/DR

Near the corner of Westchester Avenue and Pugsley Street in Parkchester, just off the elevated tracks of the No. 6 train, Yaakov Wayne Baumann stood outside a graffiti-covered storefront on a chilly Saturday morning. Suited up in a black overcoat with a matching wide-brimmed black fedora, the thickly bearded 42-year-old chatted with elderly congregants as they entered the building for Shabbat service.

The only unusual detail: This synagogue is a mosque.

Or rather, it’s housed inside a mosque. That’s right: Members of the Chabad of East Bronx, an ultra-Orthodox synagogue, worship in the Islamic Cultural Center of North America, which is home to the Al-Iman mosque.

“People have a misconception that Muslims hate Jews,” said Baumann. “But here is an example of them working with us.”

Indeed, though conventionally viewed as adversaries both here and abroad, the Jews and Muslims of the Bronx have been propelled into an unlikely bond by a demographic shift. The borough was once home to an estimated 630,000 Jews, but by 2002 that number had dropped to 45,100, according to a study by the Jewish Community Relations Council. At the same time, the Muslim population has been increasing. In Parkchester alone, there are currently five mosques, including Masjid Al-Iman.

“Nowhere in the world would Jews and Muslims be meeting under the same roof,” said Patricia Tomasulo, the Catholic Democratic precinct captain and Parkchester community organizer, who first introduced the leaders of the synagogue and mosque to each other. “It’s so unique.”

The relationship started years ago, when the Young Israel Congregation, then located on Virginia Avenue in Parkchester, was running clothing drives for needy families, according to Leon Bleckman, now 78, who was at the time the treasurer of the congregation. One of the recipients was Sheikh Moussa Drammeh, the founder of the Al-Iman Mosque, who was collecting donations for his congregants—many of whom are immigrants from Africa. The 49-year-old imam is an immigrant from Gambia in West Africa who came to the United States in 1986. After a year in Harlem, he moved to Parkchester, where he eventually founded the Muslim center and later established an Islamic grade school. Through that initial meeting, a rapport developed between the two houses of worship, and the synagogue continued to donate to the Islamic center, among other organizations.

But in 2003, after years of declining membership, Young Israel was forced to sell its building at 1375 Virginia Ave., according to a database maintained by Yeshiva University, which keeps historical records of synagogues. Before the closing, non-religious items were given away; in fact, among the beneficiaries was none other than Drammeh, who took some chairs and tables for his center.

Meanwhile, Bleckman and the remaining members moved to a nearby storefront location, renting it for $2,000 a month including utilities. With mostly elderly congregants, Young Israel struggled to survive financially and, at the end of 2007, was forced to close for good. The remaining congregants were left without a place to pray. During the synagogue’s farewell service, four young men from the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters in Crown Heights showed up. Three months earlier, Bleckman, then chairman of the synagogue’s emergency fund, had appealed for help from the Chabad.

“The boys from the Chabad said they came to save us,” said Bleckman. “We were crying.”

At this point, Chabad took over the congregational reins from Young Israel, with members officially adopting the new name Chabad of East Bronx. Still, for the next six to seven weeks, Bleckman said they could not even hold a service because they had nowhere to hold it.

When Drammeh learned of their plight, he immediately volunteered to accommodate them at the Muslim center at 2006 Westchester Ave.—for free.

“They don’t pay anything, because these are old folks whose income are very limited now,” said Drammeh, adding that he felt it was his turn to help the people who had once helped him and his community. “Not every Muslim likes us, because not every Muslim believes that Muslims and Jews should be like this,” Drammeh said, referring to the shared space. But “there’s no reason why we should hate each other, why we cannot be families.” Drammeh in particular admires the dedication of the Chabad rabbis, who walked 15 miles from Brooklyn every Saturday to run prayer services for the small Parkchester community.

For the first six months, congregants held Friday night Sabbath services inside Drammeh’s cramped office. As more people began joining the congregation, Drammeh offered them a bigger room where they could set up a makeshift shul. (When it’s not in use, students from the Islamic school use it as their classroom.) Inside the synagogue, a worn, beige cotton curtain separates the men and women who attend the service. A solitary chandelier hangs just above the black wooden arc that holds the borrowed Torah, which is brought weekly from the Chabad headquarters. A large table covered with prayer books stands in the center, and a picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe is displayed prominently on a nearby wall. During Shabbat, when Jewish congregants are strictly prohibited from working, they have to rely on the Muslim workers at the center or on Drammeh to do simple chores such as turning on the light and switching on the heater.

At first, it did not make sense, said Hana Kabakow, wife of Rabbi Meir Kabakow. “I was surprised,” said the 26-year-old congregant who was born and raised in Israel. “But when I came here I understood.” The Kabakows have been coming to the service from Brooklyn for the last two years.

Harriet Miller, another congregant, said she appreciated the center’s accommodating the synagogue. “They are very sweet people,” said the 79-year-old Bronx native and long-time resident of Parkchester, who added that she welcomes the new Muslim immigrants in her neighborhood: “We were not brought up to hate.”

Drammeh also understands the importance of teaching tolerance more broadly, and for turning the school—which was itself founded at the nearby St. Helena Catholic Church on, of all days, Sept. 11, 2001—into a model of sorts for religious tolerance in New York.

“We’re not as divided as the media portrays us to be,” Drammeh said. “Almost 90 percent of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian teachings are the same.”

His latest project involves introducing fifth-grade Jewish and Islamic school students to each other’s religious traditions. Other participants of the program, now in its sixth year, include the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan, the Al Ihsan Academy of Queens, and the Kinneret Day School of Riverdale. At the end of the program, students organize an exhibit that shows family artifacts of their respective cultures and religion. The principal of the Islamic school, who is also Sheik Drammeh’s wife, said that even after the program ended, the participants became “fast friends” and would visit each other’s homes.

“They would have birthday parties together,” Shireena Drammeh said. “When someone invites you to their house, I mean, that says it all right there and then.”

While the Jewish congregants are thankful for their new home, they hope that one day they can rebuild their own synagogue. That day may be far off: Even now that they have space to worship, they still struggle to operate. They don’t have proper heating inside, and the portable working heater could not reach the separate area where the elderly women are seated, forcing them to wear their jackets during the entire service. Congregants are appealing for financial support from the Jewish community and other congregations.

But Leon Bleckman and others say they now also have loftier goals, including reviving the Jewish presence in the neighborhood and reaffirming the positive relationship with their Muslim friends. “We are able to co-exist together side by side in the same building,” said Assistant Rabbi Avi Friedman, 42. “That’s sort of like a taste of the future world to come—the messianic future where all people live in peace.”

This article was taken from http://www.tabletmag.com/life-and-religion/88849/a-bronx-tale-3/

Ted Regencia is a digital media student at the Columbia Journalism School. His Twitter feed is at @tedregencia. Lindsay Minerva, a digital media student at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, is an intern at Newsweek. Her Twitter feed is at @lindsayminerva.

*

/DR

Happy New Year, everyone! Here we are, at last in 2012; with one “A” missing in the economic grading of our country. But, is not the fact that 2011 is now behind us the most important thing? 2011 was not an easy year with all its wars, economic downturns, sex scandals and bewildering debates over what some see as the Islamisation of the French society. Hopefully, the coming elections in the US but also in France will create opportunities for the masses in general to make their own voice heard, once for all. I personally sometimes ask myself: “Shall I vote for kind of continuation of the same political system orchestrated by the same recurrent puppets or rather vote for a complete collapse of an old and unfair system that makes any conscious citizen feel ashamed of the past, present, historical, cultural and political heritage of his country?” I do not really know what my choice will be; yet, one thing is sure, a choice will have to be made by May 2012.

As it was once put to me by a student in international politics and diplomacy, who, just like me, happened to live in the city of Coventry in the UK, “the game seems to be over for Western European countries”. For sure, the 21st century will be that of those who lived in that part of the world we called the third world, decades ago. As if the old complex of superiority we had in the western world over southern countries, in general, had finally led us to take certain supremacy for granted and therefore developed in us a culture of laziness.

In countries such as France, the financial and economic crisis that exists, coped with most revolutions in the Arab world is, in an economic as well as in a cultural point of view, nothing else but the pure display of the limits of western imperialism. There is no doubt today that the regime changes planned by the West in order to spread and impose western values in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and why not Egypt and Tunisia have proved to be counterproductive in a Western point of view.

The economic emergence of countries such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, and the refusal by many other nations to adopt western values are today vivid signs of the decline of what is known around the world as white supremacy. 2012 with its many crises, let’s say it, may be a historical turning point with the ex-colonial empires coming down to their knees and the ex-colonies getting, at last, to real and complete independence.

So when asked the question, “Who are you going to vote for?” as a citizen of the world and an activist still and always longing for more justice and equity, I prefer to answer “for any system or anything that could bring the complete collapse of the established order.” Yes, as pointed out by many head of states and renowned politicians, a new order is more than needed; yet, lest the same mistakes be repeated again and again, that new order should not be that of the imperialists and ex-colonial powers.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ce-Que-Cachent-Vos-Medias/159124017455829

/DR

If media reports were to be believed on Tuesday, football legend Eric Cantona was going to be the celebrity spanner in the 2012 French presidential election works. But his bid is more a call for social housing to be a core issue in the campaign. Football legend-turned actor Eric Cantona has achieved a PR coup by asking mayors around the country to support an apparent bid to enter the French presidential fight. 

His mission is to put social housing back into the debate and generate support for the Fondation Abbe-Pierre, a charity supporting “social housing for the underprivileged”. Media reports on Tuesday suggested that Cantona was seeking the legally required 500 mayors’ signatures so that he could present himself as a candidate in April and May’s presidential vote.

But there was never any real question of “King Eric”, as he is known by his army of fans at Manchester United, being a serious contender to become president of the French Republic. In his letter to the country’s mayors, Cantona said he wants their signatures because he is “a concerned citizen of our time. I want to offer an opportunity to young people, whose choices are too limited, too unjust, too brutal and systematic.

“This commitment demands that I speak up, more seriously than usual, with a keen sense of my responsibility as a citizen at a time when our country is faced with difficult choices and is determining its future.”

“Getting 500 signatures will allow me to carry my simple and clear message – one of truth but also of respect.”

‘Concrete political commitments’

The message, sent on Monday and titled “Eric Cantona, concerned citizen” pointed readers towards his apparent campaign site www.ericcantona.fr – which was “under construction” until late on Monday. By Tuesday morning the web address was redirecting readers to www.mobilisationlogement2012.com (General Mobilisation for Housing) which is collecting signatures in support of the Fondation Abbe-Pierre. The charity estimates that the lives of some 10 million people in France are blighted by inadequate and unaffordable housing. Every year the Fondation Abbe-Pierre presents its report on the French housing situation on February 1 at a convention in Paris. “All the presidential candidates are invited to attend,” Cantona told left-leaning daily Liberation on Tuesday. “It will be an opportunity for them to make concrete political commitments [towards easing the country’s housing situation.]”

Cantona, who played for Manchester United from 1992 to 1997, is no stranger to highly publicised rallying cries for political action. In December 2010 he called on French citizens to withdraw all their money from their bank accounts in order to bring the financial system to its knees – a call that was largely ignored but nevertheless generated massive publicity. Patrick Doutreligne of the Fondation Abbe-Pierre Foundation told AFP on Monday that the footballer did not actually expect or want to be the next president of France. « He will indeed seek 500 signatures, not for the election but to make sure that housing is a priority. You need a spur like Cantona to give housing the place it deserves in this campaign. »

This article was taken from www.france24.com/en website

/DR

There is a strange atmosphere in the streets of Paris as New Year’s Eve approaches. This is the period when in most West European cities, those who have spent a whole year living without rules and as both slaves of the system and of their own condition give themselves new objectives and targets, they will here again only try to follow during the first weeks of the new year. Too many « Merry Christmas! » and too many « Happy New Year! » in perspective even for those well aware that in these days of economic crisis, their future is more than ever counted and already condemned.

In some of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the Consumer Confidence Index is however said to be at its highest; which, also, reminds me the late Thomas Sankara’s words: “there is only crisis when the poor starts asking for his share”. What, indeed, if the economic emergence of part of what we used to look at as the third world was, among other things, one of the explanations for the economic hardship the western world finds itself plunged in today? In the last decades, the emergence of China as an economic superpower also led to the economic development of many raw material supplying countries. Also, with economic booms in countries such as Dubai, Qatar or again Turkey, it seems that the new Eldorado is more likely to be found in the East than anywhere else on the globe.

But, I remain convinced that the future and success of these new emerging economies will depend on their capacity and ability to deal with the ex or neo-colonial powers. To tell the truth, I am even a bit pessimistic. Many Arab or so called Muslim countries are now signing treaties with their first enemies in the West, unaware that altering or selling part of oneself in order to get peace and protection has always been a mistake not to say a disaster; as the experience of the Jewish community in the first half of the twentieth century in France teaches us. To the same extent, economic prosperity and influence have, also, never been efficient ramparts against military invasions. Few people in the west and fewer people in the Middle East understand that what we call the Arab Spring is just another 9/11 that will end up here again with the colonization of new territories.

A new bill was passed in France last week, making it liable to a prison sentence the denial of any genocide. This new law is without doubt targeting what France, among other countries, considers as a form of genocide perpetrated by the Turks in 1915 against the Armenian people. Once again, the witch apprentice seems to ignore his own committed genocides and crimes, when in an attempt to substitute himself to god, he purposely created a new “race”, selecting and mixing blacks, whites and Native Americans into one man for more profitability (http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2011/12/26/les-crimes-coloniaux-etaient-un-genocide). He, now, dares come and tell the rest of humanity about what should be, and he goes into raptures over the athletic performances of the “new human race” he created. The year 2012 will for sure not be any better; unless for once the world opens its eyes and every one of us puts light on the lies.

/DR

Intense theoretical debates about the virtues of democracy have been taking place over the past months as we attempt to analyse events in the Arab world. Democracy, most conclude, should be the goal: it is the best political system, one in which citizens can see that their political choices are respected, their freedoms and rights protected. Such an outcome would be Mena’s greatest achievement: at last, the Arabs will experience pluralism, openness and — why not — modernity.

At the same time, in the West, the democratic system is going through one of the deepest crises in its history. Far from idealised, theoretical descriptions of the democratic system, citizens of western countries have the increasing impression they have been forgotten; that their opinion counts for nothing.

As former Tunisian president Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi fell because their respective peoples were calling for freedom, eight European leaders (the list is far from exhaustive), who should have resigned because of their responsibility for the economic downturn, are imposing their rule over the political apparatus. The political system known as democracy has proved to be neither transparent nor free when both state and citizens are so deeply in debt. Who is making the decisions today? Who has the power?

When Greece’s Prime Minister George Papandreou started playing politics with his call for a referendum, he was criticised and eventually forced out of office: it is not time to consult your people, he was told, as their freedom to decide could lead to our collective collapse… The dominant economic powers and institutions as well as the ratings agencies have enforced their own logic: this is not the right time to consult your people.

The media simply follows along behind; for them it natural and consistent for elected presidents and ministers to be forced out of office without the population having had its say. As if, in time of crisis, the rules of democratic procedure must be suspended: citizens are nothing but spectators. The Muslim majority countries are being asked to reassess the relationship between the state and the religious authority. Islam should not impose its truth and dogma over the democratic elected state. The latter must be free, and must express the will of the majority. Theocratic regimes are dangerous, as they neither protect the equality of citizens before law nor their right to decide their future. Critical points indeed!

The Muslim majority countries should by all means rid themselves of their secular or religious dictatorships. To call for democratisation is legitimate and appears to be the only way forward: this is the essence of the Arab awakening, its hope as much as its goal. Yet, we should be asking sharp questions about the model and the ends. Should the Arab countries follow in the footsteps of the West? Is the western model worth duplicating? Where are this freedom and transparency the democrats are talking about? Whichever way you turn, you hear rising complaints: people feel as though they are losing their rights, enjoying less freedom, becoming progressively marginalised.

In the US, the most recent and ever-deepening economic crisis is exposing the citizens’ helplessness. Millions are unemployed and deep in debt; they have no medical insurance to cover their needs, no social services to protect their families. They are asked to vote for candidates who spend billions of dollars on election campaigns, yet end up being forgotten between elections. Some citizens tried to make their voices heard on Wall Street: real power is not in the White House but along that street where the dominant economic actors, agents and institutions, are not required to respect democratic rules.

Economic control

Theirs is the power of economic control and high finance, of money and media: here democracy has no room, no reality. The protesters numbered a few thousand indignant citizens expressing a common view: which way are the western democracies heading?

In Europe, the feeling is the same. We may well have no religion exerting control over the state, but the transnational corporations, economic institutions, banks, media and well-structured lobbies are undermining the very essence of any democratic system (which should be based on transparency and majority rule). We talk about separating religious authority from state authority — but who will protect the state from the economic, financial and media powers that are imposing their anti-democratic decisions and policies? It is all well and good to celebrate an idealised democratic model, but the truth of the matter remains that western democracies are eroding; people are losing their rights and prerogatives. It is time for the citizens to wake up and to demand transparency, respect and consistency.

The Arab world needs political creativity; but the West, deep in crisis, cannot be a model. It is time to find other ways, new horizons. The globalised world is undermining national democratic dynamics. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya or even the US, Greece, Italy, France or Germany cannot achieve ‘democracy’ on their own. Yet nationalism would be a new trap, as the non-democratic forces are lurking behind the existing nations, where the citizens have no status and have lost their rights. Democrats and free citizens must learn to look beyond their borders: an arduous and demanding task that will require transnational civic movements. There is no choice. With freedom comes some constraints: an apparent paradox, yet a historical truth. 

Tariq Ramadan is Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University and a visiting Professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Qatar. His new book Islam and the Arab Awakening will be out this month.

/DR

It was on a Friday afternoon of a warm and sunny Parisian autumn. I was sitting at the terrace of a Moroccan restaurant in a busy street of Clichy sipping some mint tea while listening to an interviewee. I was the interviewer but the young man had so much to share about his experience of France as a Moroccan Muslim that I barely needed to interact.

I was tired, exhausted even. I was just finishing one of the busiest and most interesting weeks in a long while; running across the city, interviewing brothers and sisters and (re)discovering Paris in a way that I was enjoying. In a small week the buzz of the city was now starting to make sense, a sense filled with a human dimension that I would not have suspected. After months of reading books I was finally doing fieldwork, I was in the reality of human lives. And, in the reality of the French capital that despite my numerous visits had never showed herself in such an intimate way.

While the brother was sharing, I was enjoying the passers-by, men, women, families, pure reflection of the real and vibrant diversity of the street. It was a popular neighbourhood, many men were having coffees and loud conversations all around, and street noises were often really loud too. Yet, the young brother facing me was undaunted by his surroundings.

In the middle of the crowd and buzz there I saw this young girl probably 8 years old, riding a scooter at the speed of light, slicing through the air. She was wearing the Muslim headscarf that we all know so well. She appeared to me as defiant, free and strong. The scene put a wide amused smile on my face.

I did not know anything about her, but she touched me. Her cheekiness was written all over her, the movement and momentum she produced was unmatchable.

Few minutes after, I saw her coming again from the opposite side. I barely had the time to notice the bag full of “baguettes” that was hanging from the handlebar. I smiled again and pondered… That was it! The next generation was in motion, impersonating the diversity, the multicultural nation I would love to see grow everywhere in France. The fast girl pushing her way through the male dominated crowd, the bread, the scooter, the headscarf all wrapped together to testify of the force and magic of an assumed plural identity.

I wished I had taped that on film, I wish I could look at the beauty of the action in slow motion, then normal speed again, then slow motion again.

Mariana Dussin is a PhD candidate at Swansea University (Wales), working on Muslim identity in France and the UK

Several articles and studies that I have come across, lack the scientific objectivity and analysis of an academic work. These pieces of work were often written by westerners who are either politicians massaging the ego of the many frustrated xenophobes or pschycologists mainly considering everything different as abnormal. Subsequently, the topic of integration as a modern social phenomenon has never been methodically covered as in a university thesis like in “L`integration de La culture musulmane en Grande Bretagne “by Dr Mustafa Traore.

Due to the exigency of academic work, this study leaves no room for any biased ideas or subjective thought. As a result, we have the privilege to witness the materialization of a great journalistic work illustrated throughout the three chapters of the book covering more than 200 pages in a unique style; scientific yet enjoyable and entertaining.

In a careful approach the “Integration of muslin culture” as a social fact in today’s western society; its difficulties, its success or failure are covered thoroughly from all possible angles, in a pragmatic manner with great depth and honesty. The writer in an implicit way is constantly in dialogue with the reader. Every possible reflection or question of the reader is anticipated. As a matter of fact, there was not a question, nor a query that came to my mind, that I did not find the answer in the following paragraphs, chapters, or better, in the next lines.

I felt transported through different technical religious and legal issues in an exceptionally gentle and easy approach. Many of the misperceptions and ready-made views about Islam are also exposed brilliantly, without any apparent interference.

For a study purpose, our writer took a meticulous attention in choosing his interviewees. Like in an entertaining novel, the writer managed to utilise the characters’ accents and cultural background in a great analytical effort. Based on study and field research, the interviewees’ experiences, perceptions and observations are shaped beautifully in a remarkable academic work.

Djilali bellahsene

/DR

“Don’t be surprised if you get raped when you dress like that”. This is what an unknown male MP from Sarkozy’s party UMP allegedly declared late May 2011.

Since the Dominique Strauss-Khan scandalous sex assault affair broke out (last month) – followed by other similar accusations of sexual harassment made against other male politicians – , there is has been a lot of agitation in the French National Assembly (Parliament), especially when some female MPs started to openly speak about the chauvinism and misogyny of their male counterparts, and on the job more generally.

On Tuesday the 7^th, two female MPs also organised a “Journée de la jupe” (Day of the skirt) at the National Assembly to protest against the unashamed sexism going on in the work place. Male MPs keep minimising such accusations, declaring them untrue or exaggerated. And, as the comment of this unknown MP shows, some even shockingly joked about it – if such filth can be called a joke.

But seriously, what is this? How can an MP dare make such comment?

What I keep being surprised about is how the French society and culture can so easily let such events take place and such declarations be made? Aren’t the politicians supposed to set a good example? Aren’t they supposed to defend the rights of their citizens whatever their sex and gender?

For the past years, and for the past months especially, politicians have been on the backs of veiled French Muslim women, passing laws preventing them from freely wearing garments that many of them consider a protection from the male gaze. Yet, these same politicians are now acting with the same male chauvinism they condemned when supposedly coming from French Muslim men. Explain the hypocrisy here: aren’t sexist comments and behaviours a violation of a woman’s rights to feel safe, secured and dignified at workplace? If so, I believe that is be oppression.

These male MPs do not like when women get dressed in the feminine fashion of the French cultural norm, yet, when women, like some French Muslims, choose to cover up, they also criticise them, calling them subservient to male and oppressed. Do you see the resemblance? Do you notice the contradictions between political idealistic discourses and social realities?

President Sarkozy told the French National Assembly:

“We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity. That is not the idea that the French republic has of women’s dignity. The issue of the burqa is not a religious issue. It is a question of freedom and of women’s dignity.” He continues declaring that, “the burqa is not a religious sign. It is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission, of women.”

So, women freedom and women dignity… Please Mister President, tell me, do your male MPs respect the freedom and dignity of their female colleagues? Tell me also why, if the burqa isn’t a religious sign as you declared, do you refuse it in the French public and secular space?

Why can’t the French politics and laws respect the dignity and freedom of all women, regardless the way they dress? Why, us, the once so revolutionary, liberal, cannot set an example for the rest of the world in terms of respect towards women, respect of their basic rights, freedom and dignity?

Gosh! We are so far from what a society should be; where one’s freedom stops where the other’s one begins, where all, regardless the citizenship, the colour of the skin, the sex or gender, the belief, share the same rights to dignity, to equality and respect.

Qur’an [3:14] « Adorned for the people are the worldly pleasures, such as the women, having children, piles upon piles of gold and silver, trained horses, livestock, and crops. These are the materials of this world. A far better abode is reserved at God. »

/DR

Why is it that we feel quite nostalgic about the old days when most often the only thing we long is to bring change to our current life, condition or position? The district of Paris I live in has improved for the better these last two decades, most people would admit. Yet, I very often miss the old days, when being of the nineteenth district of Paris had a very strong and negative connotation. Now, every year by the end of July and during the whole month of August “Paris Plage” invites itself in our district making it more attractive to all kind of people. There is no doubt that for those who had adopted the nineteenth district as an integrated part of their global identity, like myself, the changes and improvements of these last decades in the district have somehow left us alienated.

For the readers quite unfamiliar with the French capital city, let us be a bit more explicit. Paris is divided into twenty districts. The nineteenth is the last but one. It is located in the North East part of the capital city. Though it became an integrated part of Paris some 152 years ago, a short walk in the upper part of the district in the late seventies, still gave you the feeling of being outside the capital. The numerous parks and large spaces offered to the delight of the younger generations a sensation of freedom unmatched in the rest of the city.

Yet, “past childhood, it is almost finished” says the French singer Renaud in one of his songs. This is the sad reality many of the residents of the nineteenth district were unfortunately to experience by the time they reach adulthood. As a young boy in the late seventies and early eighties, I remember being the witness, more than once, of quarrels, disputes, and fights between teenagers or youngsters of the district over illicit products and goods of which I at the time ignored the names. Heroine, Cocaine, crack, or ecstasy; here are the names of the different substances that were to deprive the youth of the district of all the skills required to better stand up and fight in an unfair society. By the time I had grown up to be a young man, those who had been in their twenties in the seventies and eighties had transformed themselves into unhealthy frail drug addicts.

With the arrival from the United States of the Rap and Gang culture in the capital, people of my age group were taking a path different from that of the big brothers in the district. Dance, sports, and fights were our first centres of interest rather than Heroine, Cocaine, and Crack. At least, this is what we first thought. Leaving childhood for manhood also means getting to more independence and autonomy and which of course goes along with being able to support oneself financially. Stealing, nicking and selling back was the method we had first found to be totally independent before shifting to a much more lucrative form of business that involved the sale of hashish and other illicit substances.

Fortunately enough, the daily consumption of hashish and other drugs was not to get rid of us as it had been the case with our big brothers and their addiction to Heroine, cocaine, Crack and so on. Our brain and intellect was however to receive a severe blow. Years of too much addiction finally left many of us brainless and with several psychiatric internments.

Here is my story of the old days in the nineteenth. Things have changed a lot since then. Regeneration plans have been decided by the Mayor and other politicians. New populations commonly called the « Bobos »; in other words the well-off are now also part of the nineteenth.

The mayor and his ambitious politicians are keen to please the rich invaders, but tend to ignore the old inhabitants mainly composed of ethnic minorities; most of whom scarcely pay taxes or vote in times of election. As the district is becoming more fashionable, the poorest and therefore ethnic minorities are sent in the suburbs, outside the limits of the district. I am also convinced that the new inhabitants of the nineteenth despise the old ones whose parents like mine came to live here in the seventies and early eighties, when the place was rather deprived and shabby. For sure the neighbourhood has undergone considerable refurbishment plans, yet, it seems that it has been all done at the stake of our souvenirs and memories.

/DR

Life is harsh, painful and often sad; hence the need sometimes to give it an aim and a target. In order to make it more pleasant, some very often opt for habits or automatisms that finally end up being more problematic than relieving or anything else.

Addiction is the word commonly used to describe the state reached by a person who seems to live and exist only and solely through what has become his or her new habit. An automatism eventually associated with one’s life and existence.Addictions are of all types; very often depending on social classes, geographic environment or more simply on culture.

For people of my generation, born of immigrant descents, addiction to the weed of the poor , commonly known in the French capital under the name of « shit »or again hashish was to become a cultural phenomenon by the time we reached the age of 25. While the well off or the bobos, as we call them in Paris, were smoking what we considered effectless and inofenssive cannabis, we guys from the French ghettos were dealing with a much stronger version of the same substance.

Unlike the hard drugs that had taken many of our big brothers’ lives, these cathegorised soft drugs were then seen as easy accessible substances not at all destructive.Stalingrad, the cornerstone of all drug traffics in the French capital, was also the headquarter of all those who because of their addiction had transformed themselves into living ghosts; creatures only living and swearing through their addictions, be it cocaïne, crack or just heroin. What a drawing so sad it was for the youth of my generation to see the big brothers we once respected so much submit themselves to their weakness, and become physically weak and toothless.

My generation really wanted to write an other story of ours. However, the trap of the derived version of cannabis most of us had become so familiar with was not to let us decide otherwise. Unlike real weed or the pure cannabis smoked by Bob Marley and the Wailers in the big posters hanging on our bedroom walls, Shit was not weak, nor smooth. On the contrary, it was harsh enough a substance for the tough guys we wanted and pretended to be.

More than 20 years have passed now since people of my generation made their first acquaintance with the weed of the poor they have finally become so addicted to. What they have become to love more than anything else has more than once been the cause of psychiatric internments. The fact that today in my neighbourhood I cannot find any single shit-smoker who along all these years has successfully managed to really escape insanety makes me think that more than a lost generation, my generation is the generation of the mad man.

I also let you imagine how people like me feel today in front of all the on going French debates regarding the legalisation or not of cannabis. In stead of sincerely answering the issue, it seems that our politicians are more willing to opt for a decision that would alienate the masses a bit more so that they do not contest society and the political system by the same way. Just like their predecesors got rid of our big brothers in the 1980s and early 1990s by not dealing sincerely and seriously with the issue of hard drugs, the current politicians may find it more interesting politically to encourage cannabis adddiction in order to better tame the masses.

This message is, therefore, a warning. Silent but aware of my felow-citizens’ unconsciousness I write these few lines though I know silent and far away in their unconsciousness they cannot feel what I feel.