(DOWNLOAD) "Ironic Reversal: Writing Cultural Ambivalence in the Works of Franco-Algerian Writers." by Arena Journal " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Ironic Reversal: Writing Cultural Ambivalence in the Works of Franco-Algerian Writers.
- Author : Arena Journal
- Release Date : January 01, 2004
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 209 KB
Description
The French experience of multiculturalism differs from that of Australia for many reasons. As Max Silverman has observed, the centralizing, hierarchical nature of French society, in the context of French republicanism, is such that any claims for cultural identity are considered to be anti-France. (1) Both on the left and on the right of the political spectrum there are expectations that immigrants should integrate. (2) Alec Hargreaves believes that what he terms 'the neo-colonial gaze' continues to colour perceptions of cultural diversity in France, resulting in a reluctance to accept, let alone encourage, cultural productions that express this diversity. (3) Also, although in the past France has absorbed immigrant communities from different European countries, many of the current immigrant communities are from former colonies and therefore have an ambivalent relation to the former colonial power. This is particularly true in the case of Algerian immigrants: a legacy of bitter relations between the French and the Algerians during the Algerian war has impeded the process of integration. Although many first generation Algerian immigrants have now integrated into French society, at the time of immigration and for many years after that, integration would have been tantamount to siding with the enemy. Even for second and third generation immigrants, although it is now forty years since the Franco-Algerian war ended, integration has been extremely problematic. North African immigrants to France in the 1950s and 1960s were pushed to the edge of the big cities, indeed many found themselves in slums, such as the notorious shantytown in Nanterre on the outskirts of Paris, only demolished in the early 1970s. Their position on the periphery of French society mirrored the colonial experience of the centre and the periphery (French suburbs are built in concentric circles around a central core), and their geographical exclusion from the centre reflected their exclusion from French society and culture. The children of these immigrants were, naturally, educated in the French school system, and thus were infused with French culture and language. Yet, living for the most part in housing estates on the periphery of French towns, these young people remained largely invisible to the mainstream French population. However, conditions of poverty and racism exploded in the early 1980s and, following the murder of a child of Algerian descent by a man in the suburbs, culminated in 1983 in the March Against Racism (La Marche pour l'Egalite et contre le Racisme) which was labelled 'la Marche des Beurs'.
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