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Abstract
The advent of the Internet has allowed many scattered communities across the world to rediscover and share a common identity that was believed lost. It has also led to the reconstruction of identities by way of new representations, which are constantly being formulated, nourished, and maintained. The Africans of the diaspora, in particular, created multiple websites for community exchanges in the form of discussion groups, online forums, interactive newspapers, blogs, and various media tools such as online television, radio, and newspapers that are being used as shared spaces at national or even continental levels. However, these shared spaces do not have the stability of national, Citationcultural or racial spaces. They Citationappear to be the receptacles of contradictory identities, concurrently manifesting globalizing and localizing dynamics. These spaces represent a ‘fragmegration’ (Rosenau Citation2003), where people struggle to reconcile the tensions resulting from their perceived Africanity and their belonging to a global world; the tensions between common cultural heritages and new identities; and the tensions between a shared experience of colonization and different expressions of colonialism in different parts of Africa – and therefore different conceptions of what it means to be African today. The objective of this paper is to show how these seemingly irreconcilable contradictions manifested themselves on the French African diaspora's online forums.
Notes
1. The CitationCRAN (Conseil Représentatif des Associations Noires de France) or Representative Council of Black Associations of France, was founded in November 2005 by black intellectuals and activists, among whom are Patrick Lozès, its current chairman, and Louis George Tin, Caribbean, an alumnus of the famous French Ecole Normale Supérieure. Since its inception, the CRAN has set itself the objective of combating racial discrimination that targets blacks.
2. The UCN (Union de la Communauté Noire de France) or Union of the Black community of France, is an organization founded in 2006 by the radio host Claudy Siar.
3. The mission of the Collectifdom (Collectif des Antillais, Guyanais, Reunionnais et Mahorais) or Union of Caribbeans, Guyanese, Reunionese, and Mahorese, ‘is to advocate equal rights and fight against discrimination affecting French overseas natives’. Available at: http://www.collectifdom.com/accueil/index.html.
4. Africagora, created in 1999, is a grouping of decision-makers, executives, and entrepreneurs from the black diaspora. It is chaired by Dogad Dogui and advocates diversity and campaigns against ethno-racial discrimination.
5. A study Citationcommissioned by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Citation2007 shows that in about four times out of five, a so-called ‘native French applicant’ is hired in preference to an applicant of Maghrebin or black origin. In 70 percent of cases, applicants whose names evoke a metropolitan French origin are preferred to other applicants presenting identical experience and degrees. Only 11 percent of employers respect the procedures of appointment set to guarantee the equality of opportunities between applicants, irrespective of their ethnic origin. Bureau International du Travail (BIT), 2007. Les discriminations à raison de ‘l'origine’ dans les embauches en France − Une enquête nationale par tests de discrimination selon la méthode du BIT (Discrimination based on the origins in the employment sector in France − A national survey based on the ILO test-method of discrimination). Geneva: BIT. In another study financed by the European Commission, 80 percent of French citizens admit that discrimination based on ethnic origin is widely practised in their country: ‘National results show that the citizens largely adhere to the opinion that this kind of discrimination is widespread in their country’. European Commission, Special Eurobarometer 263, La discrimination dans l'Union Européenne, résumé, January 2007, p. 7.
6. Just after the legislative elections of 2007, Fabienne Cosnay noted in the daily, La Croix, of 18 June 2007 that ‘the National Assembly is not still in the image of France’, recalling the almost complete absence (except for one) of Maghrebin and black representatives in the auditorium. Quoting Faouzi Lamdaoui, a Socialist Party candidate who lost in his own constituency, he wrote: ‘There is still not a single Maghrebin or Black representative in the Assembly’ (Cosnay Citation2007).
7. It is in this perspective that in September 2007, and for the first time in the history of France, the Law Commission of the National Assembly introduced an amendment to the bill on immigration which allows for the collection of ethnic data (one might as well say ‘racial’ data), officially, for the purpose of fighting against discrimination. (See Le Monde 2007).
8. Between October 2005 and October 2007, on the website of Grioo.com, notably on the subject ‘Racism and inter-marriage’, there were multiple debates related to affirmative action that show various points of view defended by the participants.
9. It is a point of view expressed by the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut in an interview with the Jewish magazine Haaretz where he states (in English): ‘In France, they would like very much to reduce these riots to their social dimension, to see them as a revolt of youths from the suburbs against their situation, against the discrimination they suffer from Whites against unemployment. The problem is that most of these youths are Blacks or Arabs with a Muslim identity. Look, in France there are also other immigrants whose situation is difficult − Chinese, Vietnamese, Portuguese − and they're not taking part in the riots’ (Mishani and Smotriez Citation2005).
10. On 10 November 2005, President Jacques Chirac, among others, expressed that idea in a televised address to the nation: ‘It is necessary to give to everybody the same chances of access to employment. To better help youths who experience difficulties in their quest for employment, I have decided to create a voluntary civil service … It will concern 50,000 young persons in 2007’. (Déclaration de M. Jacques Chirac, Pre′sident de la Re′publique, sur les violences urbaines, faite lors de la confe′rence de presse du 18e Sommet franco-espagnol, Paris, 10 November 2005). Available at: http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/francais/interventions/discours_et_declarations/2005/novembre/declaration_du_president_de_la_republique_sur_les_violences_urbaines.31963.html
11. In the above-mentioned interview in Haaretz, Alain Finkelkraut concludes: ‘Therefore, it is clear that this is a revolt with an ethno-religious character’ (Mishani and Smotriez Citation2005).
12. The Jacobin idea of republic and nation does not associate itself with any expression of ethnicity. The nation, in this sense, is a forged category in which the citizens are forced to recognize themselves and where they are deemed to lose their distinctive characteristics by means of an amalgamation of the ethnic groups which are themselves conceived as small nations. For the inclusive nation to emerge, it is necessary that all differences be denied. Ethnic groups and ‘races’ are, therefore, like alien bodies inside the nation, like anomalies in the system. They threaten the path towards a universal integration and the birth of a citizen without particularistic loyalties. Thus, in the African francophone countries which have modelled themselves on the French system, constitutional laws forbade any political use of ethnicity; any cultural expression of political affiliations, and all ethnic organizations. As for France itself, Valerie Sala Pala writes that: ‘Even the term “ethnic minorities” is unutilised in France, where one speaks about immigrants or populations of immigrant origin. The terms ethnic group and ethnic community continue to be improbable within the country of the French Revolution, social contract and republican integration. It is always suspected to flirt with communautarism, of exalting communautarist tendencies within French society, and thus to threaten the republican model of citizenship and the French state. … In the same way, the term discrimination has come out lately in the political arena. It is new and has taken place within a lexicon which mostly refers to the topic of integration rather than discrimination’ (Sala Pala Citation2003, p. 2). The terms communautarism and communautarist refer to something along the lines of ‘multiculturalism, although its connotations are almost entirely negative. Communautarisme, to the French, is what happens when you let immigrants form their own communities, speak their own languages, and practice their own religions. Consequently, France becomes less ‘French’ and more open to foreign values and cultural practices’. See http://inthefray.org/content/view/482/39.
13. See ‘La banlieue s'exprime, 2005: Un Noir c'est qui, c'est un franc,ais. Moi je suis noir et fier de l’être’ (The suburb speaks out: What is a Black? It's a French. Me, I am Black and proud to be so). Available at: http://www.labanlieuesexprime.org/article.php3?id_article=68
14. In the Haaretz interview cited above, Alain Finkielkraut states: ‘I think it's the stage of the anti-republican pogrom. There are people in France who hate France as a republic’ (Mishani and Smotriez, Citation2005).
15. In that survey, 479 of 591 interviewed affirmed that they had been victims of racism at some time or another. CitationCRAN-Capdiv, Résultats de l'enquête exclusive CRAN-Capdiv effectuée sur le site Grioo du 19 au 25 avril 2006 (Results of the CRAN-Capdiv Survey organised between 19 and 25 April 2006). Available at: http://www.cran.ch/03_MenuVertical/2_Statistiques/Resultats-Enquete_CRAN-France.pdf.
16. According to Valérie Sala Pala, French housing policy consists of a ‘non-recognition of ethnic inequalities in housing matters’ (Sala Pala Citation2003, p. 2).
17. The difference between the Cesairian idea of négritude and the Senghorian idea of négritude is more political than theoretical. Césaire wrote anti-colonial books, while Senghor, more specifically, dedicated himself to the cultural aspects of négritude.
18. One of the most popular books among the French black diaspora is that of Yves Antoine, Savants et inventeurs noirs (Black scientists and inventors). Paris: Editions Harmattan, Citation1998.
19. www.Grioo.com, Qui sommes-nous? (Who are we?). http://www.grioo.com/qui_sommes_nous.php
20. www.Africamaat.com, Pourquoi Africamaat? (Why Africamaat?). Available from: http://www.africamaat.com/article.php3?id_article=42
21. The creators of the ‘Tribu Ka’ (the Ka tribe, an allusion to Ancient Egypt), a political party founded on the model of the American Black Panthers, (which has been recently forbidden in France for ‘anti-white racism’), are, for the most part, young blacks born in France who have rarely visited Africa.
22. Bourdieu has often presented the social space as a space defined by the positions occupied by the agents and the relations which they maintain with others according to these positions. He has also stressed the fact that the agents are unequally endowed with symbolic capital; that the distribution of power (such as the power of nomination) is unequal and that, ultimately, the social space is nothing more than a ‘field of forces’, that is to say, ‘a set of objective power relations which impose themselves on all those who enter this field and which are irreducible to the intent of the individual agents’ (1985, p. 724).
23. Article 8 of the ‘Loi Informatique et Libertes’ (Digital Freedom Law) of 1978 prohibited ‘collecting or treating data of a personal nature which shows racial or ethnic origins, directly or indirectly. Journal Officiel de la Republique Francaise, Loi n°78-17 du 6 janvier 1978, Loi relative à l'informatique, aux fichiers et aux libertés, 7 Janvier 1978.
24. Samuel, Grioo.com, Topic: Karam a des choses a‘ dire sur le CRAN (Karam has things to say about the CRAN), 1 December 2005. Available at: http://www.grioo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4872&highlight=&sid=541fe150f4c25d080e27349887acef11
25. Louis-George Tin, porte-parole du CRAN, Entretienavec l'Observatoire du Communautarisme, 17 Mars 2006 (Louis - George Tin, spokesman of the CRAN, interview with the Observatory ofCommunautarisme, 17 March 2006. Available at: http:www.lecran.org/articles/debats-&-idees/louis-georges-tin-porte-parole-du-cran,4,1,5,25.html