It seems from my point of view that ethnic communities are much more prevalent in the UK than in France. I think intermarriage rates (statistic obviously made on "immigrants" and "son of immigrants", not actual "ethnic community membership") are pretty high in France ; Dodo pointed out in his diary that he noticed a rather high proportion of multiracial couples.
"Communities" are not supposed to last in France. After a couple generations of immigrants, they are supposed to vanish or become more or less anecdotal.
The State using ethnic statistics, providing services based on this, means reinforcing rather than avoiding such communitarian tendencies, even if this reinforcing is not an explicit goal ; recognising ethnic groupings, constantly calling them by their names, such as Sarkozy is doing right now, can only reinforce such identities. Not that they need active suppressing ; but eventually they just disappear without such reinforcement.
One of the problem in the French suburb is that parts of the current French society isn't ready to accept, nor has properly taught the rules of society, to many inhabitants of these suburbs. These inhabitants have lost for all practical purpose their "former" ethnic identities. What's left is skin color, which causes discrimination, and thus a real lack of identity. This strange situation is the current failure of the French model.
Those "ethnic minorities" that don't grow up in the lousy suburbs tend to absorb and integrate French identity much more easily, and don't face the same problems. See my point upthread about those immigrating straight into a relatively high social status have much less problems at integration. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
I don't quite agree that immigrating in higher classes makes integration easier though: I would say that in those cases a sense of freedom ofchoice facilitates absorbing new norms. Rien n'est gratuit en ce bas monde. Tout s'expie, le bien comme le mal, se paie tot ou tard. Le bien c'est beaucoup plus cher, forcement. Celine
I've expanded on this in another post. We encourage sharing of different experiences and to embrace different cultures and communities, living alongside and with each each other.
And you are absolutely right about higher social status enabling easier integration. We see large ethnic communities in poor areas, and in these cases there is minimal integration and also minimal communication between groups and this isn't acceptable. The answer in the UK to tackling these situations is to provide services for these groups in order to reduce marginalisation, improve English/Welsh language skills and ensure good access to education, healthcare etc, so that in the longer term these communities should be less exclusive and less marginalised.
This isn't being done very well at the moment though and we are seeing very large areas of ethnic communities of increasing size and number, staying trapped in poverty and crime and further hindering any integration of either individuals or communities. Ad astra per aspera
But you can't integrate groups. I'd like to see a really successful example of such a case. You can only integrate individuals.
As long as the technostructure providing services conceptualise their jobs as serving groups, maintaining those groups' identities, and reasons for self-cohesion (membership in group being important for access to group-catering services), you are building a separate but equal framework. Eventually, a segregationist one. That's the real problem I have with addressing minorities as "groups" .
And indeed, those communities aren't homogeneous, but such policies mean a stronger incentive for intra-group cohesion and homogeneity ; which means that instead of helping people to get easier access to the social tools for participation in mainstream society (which aren't only language and education, but an integrated socialisation for kids, for example), children grow up in a community-oriented environment, and thus socialise towards their community rather than the general society.
One of the big problems for African Americans in the US isn't only facing discrimination but that many grow up in an environment were drug dealing is a standard means of income and gang membership is normal. This is an extreme example of what socialising in a minority community means : an harder access to the social tools, assumptions, etc...of wider society. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
But because those community identity values are so ingrained in the UK, we can't make an easy switch to an approach such as you discuss.
But discourse is changing in the UK, and we are talking more about fundamental human rights that apply equally to everybody and recognising that where there are groups, there is conflict and segregation and one group's rights trumping another's. There is a move within the equalities field to a human rights approach but we are only at the beginning of the thought process.
Thanks for such a good discussion, it has been really useful. Ad astra per aspera
Our Bling President is trying to break this apart, whether he has a "plan" or is just plain stupid!
I'm not always in agreement with Todd's views, but he's quite right about the "forced" getthos of the "banlieues", rioting is a way to get in the system... But there's much more to be done that won't be in the latest "Plan Banlieue"...! "What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman
