RD

22cnd of February, the second semester has just started. This means hard work for the students till June, and a more terrific period for the teachers by the end of the same month when the marked copies have to be computerized to appear on the university website. I do not know much about my colleagues except for the fact that the French ones just like me studied English at university. Of my boss, I do not know much either except for her name and email address. I was contacted on the phone less than a week before starting the teaching job. It’s nice to be hired without going through any interview. It seems that at this stage, in the academic world there is no racism or discrimination. At least, this is what I would like to believe.

But let’s come back to the point: the academic world and my first week at work in this University with good reputation.  The contract I am working on is called “vacataire” in other words I am a part time temporary lecturer. This also means that I have a short term contract and that I will receive my first payment six months after having started the job.  Because at the age of 37 I am still living in the family apartment this system of payment does not disturb me that much. Being also streetwise I know how to get the money to survive in the French capital. This is maybe one of the first things you learn when growing up in the blocks of the 19^th district of Paris. A day before giving my first lesson in a University I will not name by pure respect, I am told about the different chapters of the book the students will have to study. Because I am not an expert in economy the last night is also spent discovering a subject of which I know very little not to say nothing. In less than 12 hours time I will however have to pretend I am the expert every single student on earth would like to learn from when it comes to studying economy in the English speaking world. As, you may know by now, being a temporary part time lecturer in France requires some good acting skills. To be confident enough, I just tell myself that I have got the required skills.

The few teachers I had the chance to talk with, and who happened to be working on the same contract as I am working on, were all foreigners for whom teaching was just a second job. This fact also puts some doubts on my first statement concerning the absence of discrimination in the French academic world. The conditions to be able to teach few hours in the French universities are very strict. Those over 28 must have a first employer and work full time or something near full time, depending on the job they occupy.   

The salary after tax is something around 33 Euros per hour. Under such contract, the number of hours a teacher can teach during an academic year is also limited. For the cunning ones the technique is easy though. To be able to get such contracts and work unlimited hours, they all register as independent workers. It is in fact difficult to explain that unless you are self employed you can only teach in France as a part time temporary lecturer if you already have a first job. This goes straight in line with what president Sarkozy calls work more to earn more. I have been registered as a sole company for more than two years now but never really started my business. Most people in the academic world know about these realties, but everyone keeps it quiet.

The teachers like me working under such precarious contracts are the pariahs of the profession; those never seriously taken into consideration in the different claims and discussions on the reforms of the French universities and the status of the teachers. Their careers as permanent lecturer or searchers are very often because of their standpoints or thesis subjects compromised in France. In such conditions the part time temporary lecturers may sometimes be tempted in a disarray to have just one objective: accumulating teaching hours; putting good teaching at stake for the sake of money.

(Alexandre Dumas)

DR.

As a child whenever I was told about the hardship the African Diaspora had to go through, I would often picture the old black and white movies my dad used to watch late at night on Sundays. In these movies dating back from the two first decades of the twentieth century blacks were depicted not only as inferior to white folks but also with a silliness and stupidity that used to go beyond nature and normality. White people painted in black colour with red heavy lips were also often used as a caricature of the black identity. In other pieces of work such as those by Edgar Rice Burroughs the inventor of the character Tarzan of the Apes in 1912, black Africans, were usually in those years described as « savage » and relatively “primitive” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarzan). If things, in the US, have changed for the better since then, in France the mockery still seems to be going on.

Back in the nineteen eighties many artists in France were making their fame on the back of the black African community. No one will forget the racist clichés and stereotypes that used to be broadcasted in the different TV programmes destined to the younger generation in the eighties. It is thus indeed that artists such as Michel Leeb or even Dorothee with her songs “La machine avalé (150.000 units sold) », or again « il y a des papou partout dans la rue » became famous depicting and stereotyping black Africans. Michel Leeb who was specialized in caricatures even used to compare black Africans to monkeys without it shocking the mass media or the same politicians who admits today that violence on TV can have a bad influence on the younger generation.

But more striking than that in France, is the recent movie on the life of Alexandre Dumas, a mixed race French writer of the nineteenth century who became famous with piece of works including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne. In the film which is somehow aimed at educating the public on the writer’s life some key information are totally ignored. As if the French society was not composed of enough coloured people -be it blacks from Africa or the French West Indies- to play such role at cinema; it is the white comedian Gerard Depardieu who reincarnates the French writer on the screen.

The idea would have had nothing disturbing had it happened in a context or society where black dignity was restored after years of slavery and colonisation. But in the country of “Liberté égalité et Fraternité” where it is officially admitted through the voice of the French president Nicolas Sarkosy that “the African man did not significantly enter History” (http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/elysee.fr/francais/interventions/2007/juillet/allocution_a_l_universite_de_dakar.79184.html) such inaccuracy appears as another insult to the Black community as a whole. The movie totally ignores the colour of the skin of the writer. It excludes and denies once more the contribution of a whole community to the French patrimony. Every scholar or specialist in French literature knows that during his day time Alexandre Dumas was commonly referred as the “nigger”. Shooting a movie on his life ignoring those facts is just another lie transmitted to the younger generation that often find it difficult to be interested in a national History that has nothing in common with their reality or individual history. And the worst in all that is that this initiative of lie is once again partly carried out with public funds, which also means with the money of the black community living in France.

As a relief I am just telling myself: “Let’s hope, just for once, that the movie will be largely boycotted by the Black Diaspora worldwide!”

DR

Immigrants’ voting rights: the debate is still raging

The debate on national identity and immigration is raised in electoral programs. With such a political tension dividing policymakers and citizens, as well as several political parties, Martine Aubry, the president of the socialist party, suggested that immigrants should have the voting right before the next local elections.

On Tuesday the 12^th of January 2010, the Socialist party whose head is Martine Aubry submitted a bill to the National Assembly to enable immigrants to vote during the next local elections. The European elections are not part of the debate yet. The government refuses to pass this bill and this reaction testifies that some policymakers are still disturbed by this debate which feeds electoral programs.

Indeed the government’s spokesman, Luc Chatel claimed on RFI, « This bill was not designed only for the coming local elections. » even knowing that this voting right was deeply linked to the notion of citizenship.  Eric Woerth, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, corroborates the government’s opposition claiming that the French population is not ready to welcome that proposal.

Paradoxically, a recent poll unexpectedly raised concern among the bill’s opponents, but was cheerfully welcomed by Eric Besson: the  high majority of French citizens (55%) accepts immigrants’ voting right for the local elections as the Secretary of Immigration wished such a result even if on a long-term period. He expressed his opinion on a TV political program, 17 heures politique, reported by an opinion poll made by the French broadcasting regulatory body for the magazine, Le Parisien Aujourd’hui en France, published yesterday.

Why this reform is taking such a long time in France whereas immigrants like their French counterparts contribute to the economic and social life of the country? This seems even more contradictory, knowing that immigrants have already been given certain rights: the right to vote during elections in works council, boards of directors of the Social security fund, social housing, industrial tribunals, associations. Immigrants also have the same basic rights as French citizens. Immigrants are taxpayers and are instrumental in developing local as well as the national wealth.

A few people fear that granting the voting right to immigrants, might give birth to an identity vote, a community vote and that the French nation might turn into a divided nation. Republican values might be threatened as well. There is no reason to think so. However, making a difference among voters on cultural grounds can generate tensions based on multiculturalism misunderstandings.

What about the French value of Equality born during the French Revolution: same rights, same duties…

As the first snow fell at the foot of the Italian Alps, the centre of Coccaglio presented an idyllic scene. In front of its 18th-century church, the flakes came to rest on a magnificent Christmas tree, rising almost to the height of the Roman tower opposite.

But in this town of 8,000 inhabitants between Milan and Venice, the approach to Christianity’s most sacred festival has been marked in a very special way. On orders from the local council, controlled by the conservative Northern League, police have been carrying out house-to-house searches for illegal immigrants in an action dubbed Operation White Christmas. The operation is due to finish on December 25.

Some 3,000 people have marched through the town in protest at the operation, which the Vatican called « sad and distressing ». But it has been endorsed by Silvio Berlusconi’s government. Visiting nearby Brescia, where he announced the opening of a detention camp for suspected illegal immigrants – a so-called centre for identification and expulsion – Berlusconi’s interior minister, Roberto Maroni, a leader of the League, complimented Coccaglio’s mayor.

« Operation White Christmas has been carried out in other towns with other names and without arousing the same kind of clamour, » he said. « These are initiatives that serve to check and combat the phenomenon of illegal immigrants. So there is no ’story’ and no racism. »

The migrant population has soared in Italy’s industrial heartland, making it fertile territory for the League, with its xenophobic rhetoric. A League poster at the last general election showed three white sheep kicking out a black one.

Coccaglio’s registered, non-Italian population rose from 177 to 1,562 in the 10 years to 2008. In Brescia, non-Italians outnumber natives in the centre, which is lined with halal butchers, African markets, Chinese bazaars and takeaway kebab shops. Suspicions exploded into fury last month in the town nearest Coccaglio, when a Moroccan man was arrested on suspicion of attacking and raping a local woman. Eyewitnesses said he risked being lynched as he was escorted from the carabinieri barracks.

Franco Claretti, Coccaglio’s mayor, confirmed the police operation would end on Christmas Day but that was a coincidence and claimed the White Christmas tag was invented by a local newspaper headline-writer rather than his council.

« You will not find it in any council document », he said. « In Italy, council ordinances are valid for 60 days and this one was passed on October 27. »

But critics of the operation were sceptical. « They did not deny it at the outset, » said Umberto Gobbi, a radio station manager who organised the protest last month. In his view, the Northern League is playing a game of provocation and subsequent denial, intended to keep tension high. « Operation White Christmas forms part of a sort of competition to see who can be most provocative, » he said.

Claretti said he tried to set the record straight when he was first contacted by the national media, but the resulting report had a more explosive element: a comment attributed to one of his councillors that « for me, Christmas is not a festival of hospitality, but one of Christian tradition, of our identity ». Again, Claretti said the councillor was misquoted and that what he really said was that hospitality had to be extended all year, not just at Christmas.

In his rectory on the outskirts of Brescia, Father Mario Toffari, head of the diocesan office for the pastoral care of immigrants, lifted his shoulders and opened his arms in a classic Italian gesture of scepticism.

« If that is the way it was, all they needed to do was take it back, » he said.

The League had repeatedly exploited Christian symbols for its own ends « and the symbols of Christianity ought not to be used against anyone », said Toffari.

In Brescia, recently, as in several other towns, League members handed out crosses in the street to protest at a European court of human rights ruling that displaying crucifixes in Italian classrooms was a violation of religious freedom. Elsewhere, the party has mounted campaigns for the erection of nativity scenes on council premises.

The operation in Coccaglio is the product of legislation promoted by the Berlusconi government giving mayors wider powers to flush out illegal immigrants. Under Italian law, councils can withdraw the right of abode six months after the expiry of an immigrant’s residence permit if he or she cannot show an application has been submitted for renewal.Claretti said the police were delivering letters telling immigrants whose permits had expired to prove they had applied to renew them. But Toffari said the normal procedure was to post a letter inviting the recipient to go to the town hall. Sending round the police was « like saying these people could be dangerous and need to be checked in a special way ». Claretti said that dispatching registered letters would have cost his council €3,000 it could ill afford.

« Besides, if there is a letter they just put it to one side; if they see a police officer, they take it seriously. As far as I’m concerned, this is a gesture of politeness. If someone has nothing to hide, he or she has nothing to fear. »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/20/italy-coccaglio-operation-white-christmas

DR

Today is the exam day. The brains are full with knowledge and information that had to be swallowed in a very short amount of time just to be spilled out on this very specific day. Everyone looks intelligent and smart in front of his or her copy. There are different styles but what really matters today is what will finally be written on the sheets at the end of the exam. For me this is the last time I am in front of my students. For once there is no absent. They all replied positively to the last call. As the exam room starts becoming quieter after the last students have gained their seats, for a short while my mind travels back in the past and I start remembering the time I used to be sitting on the same seats trying to spit out the accumulated knowledge. I will admit I was not a bright one and due to my streetwise culture perhaps a bit of cheating was always part of the party. Just like in seek and catch game the teachers and professors would be the enemies I had to avoid being caught by. Of course in most cases I was eventually the big winner of the exiting game. Today my cards have changed; I have now become those teachers who are trying in vain to catch the cheating students. My first priority on this very specific day is to make sure the exam takes place in good conditions.

I have no doubt that among these students  taking the exam today are to be found the big spirits of tomorrow however how do those students see their future in the present political and economic atmosphere. Are they well aware of the responsibilities that lay upon them? When asked the question about how she sees herself in ten years time, Menel Landolsi answers that she plans to be a secondary teacher, and that in ten years time she also more sees herself the Mum of no more than two children. When looking at her immense capacities, I feel a bit sorry. Ambition is low in France which could explain for the 49^th international rank held by the best French university.  Here in France more than anywhere else, students more than often go to university without any clear objective in their career. Teaching or working as a civil servant therefore becomes a facility as it appears for most as a continuation of students’ life. An ex-student of mine Nasira Touré who is now getting trained to work as a personal manager told me not long ago that she was kind of divided between two things that are her dreams and reality. What she would have liked to be is a pop start, a singer, living in LA in the United States.  She admits that because she thought it was impossible, she never took the chance to try. She thought she had to be realistic and this is why in five years time she more sees herself working as personal manager for a small company in France. As many other youngsters of her age it appears that priority is to getting a job of subsistence and not really to realize one self.   

So when I think again of all those pondering over their copies on the exam day I cannot help telling myself that all this is big fuss for very low ambitions and perspectives. Sure studying opens doors, but what if there is a big wall at the end of the corridor behind that door?

By Sitafa    

When the immigration issue is raised in electoral programs and, political actions prevent immigrants from crossing European frontiers, the government completely forgets the colonial past. The ancestors of those who are called « immigrants » were instrumental in many episodes of this colonial past. Western countries and the colonized areas often cooperated on an unbalanced basis either to fight Nazism or to build Europe, destroyed by World War II.

At the Berlin Conference (1884-1885), European countries decided to divide Africa and its resources into political regions, claiming that this continent was the burden of the white colonizer. Rudyard Kipling used to say that the white colonizer had the duty to « civilize » African populations in order to « enlighten »this wild and heathen continent.

In August 1941, the Atlantic Charter, born at this conference between President F.D.Roosevelt and President Churchill, shed ligh$t upon the speech of the Four Freedoms which defined the foundations of a new international policy. The decolonization process was launched but was a long process in so far as most of the colonized countries only became independent in the fifties and sixties. African leaders educated in Western Europe took part in this struggle for independence: Kenyatta (Kenya), Kwame N’Krumah (Gold Coast/Ghana), Léopold Sedar Senghor (Sénégal) and Félix Houphouët Boigny (Ivory Coast).

In most British and French colonies, the transition to independence seemed easy but its impact on human, social and economic levels was disastrous; African nations found themselves morally and financially indebted. The geographical sharing of Africa brought about ethnic conflicts and wars caused by the new frontiers in Chad, Libya, Ethiopia, and Somalia… Decolonization has impoverished Africa, wasted its natural resources without any opportunity to export a wider range of agricultural products to European countries. Today the African trade is still under the powerful domination of Europe.

Fifty years after Decolonization, its evolutions and struggles, it appears that the economic and social situation has not really changed.

This symbolic celebration of independence is not only a means for Africa to be involved in political and economic matters on a global ground but also a means to assert Africa’s voice concerning political events; Understanding and sharing History means raising awareness, accepting consequences and tackling short-term or long-term issues.

We need to share a common memory, a common struggle and to find proper measures.  After decolonization, we may wonder: which role does Africa play in globalization? The issue has just been raised….

DR

The year 2009 is already coming to an end. A page is about to be turned. But more than that in a few minutes time, we will enter a new decade.  As everyone in Paris is getting ready for the event; make ups and best suits on, I am sitting up in front my laptop and meditate on the past decade. Ten years ago I was in my late twenties. The years 2000 were more those of my thirties. With my diplomas and certificates in the pocket, I was entering the world of real independence while slowly divorcing with the world of genuine youth. The new millennium was not to keep its promises though. The death of the last grand-Dad was the announcement in my family of many other deaths to come. I sometimes have the feeling that in the space of ten years, my bigger family was sharply reduced into a nuclear one. I can now realize what scientists and searchers mean when saying that life expectancy in some southern countries is much lower than in the western world.

The first part of the dying decade was more marked with international affairs. The hopes and dreams of the new century were rapidly extinguished with the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York in 2001. And many more deaths were of course to come with the “Wars of Mass destruction” on countries sharing different views, ideologies or civilization from ours.  

The first part of the first decade of the twenty first century was also the confirmation of the hegemony of Asia as an economic power. And, the announcement of the end of the American and European supremacy was to give more hope of freedom to the exploited nations. The African continent for example could find in China and India new trading partners. But more surprising, is the fact that some of the countries in Asia that were described in the seventies as part of the third world were in a very short amount of time to reach such a development level that they appeared now as a threat to the eyes of the Westerners.

The second part the first decade of the twenty first century were however to bring the most positive and promising signs. The world was at last to witness both the end of the Bush and Blair era and the end of the reliance on mass media. After the fiasco of the Wars against Weapons of Mass Destruction many more of our contemporaries were to open their eyes on true reality. The bombings in London were the vivid proof that the Alkhaida organization did not really exist as such. It also revealed that more factors and parameters were to be considered when trying to develop a real system of integration of ethnic minorities in the western world. After the United States got rid of a disturbing Hussein in Iraq a new Hussein was to take the reins of the most powerful nation in the world. In the United States, the election of President Barak Hussein Obama –the first African American president- was a revolution testifying of the success of the process of multiculturalism.

In France however the process of assimilation was to display pure racism. Genuine racism and Islamophobia were to become in the last years of the dying decade the French new national sport by excellence. While a black family was entering the white house in the United States and trying at the same time to put more fairness in international affairs, France was characterized by crimes often involving the police and in some occasions leading to social unrests and riots.

In terms of art and culture some big names were to leave us. The death of the philosopher Claude Levi-Strauss or again the king of pop Michael Jackson, were clear signs of our entrance into a new era. In a more personal point of view, the first years of the dying decade were the time of my encounter with the British culture. Thanks to the years spent in the U.K doing some researches on ethnicity I also became more aware of the situation people sharing a similar story to mine were experiencing in France. Because I felt more at home in Britain, I also decided to make the place my home for a while.

That period coincided with the slow death of the rap culture in France as well. In the late nineties I had entered the world of Hip Hop just to realize in the course of the first decade of the new millennium that the phenomenon in France was somehow limited and even reaching to its end. There are more things I could say on the first decade of the new century but time is short and it will be midnight in a few seconds.  

So to all those celebrating the new-year tonight, I wish them a Happy New Year

Written by Sitafa

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new « war president »? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do — destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they’ve always heard is true — that all politicians are alike. I simply can’t believe you’re about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn’t so.

It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around. That’s the way General Washington insisted it must be. That’s what President Truman told General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to invade China. « You’re fired!, » said Truman, and that was that. And you should have fired Gen. McChrystal when he went to the press to preempt you, telling the press what YOU had to do. Let me be blunt: We love our kids in the armed services, but we f*#&in’ hate these generals, from Westmoreland in Vietnam to, yes, even Colin Powell for lying to the UN with his made-up drawings of WMD (he has since sought redemption).

So now you feel backed into a corner. 30 years ago this past Thursday (Thanksgiving) the Soviet generals had a cool idea — « Let’s invade Afghanistan! » Well, that turned out to be the final nail in the USSR coffin.

There’s a reason they don’t call Afghanistan the « Garden State » (though they probably should, seeing how the corrupt President Karzai, whom we back, has his brother in the heroin trade raising poppies). Afghanistan’s nickname is the « Graveyard of Empires. » If you don’t believe it, give the British a call. I’d have you call Genghis Khan but I lost his number. I do have Gorbachev’s number though. It’s + 41 22 789 1662. I’m sure he could give you an earful about the historic blunder you’re about to commit.

With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young men and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the breakdown of this great civilization we call America will head, full throttle, into oblivion if you become the « war president. » Empires never think the end is near, until the end is here. Empires think that more evil will force the heathens to toe the line — and yet it never works. The heathens usually tear them to shreds.

Choose carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn’t have to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and your own clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not want us there. You can feel it in your bones.

I know you know that there are LESS than a hundred al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan! A hundred thousand troops trying to crush a hundred guys living in caves? Are you serious? Have you drunk Bush’s Kool-Aid? I refuse to believe it.

Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you’re doing it so you can « end the war ») will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you’ve said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone — and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout « tea bag! »

Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.

We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the people can’t take it anymore. We can’t take your caving in, over and over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get the job done. What part of « landslide victory » don’t you understand?

Don’t be deceived into thinking that sending a few more troops into Afghanistan will make a difference, or earn you the respect of the haters. They will not stop until this country is torn asunder and every last dollar is extracted from the poor and soon-to-be poor. You could send a million troops over there and the crazy Right still wouldn’t be happy. You would still be the victim of their incessant venom on hate radio and television because no matter what you do, you can’t change the one thing about yourself that sends them over the edge.

The haters were not the ones who elected you, and they can’t be won over by abandoning the rest of us.

President Obama, it’s time to come home. Ask your neighbors in Chicago and the parents of the young men and women doing the fighting and dying if they want more billions and more troops sent to Afghanistan. Do you think they will say, « No, we don’t need health care, we don’t need jobs, we don’t need homes. You go on ahead, Mr. President, and send our wealth and our sons and daughters overseas, ’cause we don’t need them, either. »

What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do? What would your grandmother do? Not send more poor people to kill other poor people who pose no threat to them, that’s what they’d do. Not spend billions and trillions to wage war while American children are sleeping on the streets and standing in bread lines.

All of us that voted and prayed for you and cried the night of your victory have endured an Orwellian hell of eight years of crimes committed in our name: torture, rendition, suspension of the bill of rights, invading nations who had not attacked us, blowing up neighborhoods that Saddam « might » be in (but never was), slaughtering wedding parties in Afghanistan. We watched as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of our brave young men and women were killed, maimed, or endured mental anguish — the full terror of which we scarcely know.

When we elected you we didn’t expect miracles. We didn’t even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn’t even function as a nation and never, ever has.

Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God’s sake, stop.

Tonight we still have hope.

Tomorrow, we shall see. The ball is in your court. You DON’T have to do this. You can be a profile in courage. You can be your mother’s son.

We’re counting on you.

Yours,

It has been a while now since I last listened to French artists, be it Rap singers or Pop ones. Yet, I must admit I admire some of them, especially those who have been able to gain the respect of a big part of the French population. Were you to ask people in the streets of Paris about their opinion on Johnny Haliday, you would for sure hear the same answer more than once: -“I do not like Johnny Halliday’s songs but I respect the character; the symbol he represents and his exceptionally long and successful career in the music industry.”

  I would say the same things of Mélanie Georgiades. It has been years now since I abandoned the world of French rap music. I remember those days when working as a manager for the rap group known as Voodooding Institute, I would be aware of any new released album, single or EP. At the time, my life seemed deeply connected with the lyrics that happened to be passing through my headphones. Junk food was also our ritual in the group, taking place after each passage to the studio. It is thus, that by just listening and watching the others I learnt how to put my voice on a bit to the point that I am hardly impressed by the flows of most French rappers today. Being first of all a poet I sometimes even find some of the Hip Hop lyrics lacking in depth or ‘deepness’ (as you like).

However, as I was putting it out earlier, there really is something special about Melanie Georgiades. Anyone who has got a soul can only but be touched by the twenty nine year old girl’s fate; the way she was once put in the forefront and spotlights of all media a’s representing by excellence the French rap industry and then criticized and boycotted by all after making her re-conversion to  Islam public. Some feminist movements and associations such as the ‘Ni Pute Ni soumise’ association (Not whore nor submissive) parodied by the comedian Jamel Debouze as the “Mi-pute Mi soumise” (Half whore, half submissive) even qualified her conversion as regrettable. According to the president of the association, Sihem Habchi: -“it is ‘very sad’ to see her transmitting to the younger generations such a message through her re-conversion”. Sihem Habchi also explained that the younger generation was expecting a lot from the pop star who in a way had committed herself on the issue of equality between boys and girls.   

These reactions contrast of course a lot with those experienced by another artist who, just like Melanie Georgiades, is of Cypriot origin.  When Ysusuf Islam most known as Cats Stevens embraced Islam in 1978 in the U.K, his new spiritual life was seen by the British media as an opportunity to bridge the gap between different cultures all confined within the United Kingdom. For Melanie Georgiades most known under the name of Diam’s the reality in France and three decades later is quite different.  

The young girl had to confirm her new allegiance to Islam after she was seen coming out from a mosque dressed in an Islamic outfit last summer. She has decided since then not to speak or accept any interview. -“I do not speak anymore I rap,” she claimed. Because her re-conversion was the source of lots of criticisms, some often coming from some French politicians, Melanie Georgiades alias Diam’s has refused to promote her new album via the media.

Far from the music industry and the show business world, the artist who has been wearing the Islamic headscarf since very recently is now taking part in lots of charity organizations. Two month ago, she was seen on stage taking the “mic” and performing for the cause of associations such as Emmaüs or on behalf of prisoners in the prison of Luynes near the Aix-en-Provence region.  In most cases the show was given for free which of course to mine eyes gives another dimension to the artist.

By Sitafa