this relational view contrasts with dominant tendencies with Holocaust studies. It neither sacrifices the specificity of the Holocaust to a generic notion of modernity as catastrophe nor does it isolate the genocide of the Jews as an unrecuperable "excess" beyond history and representation. (185)

I encourage you all to check out the article. Here's a link to a preview. And here is its citation for those of you who may be able to access it through JSTOR or ProjectMuse: Michael Rothberg, "W.E.B. DuBois in Warsaw: Holocaust Memory and the Color Line, 1949-1952," The Yale Journal of Criticism, Vol. 14, No. 1, p. 169-189 (Spring 2001).

Best wishes,

Corey

Caroline James and Guénaelle Bauta, "How do you teach a nation’s history?"

 

          As HIA fellows we were faced with a haunting, yet provocative question; how do you teach a nation’s history? With the National Center for the History of Resistance and Deportation as our backdrop, we individually mulled over the exhibition, searching for historical perspective on the Holocaust; we found ways that history, memory, and shame shape the ways in which we tell our national historical narrative. A thorough introduction by Rémi, a former HIA fellow, set the tone; this center specifically displays acts of resistance specific to Lyon, but more than a hundred museums addressing region specific resistance have emerged in France. With well over 120 museums focusing on the resistance in France, one cannot help but question the historical fullness France presents regarding the holocaust. Despite positive framing, France is nonetheless culpable for its collaborative and compliant role in the Holocaust. Though it is undeniably easier to find funding and material based on a resistance perspective, a social and ethical responsibility remains to tell France’s Holocaust history in its fullest form. In order to assuage the direction of the future, the path to national healing requires ownership of oppression and critical discourse. 

 

The infamous Klaus Barbie trial, which took place in 1987 in Lyon, is a micro-level example of discourse stalemating. Facing Barbie for the first time since he committed atrocities against them, former Holocaust victims made emotionally charged testimonies. In some detail, his victims described Barbie deriving pleasure from physically assaulting them and at times, brutally raping women. Despite tears and shrill screams of victims reverberating through the room, Barbie, in his German tongue (the language of the Nazi regime) refused to address any testimony given. Barbie’s silence could be perceived as political; his greatest means of showing remaining solidarity with Nazi ideals. In any case, it was disturbing to watch him thinly smile as his smug silence dug into his victims’ psycho-emotional wounds.

In the afternoon, discussions with the center’s curator centered around one main question; how does one tell a history which threatens a society’s peace?  As previously states, Resistance museums leave something to be desired for historical clarity as well as social impact. However, the Holocaust is not the only history France struggles to frankly confront with public discourse. The shameful and recent history of Colonization and slavery is a societal wound which still remains to be explored. While her words were pregnant with a variety of meanings, a Holocaust victim in the Barbie trial expressed sentiments which potentially characterize the problems bore from relative silence around issues of importance: “This was worse than slavery,” she said. Narratives of oppression can become competing when one is addressed over another. Crimes against humanity cannot be judged against a gradient, it is rather a society which should be judged by the way it treats the history of its crimes against humanity; by the way it ensures that justice be properly given to victims left in the wake. Movies, nor music are sufficient medias for facing a painful history. However, these mediums are well suited means to bolstering more meaningful, permanent and collective forms of acknowledgement.

It is understandable, and in some ways inherently human, to desire a positive perspective of ourselves. Nonetheless, silence bred in the heat of shame is still not excusable. We must face our reality and gallantly take responsibility for that which we find horrid enough to merit our shame. In doing so, we join the victims in our history of oppression and greet them with solidarity and meaningful change; this is the way, the only way, to ensure that we remove the scratched A-track of history and are able to turn in a new direction. Though we may excuse it, in a self-serving effort to excuse ourselves, our silence is always political; it answers the questions we ask ourselves about what we will do with our history.

Eeva Nordstrom, "Second Zone Citizens"

During the two day session on Rrom communities, I was surprised to see that France was still treating a group of people as “outsiders”. The cultural denial of Romanipen and the legal status of Rrom immigrants and “Gens du voyage” struck me. Thus, in the first part of this post I will overview their legal status and its evolution and in the second part I will look at the difficulty Rrom children have to access education, one of the basic French constitutional rights.

In Marcel Courthiade’s article, he points out that the Rroma population has encountered hostility starting from 1600’s to 1700’s. Indeed, for various reasons such as competing traditions with the church or attempt by centralized royal power to destroy mercenaries, partly composed of Rroms, laws were passed that gave the right to kill, torture and enslave Rroms, simply due to their ethnicity.

Unsurprisingly, as the stigmatization of the Rroma people grew, in 1912, France passed a law that obliged “nomads” to have a “carnet anthropologique” which would help French security forces to locate them. During the Second World War, these “carnets” were used to find Rroms and send them into concentration/work camps.

After the Nazi horror, the French government took time to release Rroma people. As we have seen in the documentary “Des Français sans Histoire”; some camps were released only a year or two after the end of the war. The reason given, was the fear that the reintegration of Rroma people would be more difficult as they might have great hostility towards the French government. Moreover, as they had different traditions and customs and did not follow the mainstream of society, the French government feared an anarchist upheaval.

In 1969 a law was passed that tried to balance the 1912 law by attempting to avoid ethnic categorization of the community using terms such as “people with no permanent residence”. The 1972 law followed this trend by instituting the “gens du voyage” term. Also the “carnet anthropoligique” is replaced by a “livret de circulation” still in place today though some changes have been brought to it.

I find it particularly interesting that France as a jocobinist country as Sahra Carmona pointed out, still distinguishes its citizens and simply considers that using neutral and general terms will be sufficient to overcome the contradiction. We talked earlier in the program about the theoretical “colour blindness” in France. The way France treats its citizens who simply have different values pushes me to think of a “culture blindness”, the consequence of which is the stigmatization and segregation of gens du voyage and the new immigration wave of Rroms from Eastern countries.

In 2012 the French Constitutional Council repealed some of the measures of 1969 law such as one of the identity documents the gens du voyage had to carry with them, with the obligation of having it stamped every three months and the obligation to be assigned to a municipality for three years to be able to vote. Nevertheless, the “livret de circulation” that has to be stamped every year is still in place and represents institutionalized discrimination.

Finally, in 2000 the Besson law was passed and made compulsory the creation of “aires d’accueil” in municipalities with more than 5000 inhabitants. Several problems can be pointed out when mentioning these “welcoming areas”. Firstly they are institutionalized as welcoming “gens du voyage” in a more general and loose term, but in reality they welcome Rroma people, not Rroms from Eastern Europe and not any citizen who is traveling. Secondly, as Ghislaine Durand pointed out, these plots of land are involved in political financing and it appeared from her speech that she strongly believed in the fact that they perpetuated segregation. Finally, the main issue is that Xavier Pousset, on the other hand, seemed to strongly support the building of welcoming areas, as they are a positive response to the needs of gens du voyage, providing minimum necessities such as water and electricity. Thus, this shows the strong division between people fighting for the same cause.

Although these welcoming areas are a response to some of the problems, their overall effect is very weak, as their location is outside city and hard to access (HIA had to rent Minibuses as there was no way to access these areas by public transport). Thus, issues arise as to basic rights such as education.

The presentation given by Sahra Thomas gave us the possibility to understand some of the difficulties faced by Rroma people in relation to putting their children to school. Indeed, she worked as a teacher for an all-Rroma children class in Saint-Fons with children aged 6 to 12 years old. These conditions are far from acceptable and show the lack of willingness from authorities to integrate Rroma people into French society. How can one possibly expect a child to learn French when he is not even given the possibility to speak in a French teaching environment. From personal experience, I learned French at the age of 9, not because my teacher would spend hours teaching me words but because of the interaction I had with other kids.

The location of the welcoming areas is not aiding the accessibility Rroma children to schools. The Rroma from Eastern Europe face several additional issues such as precatory living conditions, transitory measures in European Union such as limited access to certain jobs, the possibility to stay for only 3 months without employment and finally the discrimination of Rroma from Eastern Europe by other Rroma people. This makes their access to some basic rights such as education of their children and habitation even more difficult. Moreover, they still face a very harsh expulsion policy from the government.

Eeva

Identity and Discrimination: an approach of the Gens du Voyage

Tuesday was an extremely intense and diverse day (as we already had many) and it was hard to find a proper way to tackle as many issues as possible. All the people we met, from Sarah Carmona to Xavier Pousset, including Ghislaine Durand, Hubert Julien-Laferrière, Nasser Zaïr and people from the Gens du Voyage community, were all having different prospective of who the Roma are, what should be done for them, what they have to do/change among their own community(ies) and way of life. All these issues are not easy ones to tackle and as Xavier Pousset rightly said it is time for French Roma people to decide how far they want to maintain their current way of life considering the rapid evolution of society as a whole. They are the only one able to make these choices and to control them. For once, these decisions and evolutions must not come from the mainstream society.

This led me to introduce the key question of my today’s blog post: How Roma people, through the example of Gens du Voyage that we have approached more deeply, could deal with their complex and diverse identity(ies) and get organized so as not to be any more these second-class citizens they are in France, and in Europe?

In this question I mentioned two crucial elements that were the most repeated and striking things for me: the issue of identity and the one of discrimination.

Starting with identity, Sarah Carmona told us that it was composed by the language, the history and the memory to which someone refers. In the case of the Roma, if language seems not to be that tricky as they share the Romani language (and some derivatives dialects), their history and memory are put into question. Being based on a perpetuated oral tradition, Roma peoples’ memory is over represented in the construction of their identity and history, on the contrary, has gradually being built by the mainstream society, dispossessing Roma from their own story and consequently from a part of their identity. Talking about theory, the “dead knowledge” concept of André Gorz refers directly to that and the Pygmalion Syndrome that Sarah has explained us is then extremely relevant, meaning that Roma behave the way they are expected to by the mainstream society. We must also ad that in the French context, as identity always has to be contextualized and historicized, it is even more complicated to talk and discuss the Gens du Voyage identity as France does not reckon its minorities as minorities. Even among the Roma themselves we have observed differences in the way they define themselves. For instance, Sarah told us that she is Roma, Gitane, Kali and Canastera-latero and that she uses either one term or the other depending on the person she is talking with. Ghislaine on her side firmly asserted that she was first and foremost French and that she was a Roma only in a second time. As for her, there is no need for her to claim that part of her identity as the French Republican model reckons everyone as equal in rights. Even if it remains conceptual, Romanipen, that is to say the way of being a Romani through an historical trace (exodus from India throughout Europe), common values and a shared linguistic background, seems to consider the various key aspects of the common identity of the Roma community (at large).

As for the discrimination topic I have as well many points to rise, so I will try to keep it short! From what I already knew and what we have heard and seen today I consider that we were confronted again to the harsh reality that French citizens are definitely not equal. Some are better citizens as the others as they fit in the mainstream framework. From the privilege game we have been playing the first day, I considered myself as privileged because I am a white atheist girl, having educated parents, coming from an upper middle-class background and having no other origins than French. Today, I realized that having been raised up in a sedentary family was also a privilege in the French society (and in most of European countries as apart from France and Ireland it is not even allowed to have a nomadism way of life in the rest of Europe): no traveling pass to carry on, no restriction to vote, no mandatory areas to stay, no suspicion from the neighbors when moving into a new district or the security guard when going to the supermarket, easy access to education, housing and social services…etc. The Gens du Voyage communities are not living within the French society, even though they are French, but alongside it. Some would say “yes but it is their own choice, they could settle down and live in houses if they wanted to”. Sarah told us that it was not inherently part of their culture, while Xavier Pousset said that even those who have been settling down are still thinking of travelling, that it is always in their mind. Whatever song we listen to, I believe that we always have to respect peoples’ habits, way of living and traditions. In the case of the Gens du Voyage some improvements have been made. We may consider halting areas as being part of the answer or at least as showing a certain political will to deal with Roma issues. Of course it is highly discriminatory not to allow this people to travel and stop by freely and to gather them in dedicated areas, outside of the cities, hidden from the people’s looks, where they can stay usually up to nine months. On the other hand, Roma themselves admit that it is better to do their laundry in a washing machine than in the river and to have access to water and electricity, especially during winter time. Everything is not perfect and even among the Roma themselves there is not a unique point of view on this issue as it is their entire way of life that is to be questioned.

Before expressing my stand point I just wanted to make a comment on Hubert Julien-Laferrière presentation of the program headed by the Grand Lyon with this city in Rumania. The main argument was this mainstream idea of “co-development”: building houses with electricity in Rumania so that they do not feel the need to come to France. First, they are mostly coming to find a job and make some money, which is absolutely not the need addressed by this program. Second, it is refusing their right to move freely as all the other European citizens that trying to prevent them from coming to France (I just want to point out the fact that it is exactly this “co-development” program that justify so many abuses in the implementation of European immigration policies). Third, the Rumanian Roma communities have barely been consulted and do not participate at all in the implementation of this project. It might be a “solidarity” and “subsidiarity” based project, it has nothing of a sustainable and ethic one.

Coming back to my point, I think that through the past few weeks I have realized how unfair, not to say dangerous, not recognizing french diversity and minorities could be. I would definitely advocate for Roma to affirm themselves and their identity in the public sphere. People are afraid of what they don’t know. The Gens du Voyage in France and the Roma community in general have to struggle to find a space to be listened to in the public sphere. Things are gradually evolving and are meant to evolve even more with people like Sarah being from a generation that seems to be keener on defending the Roma identity. But not only the Roma themselves have to consider their way of life and how they portray their future in the French society, but also the French society and authorities have to be reminded that the Gens du Voyage are entirely part of France. This second-class citizen status has to be ended and awareness risen on both sides.

There might be even more things to say about these issues but I did not mean to write an essay neither a book, so feel free to comment, challenge, question my points!!

Barbara J;

Perspectives on Community Organizing: Previously Unreleased MLK Interviews

NPR, Previously Unreleased Interviews with The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 2013)

Watching you all work during Tara and Ladji’s excellent workshops today made me think of a series of interviews I heard in January.  The interviews, conducted by a Canadian journalist with the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., had not previously been released in the U.S.  They aired on National Public Radio (NPR) and were recorded in 1961 and 1966 - 1967 in Atlanta.  In the recordings, you’ll hear MLK’s perspective on community activism, his ministry, and the processes he and his community of allies engaged.  Reviewing the interview may reinforce some of the work you all explored today. It’s also quite a treat to hear a giant of history in a relatively intimate setting.

I feel that any religion which professes to be concerned about the souls of men, and is not concerned about the slums, let us say, that damn men's souls, the economic conditions and the social conditions that cripple the soul, is a dry-- and really a dead-- religion which is need of new blood.

Tape 1, 13:30- 14:15

Tiphaine Beliot, "French Urban Politics: Making the Theoretical Approach Concrete" (12 June 2013)

First of all, I wanted to say that I am really happy to write about the urban politics and might admit that this day was one of my favorite, full in emotion, with the discovery of the French transportation system(!) and above all an impressive testimony.

The first part of the day was dedicated to the French urban politics and then the visit at La Duchère thet made concrete this theoritical approach. Lila Combe made an interesting overview of the different urban politics that took place in France since the 50's and the housing crisis in France, impelled both by the baby-boom but also by the workers of the empire called to work in France in order to reconstruct the country after WWII. We learnt that the 'Grands ensembles' who were built in order to solve the housing crisis, inspired by an ideal of social mixity soon became a trap for those who lived there and did not have the economic ressources to moved creating social protests that soon became riots.

In order to respond to this social unrest, several plans were proposed promoting social development among the actions : the creation of priority areas for education, of housing improvement, local prevention councils... But after new riots in the 1990's, it was decided to focus on two main points : the economical development and the urban renewal policy. The economical aspect was tackled with the creation of tax free zones in order to attract new investments among the most popular reform and the urban renewal was divided into several points : the destruction of some huge buildings, the construction of non-social housing, the displacement of some social housings, the creation of new streets. One of its most well-known success is La Duchère that we visited afterwards.

The visit was nice, and the new district looked amaizing, but this method rised several questions mainly about the social aspects that was eclipsed in the project. I was also wondering in what way the deplacement of people into richer areas would make their situation evolved. I know (mainly because I lived the situtation) that it exists a geographical discrimation when entering into the job market, but is it really a solution to move the people ? I think taht the evolution of their situations might pass through social aspects, because it is a special distress which is not only economical. To conclude, I think it is a good first step for the suburbs but before claiming victory, I might admit that I prefer to wait for a moment in order to observe the evolution of the situation.

The second part of the day was amazing, we have the opportunity to meet Toumi Djaïdja, who created the March for equality and agaisnt racism in 1983 after the death of several young men killed by the police. The emotion is difficult to transmit when writing, I will just rise two aspects of the meeting : the modesty and humility of the men who came to speak to us and the hope that they give us conveying a great message : against discriminations we are all equal and we need to fight together forgetting our ego and there is no small fight.

To finish, we had an overview of the social movements of immigrants and descendants of migrants in order to fight for their rights. Tthese actions can be divided into three separate waves : the first from the 60's to the late 70's with the first migrant mobilizations, the second during the 80's and the failure of attemps to impose a hegemonic mobilization and finally since the 90's the scattering of the mobilization. What really stroke me is the fact that the first generation were already asking for the creation of mosques and of class of arabic while it is said in the media that France is becomming 'islamized' the last years, whereas it appears that the revendications that are made today are the same than in the 70's. A striking point was also the fact that it is mainly the politization or the recuperation of some social movements that scattered the movement.

To put in a nutshell, this day was amaizing and really motivating, it showed us that it is better to be unified in order to fight against discrimation. I will finish with a phrase that Toumi said : « A leader is not always at the front », let think about it for any action we take part in !"