Blacks in France undoubtedly remain unaware as yet of the “weapon” of outrage, an extension of Gandhi’s position, a new form of nonviolent action. Outrage as I am using it, Jimmy, does not mean externalizing hatred, much less the zealotry deployed with the aim of quickly repairing an injustice “by any means necessary,” but means rather exposing the incident through coherent and objective analysis. As a consequence, one community’s ability to react to it will condition another community’s interpretation of a tragedy. The greater the outrage of a community, the greater the repercussions will be on society as a whole, and, by extension, on political authorities.
However, it appears that black people in France, faced with an act of violence, first measure the extent of the outrage that a similar event perpetrated against another “community,” that they believe to be protected and more supported by political authorities, would generate. From that perspective, they begin to draw conclusions, particularly that Jewish people control the system. It is clear that the death of Ilan Halimi feeds the anger of anyone who respects human life — in the same way that the death of Emmett Till in Mississippi does — because first and foremost we are talking about the obliteration of a man’s life. The anti-Semitic motive — one could say mutatis mutandis, skin color, political convictions, etc. — adds to the exasperation, incomprehension, and the bewilderment. Ilan Halimi died because he was Jewish. He could also have died for being black, Muslim, or because he was a political opponent.
Still, in France, on March 25, 2006, several prominent French public figures, including Alain Finkielkraut, Jacques Julliard and Bernard Kouchner, added their names to an open letter against “anti-white hate crimes,” a letter initiated by the Hachomer Hatzaïr Zionist movement and Radio Shalom, following high-school student demonstrations that had occurred in the country two weeks before: “Two years ago, almost to the day, on March 26th, 2003, several of us sounded the alarm. Four young people belonging to the Hachomer Hatzaïr movement had just been attacked, outside of a protest against the war in Iraq, because they were Jewish. An attempted lynching in the heart of Paris is a scandal. The efforts of the media, political figures and humble citizens were tremendous. But today high-school student demonstrations have become, for some, an opportunity for what might be called ‘anti-white hate crimes.’ High-school students, often alone, are thrown to the ground, beaten, robbed and assured by their attackers, with smiles on their faces, that it is because they are French. Let this serve as a renewed appeal because we will not accept this, and because for us, David, Kader and Sébastien have the same right to dignity as anyone else. Writing this type of letter is difficult because the victims have been appropriated by the far right. But that which goes without saying is, in fact, better said aloud: no group should be targeted, period. For us, it is a question of fairness. We have talked about David, and Kader, but who is talking about Sébastien?”120
Parallels between the United States are quickly drawn: during a press conference, one of the signatories of the letter, the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, warns: “We are facing a Farrakhan-style battle.”121
Could the black American leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, influence people in France? I do not believe so, for the simple reason that the idea of a black community in France is a superficial one, and that the history of black Americans has roots which cannot be compared to the black presence in France. To make this comparison is to see every black person as a potential member of the Nation of Islam, in the way that black American Muslims understand it.
Long ago, blacks in France believed — and perhaps still believe — that having the same skin color meant speaking the same language, and facing the same direction. However, Africa is disparate, and divided. The culture of one African country is not necessarily that of another. Moreover, the displacement experienced by these countries, in addition to the displacements created by French colonial policies — including drawing colonial subjects into European wars — create personal histories deeper than any collective history of meeting in the “land of refuge.” Education, political asylum, financial reasons and civil war on the black continent cannot give rise to a common history. These issues are neither specific to nor define the black race.
In some respects, I would say that the black community in France is an illusion, that it does not exist, for the plain and simple reason that the existence of a community is an intellectual and historical construct. The existence of a so-called black community in France would presuppose a collective awareness of it, and I am referring to an awareness based on reasons beyond skin color, or belonging to the same continent, or to the more broadly defined black diaspora, which, more and more, proclaims its singularity, its “rhizomic identity,” as Édouard Glissant would say.
It is through the present, through encounters, that this common identity is woven; sometimes we can even find ourselves surprised by how much it conflicts with the idea of a “primary root” that would lead us all back to a single past. This other awareness — that black Americans have been able to develop throughout their long and troubled history — this other awareness, as I was saying, should take into account the experience lived out on French soil. The effect outrage has as a response to an injustice depends on a collective cause, which is given greater value than the individual in an abstract sense, and is related to our humanity. In this way, when we are witness to an act of racism, when we witness an act of anti-Semitism, it is our sense of humanity that sustains injury.
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Jimmy, citizens of black Africa are convinced that African-Americans today have succeeded in creating a community whose influence is so far-reaching that it affects the destiny of the entire United States. And so, when confronted with an attitude that is unjust, with an act of racism or discrimination, black Africans automatically ask themselves, “So what would our black American brothers have done in this exact situation?” Is it surprising then that certain observers are alarmed to see “racist,” Black Muslim ideas imported into France?
Whatever the case may be, the comparison with the black American community is further corrupted by the fact that blacks in France do not have the same experience of migration, and that they do not have the same “score” to settle with France as black Americans do. On the other side of the Atlantic, racial segregation was institutionalized — France, on the other hand, played a significant role in “the elaboration of the ‘African experience’ in the formulation and reformulation of a global blackness,”122 thanks to the diversity of the black migrations that it experienced and still continues to experience today.
Blacks in France can certainly draw inspiration from their American black brothers, and envy the rights they have achieved in the United-States — however, let us be reminded, with the help of Fanon, that every right was wrested from fierce struggle that ended with the United States painted into a corner. From these struggles great leaders were born and immortalized in contemporary American history. What these black leaders shared in common was that they refused to have their humanity called into question.
It is Fanon who emphatically highlights: “No, I do not have the right to come scream my hatred at the White man. I do not have a duty to murmur my gratitude to the White man. . if the White man questions my humanity, I will show him, weighing down on his life with all my force as a man, that I am not the “Y’a bon Banania” that he insists on imagining. .”123