Every since the abominable attacks on Paris I’ve been emailing my closest French friends, Jean-Francois and Virginie, for first-hand news of the tragedy that unfolded there. From what I understand, they’ve been carrying on as best they can, as though nothing dire has happened, all the while knowing that something very terrible has happened. There’s no going back, no avoiding the future, whatever it may bring, and no choice but to be in the present, moment by moment. Jean-Francois said that he went for a run in the countryside outside the village of Saint-Sulpice, where he lives with his wife and sons, hoping to put grief behind him. It wasn’t that easy.
I carry on, too, though I feel the weight of sadness and grief. I can’t get Paris out of my head or from my heart. My attachments go back a long way and they run deep. I remember the city’s cafes, boulevards, museums, landmarks, bars, bakeries, and the Parisians I have known every since 1961 when I first went to Paris as a nineteen-year-old and spent whole days walking the city and living on fresh-baked French bread. That’s when the French were at war with the Algerians. Bombs exploded. Bullets punctured the walls, and life went on then as now.
I know that France was a colonial power and that for the most part the French did not extend “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” to their colonial subjects in Vietnam and Algeria. I know, too, that there’s a history of French opposition to colonialism, and that Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, to name two outstanding writers and intellectuals, devoted their energies to combatting empire and genocide.
To call the attackers “barbarians” as French President Holland did was unfortunately to say the least. His word choice suggests a level of racism that lurks just beneath the surface. Yes, they’re terrorists and criminals, but to label them “barbarians” implies that they’re not part of the human community. Europeans have been calling indigenous inhabitants of the world “barbarians” for centuries and for centuries they have slaughtered, enslaved and exploited them. But I don’t assume that all the French think and speak the way that Monsieur Holland does.
My French anarchist friends in Paris, Toulouse and Bordeaux don’t echo their president. On my most recent trip to France, anarchists took me into their homes, fed me, gave me beds to sleep in, invited me on their radio stations – yes the French anarchists have their own well-run stations – and hosted events in which I talked about marijuana in the United States, a subject of great interest to them. I should also add that they describe themselves as anarchist in the sense that they believe in community control of all the issues that have to do with power, work and culture.
Yesterday, to make myself feel better, I took to wearing my French beret. I suppose I look a bit absurd, though no one has laughed or pointed a finger. I don’t know what else to do except to go on wearing my silly beret, sending and receiving emails, reading the news, looking for rays of hope and talking to friends here in California, which has long maintained cultural ties to France and the French, French wines, French food, French culture. I would like to be in France now. I would like to see my friends, to share their sorrow with them, though I know that now isn’t a good time to go. I don’t want to be a voyeur or an emotional thief living off the grief and tragedy of others. I will have to nurse my own wounds, remember my adventures in Paris, the French language and French words, the music and the movies, the City of Light tugging at my heart. It seems strange to have this kind of connection to a place so far away geographically speaking and yet so close to my innermost feelings. I wish that my friends here might put away their bickering, their big and their little annoyances, and pay homage to the indomitable spirit of the French who have welcomed Americans to their shores and brought the best of their ideals, art and culture to the United States
Be First to Comment