Violent anger in the French immigrant suburbs

Why the surprise? Why this self-righteous beating of chests by the French neo-Gaullists in power? The myopic French government did not see this revolution coming? Funds were constantly cut for educational and recreational facilities in these immigrant ghettos, funds that could have rendered the lives of the underprivileged and forgotten suburban youth more bearable, their ghettoization less stark, their hopes for integration somewhat more tangible.

However, given the way these generations of immigrants have been deliberately tucked into the squalid housing projects in some of the Parisian suburbs, as well as the outskirts of other big cities, and the way they had been totally neglected ever since the creation of these �cit�s� at the end of the Franco-Algerian war in 1962, a violent explosion was bound to erupt sooner or later. Even if some measures for upkeep and improvement had been undertaken, this would only have delayed the declaration of war by this angry young generation.

How do you expect people to react when they are treated with contempt and indifference, marginalized and discriminated against on all fronts, insulted by the authorities and by the police in particular? These young people feel that they belong nowhere and have no hope for a livable future. For decades they have been suffering from astronomical levels of unemployment, a lack of suitable educational facilities and constant humiliation. It is amazing that the powder keg didn�t blow up in the face of the government a long time ago.

But this is just the beginning. And it is not just a temporary face lift that is now needed to solve the current crisis and deal with the violent anger of the immigrant youth. A thorough structural reorganization of our society must be undertaken, a reorganization which is by no means limited to France. The general indifference to the immigrant problem all over Europe, the marginalization and constant humiliation of these young people without a future, will most likely spark similar outbursts of anger in other European countries with a sizable immigrant population.

The most amazing thing here is the fact that no highly visible signs of anger and despair have manifested themselves a long time ago in the U.S., not since the civil rights movement in the sixties.

The dysfunction of the system is not limited to France

In France at this moment we are reaping the fruit of the bad faith of the government�s handling of civic problems, such as the disgraceful marginalization and clear expressions of contempt for the immigrant youth. But this is a problem of far greater magnitude. It is not just the third generation of immigrants in the big city suburbs in France who are starving for attention and suffering from the lack of respect. The reaction we are now seeing has been brewing for years in the ranks of the young people who can see no future and no hope, the generation of total despair. These ghetto people have been putting up with humiliation, insults, maltreatment and lack of opportunities for so long that the authorities thought, or pretended to think, that everything was just fine.

What we are actually seeing is the overall dysfunction of the neoliberal system, the cancer that is spreading throughout the world. This malaise, which requires a complete political shift of priorities in order to save the future of the planet, cannot be cured by the French system alone. The violent anger of the French marginalized youth is symptomatic of a much greater failure of the entire economic system that has taken over the world. What we have been seeing for the past couple of weeks is not just the obvious failure concerning the neglected immigrant suburbs of the big cities in  France, we are seeing the beginning of the end of an economic system which was doomed to failure from the very beginning.

The damage caused by the IMF and the World Bank

So why the surprise? Haven�t we seen the neoliberal system fail again and again, and not just in Latin America (prime example: the financial crisis of 2001 in Argentina under President Fernando de la Rua) and Africa where the iron fist of the IMF has caused mass starvation in most of the countries they are pretending to �save from poverty and starvation�? The double speak of the rich nations is appalling. It ought to be obvious to every thinking person that what the IMF is actually up to is the cruel liberalizing of the economies of these countries which has led to a complete derailing of their native mode of survival. Domestic production in the third world, which the countries have depended on for hundreds of years, is slashed by IMF demands and the ensuing dependence on import of food products from the rich countries is creating obscene gains for multinational corporations.

What does this state of affairs in the third world have to do with the riots spreading throughout all of France at this moment? Everything. The neoliberal theft of the national means of production for the profit of the endlessly greedy transnational corporations knows of no national borders. It is not limited to the vulnerable markets in European countries, it is not limited to the bloodletting of the third world countries. It is a ubiquitous cancer which has to be stopped, simply in order to save the world from total collapse, economic and moral.

The mayhem in the French big city suburbs is just a first clear sign that the system is rotting from within. There will probably be many more uprisings, a lot more violence all over the world before the financial titans realize that they are running the whole world into a ditch that it will take superhuman efforts to get out of

The robots who run the planet

The world economy has been hijacked by the global financial system which has absolutely no concern for the individuals. The robots who run it are just that, machines without hearts and minds. If they had minds they would see that their kind of power can never be lasting. It is self-destructive since an economic system can never claim to run the world if it cuts off the base that it needs to keep running. If they had hearts, they would not even think of destroying people�s lives the way they are doing it and have been doing it for decades. People do not even come above the radars of these monsters. Only profit matters. More and more profit at the expense of working slaves who, in the eyes of the financial lords, have no human value.

The politicians who are supposed to be the world leaders are so filled with awe faced with the enormous power that is displayed by the transnational corporations at this time in history, by the astronomic amounts of money amassed by the corporate lords, that they see the system as invincible. Even if the inhumanity of the system were clear to our so-called leaders, they would feel helpless to combat the evil. Even if they were able to see that such a system is self-destructive, there is not much the conventional governments of the world can do in order to save us and themselves.

Can the world be saved from the neoliberals?

Latin America and first of all Ch�vez� socialist reconstruction of the Venezuelan economy and social system is showing us the way the world can be saved. Of course it will take a complete reorganization from the bottom up of the world economy, not the trickle-down theory that the neoliberals hold forth in a disingenuous attempt to make their scheme look less blatantly elitist.

The big corporations are running scared because Ch�vez is well on the way to uniting Latin America in a nationalist and anti-corporate economic system. The trade group Mercosur, already the world's third-largest trade group, is on the point of merging with the Andean Community and they would form an awesome trade block representing a population of 370 million people. There is good reason for the US dominated multinational corporations to worry seriously about the future. Ch�vez has shown us that a system that focuses on securing a decent livelihood, education and healthcare for the greatest number of people is in fact working.

The corporate lords are looking less and less credible with their lame excuses for screwing the people of the world. Deregulation is not a sine qua non to make the world go round. The �free� market is free for a few mega corporations (while at the same time they are eagerly devouring each other) but there is certainly nothing free about it for the bonded workers without a voice, and those are not just to be found in the third world but in every single country on the planet. The number of people living below the poverty level is continually rising all over the world and job security and health care are taking big blows, even in the rich countries. The old labor unions are in the claws of the big corporations, just as the great majority of our legislators have been struck mute because they are beholden to big finance.

The people are going to rise up, in one part of the world after the other. The malaise in France which is finally coming out in the daylight is symptomatic of so much deprivation and insecurity all over the planet, and it is all going to come out. Maybe not tomorrow, but in view of the tensions that can be clearly seen globally, the violent reaction to current oppression and inequality is going to find a voice, and it won't be long in coming. Revolutions breed on anger and despair.

� Copyright 2005 by AxisofLogic.com

Siv O�Neall is an Axis of Logic columnist, based in France.  She can be reached at siv@axisoflogic.com

Read the Biography and additional articles by Axis Columnist, Siv O�Neall