France profonde

I am taking great interest in the French elections today and of course I'm a partisan of Sarkozy, who is as close to a conservative as you can get in Europe these days. According to the polls he is way ahead of his socialist rival, the very attractive but politically dismaying Segolene Royal. I haven't been following the coverage in the French media the way I should but I understand a relentless demonizing campaign has been waged against Sarkozy by all the outlets. I've seen how that works in Canada where the state owned CBC dominates our TV news. When Stockwell Day led the conservative forces a few years ago the CBC was unbelievably vicious and poor Stockwell, a very decent and intelligent but slightly naive man, was defeated. They tried it again with Harper who has the knack of turning a stupid question back on the interviewer, leaving him sputtering impotently. However Harper never quite managed to turn the voters of the entitlement dependant Maritimes and Quebec in his direction so he only managed to eke out a minority win.
What encourages me about the French election is firstly the huge turnout and secondly the fact that the demonizing campaign seems to have fallen flat. According to reports about the debate between the two candidates, Royal's demonizing efforts came across as hysterical and Sarkozy appeared calm and competent, leading to gains for him in the polls afterward. The demonizing seems to have backfired.
France has two overwhelming problems. The first is a dependancy on government handouts. These, while popular in the short term are destructive of the economy and of public morale and confidence in the long term. I'm not an economist and won't elaborate on this point.
The second problem is a large and and pugnacious Islamic minority that has managed to intimidate much of the governing apparatus of France. Formerly, anyone foolish enough to object was branded a racist, just as Doug Collins was here in BC when he argued against unrestricted immigration from cultures incompatible with our own. When you take an issue like immigration and brand critics as racist then you can avoid the laborious task of using reasoned debate. And when reasoned debate would inevitably be fatal to the mission it is to be avoided at all costs.
Multiculturalism is the catchall phrase in this context. Laudably, it aimed to prevent a recurrence of the Haulocaust by promoting harmony among the various races. Science, with its reputation of infallibility, was often enlisted in the cause. Genetic researchers tell us, for instance, that we all have a common ancestor, we are all Africans and there is more genetic variation within any racial grouping than there is between any two races. So, not only are discussions of racial difference branded immoral but are also ignorantly unscientific. This has just served to shut down any further research into the issue.
For instance a doctor in Northern BC, having worked for many years among the native peoples had the temerity to publish a paper in which he claimed that Natives were more susceptible to alcoholism than Europeans. His thesis had nothing to do with promoting racist 'stereotypes,' as he was accused of doing. On the contrary, he saw a public health problem. He wanted to help them. Anybody who has been around our native population knows very well how destructive alcohol is to it. But that is not allowed to be said let alone studied. And so the squalor on Naitive Reserves continues.
It was while I was in the American navy that I first became aware of the depth of racial tensions in the US. Until then I had very little contact with black people and only knew about the segregation problem from news reports---in the abstract. One of the first things I noticed was that black sailors usually got along better with white southerners than with white northerners. Strangely enough, even though white southerners believed in keeping the races separate, they usually liked and understood black people better than white northerners. The second thing I noticed was self-segregation on the part of black sailors. I was stationed in Japan, and there were black sailor bars and white sailor bars. Generally, black sailors didn't go to white bars and white sailors didn't go to black bars. There was no law against mixing, it was just the way things were. Some white sailors wanted to go to black bars but they weren't welcome.
The third thing I noticed was that despite all the history of prejudice and bigotry both whites and blacks were decidedly American. White sailors were generally more interested in Japan than blacks. For blacks, being in Japan was like being in jail. They called the US, where home was, The World. When do you get to go back to The World, Clink? Oh, I got another year to serve. (groan) Personally, I really like black Americans. I'll never forget the great sessions we had playing hearts in the barracks. Nothing but laughs and good times.
In Japan I also learned about the status of ethnic Koreans and Chinese in that country. No matter how many generations had lived there they were not considered to be true Japanese. So the common charge that racism is a disease of disgusting white people, especially Germans and Alabamans, I knew was false. Racism is normal with everyone on this planet and it's not wrong unless it turns into something virulent, as in Hitler's Germany and among hate groups like the KKK. A sense of belonging to one's own racial grouping is normal and healthy. As for me, I love the races. To quote an old blues tune, "I like de brunettes and I like de blondes." I hope there are always separate races. Noble Nubians, seductive houris, Cree princesses, I love em all. And I like de blondes, too. Who are really the racists, the multiculturalists or me? Doesn't the multicultural agenda point toward submerging racial and ethnic differences? To me that reveals a hatred of race. Some of my white southern shipmates didn't like the idea of what they called the mongrelization of the races, but my word is homogenization. Imagining a world where everyone looks the same horrifies me.
Along with race comes a sense of place. Jews have a sense of place in Israel. And why not? Jews have lived there for at least 5000 years. Why would anyone deny them the right to have their own country? In fact there is something miraculous about the Jews. How many attempts have been made to destroy them or drive them out of Israel? The Babylonians tried it, the Greeks tried it, the Romans tried it, and the Germans tried it. Evicted from their own homeland, they have been wanderers on the earth. And yet where is the Assyrian Empire now? Where are Alexander's phalanxes, where the Roman legions? All in the dustbin of history. And yet the Jews are still with us, reading from the same book their ancestors authored, and wherever they have gone they have enriched whatever polity has hosted them. So when it says in their book that they are God's chosen people it's hard to disagree.
Being a North American by birth, and having ancestors going back almost four centuries here I should feel that this is my home, and I do. But there are two other places on this earth I think of as my home, and maybe more my home than this one in the depths of my heart. One of those places is Ireland, where I have never been, and the other is France where I spent a mere two months, even though I have no traceable ancestry there. But France is the heart and soul of Europe. This is something I know instinctively. Even genetic studies show that the majority of people who now live in western Europe have DNA markers distinctive to themselves- despite invasions from every quarter of the old world- as well as other markers in common with other Europeans. While in France I sat on the hill outside the Lascaux caves I sat in the grass and looked out at the same valley those artists saw 20 or 30 thousand years ago. The ice sheets are gone and there are no more wooly rhinos or mammoths but I felt certain that valley had been bequeathed by them to me.
So I am very interested in the French election, and find it ironic that a Jew cares more about that age old heritage than a native French woman. It's possible the homogenization of all the racial strains from all over the world is inevitable but why should France commit cultural suicide in anticipation of that day? And if it's going to happen it should be by the agency of the marriage bed, not the suicide bomber or the religious police. Islam is alien to France, no matter how often has tried to establish a beachhead there, and whatever happens to the current Islamic invasion, they will eventually become French if they stay. The genius of the place may yield temporarily but it will never die. I don't think the genius of any place can ever be overcome and so I don't believe the homogenization of the world's peoples will ever occur.