After the unrest that spread across France in November 2005 —when Nicolas Sarkozy was interior minister and called for the mass deportation of French-born rioters of Arabic ethnicity—, a ritual of annual arson has sprung up, with hundreds of cars burned each year on 31 December. This year, the numbers soared by 30% over last year, reaching an estimated 1,147 cars fire-bombed or “burnt out”.

Even with 35,000 police deployed to keep the peace and prevent arson, the numbers escalated in what is becoming a worrying New Year’s Eve ritual across France. The areas most affected were the poorer outskirts of major cities; for example, “A total of 422 cars were burned in Paris-area housing projects, compared to 12 in the relatively well-policed Parisian intra muros”.

The “banlieus”, often including ethnic ghettoes heavy in populations of poor immigrant laborers or their French-born descendents, generally poorer and suffering from racial bias that is still deep-seated in French society, have tended to be the areas where the annual arson is most pervasive, in cities such as Paris, Strasbourg, Lille, Toulouse and Nantes.

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It was in the banlieu neighborhoods around Paris that the unrest of November and December 2005 got started, in response to a complex of social ills, but spurred primarily by incidents of police violence against ethnic north African French youths. Accordng to Time magazine:

In a country where car-burning isn’t a common symptom of socioeconomic unrest, news of so many automobiles being torched would be alarming — if not a sign of brewing insurrection. In France, however, word of the destruction that accompanied the evening the French call Saint-Sylvestre was met with a mix of Gaulic shrugs and low-grade peevishness.

The unrest of 2005 spread wildly out of control in part because the authorities were so slow to understand the reasons behind it and the public reacted with attitudes symptomatic (for those affected by persistent racial bias) of the same cultural and political barriers that were causing hardship in the affected neighborhoods. The French people cannot afford to take this explosion of ceremonial vandalism lightly, but authorities need to be careful not to appear to engage in another kind of crackdown like that fomented by Sarkozy in 2005, when he labeled the rioters “scum” and promised to expel them from France.

The Sofia News Agency reports that:

A total of 36 700 cars were burned in France in the first eleven months of 2008. The French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared the vandals setting vehicles on fire should be prevented from holding a driver’s license until they paid for the damages they had incurred.

Those figures are staggering, and seem to represent a serious crisis in France’s social fabric. Such incidents, including the general malaise affecting many youths, tinged with racial resentments and violent attacks, have been linked to France’s struggle to maintain levels of employment, even as economies around France face serious difficulties. Major banks failing or being nationalized, and the 13% unemployment in Spain, are symptoms of the economic ills leading to thousands of lost jobs in wealthy European countries, potentially exacerbating already dire divisions in society.

The ‘City of Lights’ seeks to innovate, to touch the sky, and to protect the “right to light” of its citizens, in one bold design

A revolutionary skyscraper design by Herzog and de Meuron, commonly known as ‘the Triangle’, aims to break the long-standing Parisian height barrier of 37 meters, while respecting the right of neighbors to the same quantity of sunlight they would have without the new structure. The Guardian has called it a ‘shade-less ziggurat’, reference both to its irregular stepped-pyramid shape and to its playing a central role in the evolution of the spirit of the times, in design terms, in a city whose emblematic architecture is, somehow, also a sacred essence.

The question of the “right to light” is vital to zoning laws in many European cities. In London, for instance, something called the “Ancient Lights” law requires that any window which has enjoyed sunlight exposure for more than 20 years should go one receiving that light. It has been a source of heated polemics in the construction of new high-rise office towers in the historic city center, but for many, the innovation associated with new building designs has helped to offset the community-quality concerns that often militate against the installation of new megastructures.

For the city of Paris, the skyscraper question is a question of community quality, but also of cultural identity. The city has long had a skyscraper ban, a building limit of 37 meters, and an officially sanctioned aim of retaining an historic low-rise or “human-scale” built environment. This was, in part, to privilege historic structures, like the Left Bank’s Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame cathedral on Ile de la Cité, to ensure the resonance of these structures is not overshadowed in figurative terms by block-like modern behemoths.

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Paris is not a skyscraper city, but a city of infamously confusing concentric avenues, medieval layout superimposed with 18th century statesmanesque grandeur, romantic cobblestone tussled streets and sun-dappled sidewalk cafés. It is a city that prides itself on not having fallen for what an architectural convention in Barcelona in the mid-nineties termed “the temptation of America”, to build upward to the sky, disregarding the meaning of the pedestrian trolling around in the shadows below.

It is clear that there is a conscious distinction, in the minds of Parisians, between the nature of a city that lives for its inhabitants and a skyscraper-strewn metropolis, famed for its overwhelming brute mass and anonymity. It is thought that the low-rise atmosphere of Parisian haunts is more transcendent, that a neighborhood is more resilient, more character-driven, more time-tested, when it can be felt to be shaped by the people who walk among its structures.

Inhabitants of London or New York would probably balk at the suggestion, however theoretical, that their cities are somehow not like that, but they might also feel somehow haunted by the need to avoid falling into the “temptation of Dubai”, where it seems artifice and surface are overtaking character or the meaning of the human soul walking at street-level, as governing principles in the evolution of society. But these are perceptions, and in Paris, there are at least 6 new high-rise projects aiming to populate the outskirts of the historic metropolis with a post-modern outcropping of glass and steel, a hint that the city is also a place of renewal and innovation.

Herzog and de Meuron’s glass ziggurat is a test of post-modern and computer assisted design, intended to bridge the gap between need-for-use and the natural fear of human diminishment in the face of massive structures. Can the city reinvent itself as a cozy if weighty centuries’ old “museum city”, courted and elevated by the bold urgings of today’s grandiloquent noise-maker architects? Will the shadowless Triangle be like a dreamcatcher, holding up a subconscious portrait of the city’s will and destiny to the buzz and brimming of the historic center?

Aside from its central design feature, that of casting no shadow, or more precisely, of preserving the daylight-rights of the neighbors, the Paris Triangle will also be optimized for solar-voltaic and wind-power harvesting, making it a potential watershed moment in French green building design. If implemented with not merely current, but 2012-current —the date the building is slated to open for business— state of the art renewable energy technologies, the building could be self-powering and could help to generate clean energy for the Paris energy market, a further reinvention of the role of skyscrapers in a city wary of their social side-effects.

DeZeen design magazine cites the architects’ own report on the Projet Triangle:

On the scale of the Porte de Versailles site, the project will also play a significant role in the reorganisation of flows and perception of urban space. The Parc des Expositions site currently forms a break between the Haussmanian fabric of the15th district of Paris and the communities of Issy-les-Moulineaux and Vanves, emphasised by the visual impact of the peripheral boulevard.

The construction of an ambitious building on the Porte de Versailles site will mark its opening and restore the historical axis formed by the rue de Vaugirard and avenue Ernest Renan.

The square of the Porte de Versailles is a complex space in its current configuration. Its initial semi-circular organisation is difficult to interpret given the many visual impediments and lack of clearly identified public spaces between the Parc des Expositions and the buildings opposite.

The project is designed to open public space, to revitalize the surrounding area, and with its street-level shops, cafés and restaurants, to help invigorate the public use of private space, in Parisian style, with added life and activity: in short, the project is conceived as a model new space that considers human use the principle, and aesthetic ambition an aid to achieving that end.

While admitting the project is ambitious and large in scale, and while declaring it to be conceived on the entire metropolitan reach of Paris as a whole, the architects have designed the ‘sharkfin’ structure to be both bold and noticeable, and also to stay out of the way of people’s needs and tastes. It is intended to complement, not to overshadow, the style of the older structures, and its height is offset by its narrow frame (from two sides), allowing for only a negligible shadow to fall from it, a shadow which will move quickly with the sun.

If properly executed, the structure will open up the public spaces around it, affording locals the same freedom of movement and atmospheric enjoyment they now have, but with the added value of a monument to urban renewal and a vibrant center of commercial activity. In the more abstract sense, the architects also note that:

The Triangle is conceived as a piece of the city that could be pivoted and positioned vertically. It is carved by a network of vertical and horizontal traffic flows of variable capacities and speeds. Like the boulevards, streets and more intimate passages of a city, these traffic flows carve the construction into islets of varying shapes and sizes.

This evocation of the urban fabric of Paris, at once classic and coherent in its entirety and varied and intriguing in its details, is encountered in the façade of the Triangle. Like that of a classical building, this one features two levels of interpretation: an easily recognisable overall form and a fine, crystalline silhouette of its façade which allows it to be perceived variously.

The Triangle is meant to evoke the “role of the reader”: the public can make of it what they will, as it stands up above the landscape as an outgrowth of the pie-piece urban sections that fan out from the ancient city-center. It mimics and mirrors the landscape, with a geometry that merges with surface style to permit a broad range of interpretations, emotional and functional. In this sense, it is very much attuned to the cultural identity that underpins a time-tested Parisian way of interacting with local architecture.

Recién inaugurada en el Palais de Tokyo, en París, Francia, ‘Superdome’ explora el sufrimiento humano vinculado con situaciones donde el desastre se sigue con transformaciones socio-económicas de escala casi incomprensible. La exposición concentra su atención temática en la situación que encontraron los habitantes de Nueva Orleans, cuando el huracán “Katrina” y su consecuente desintegración cívica los desplazaron hacia un caos tormentoso, su entorno físico devastado, forzados a llevar el peso extraño de ver cómo se borró la geografía económica de su ciudad para ser reemplazada por algo desconocido.

El tema de conversación que se escuchaba con frecuencia en la boca de los invitados en la noche del estreno era si se pudiera averiguar cualquier hilo unificador entre los 5 distintos espacios que formaban parte de la exposición. Un elefante equilibrándose sobre su trompa, un cañón de aire que tira botellas de cerveza a 600 km/hora, una sala llena de los escombros de un desastre, relojes antiguos de péndulo, una exploración del “Lado Oscuro”, un puzzle gris de alfombra que significa o inclusión o exclusión, la familiaridad o la diferencia.

En la elocuente explicación de la literatura acompañante de la exposición, “Paradójica, el Superdome construye un puente entre el mayor entretenimiento y la mayor angustia.” Las 5 exposiciones, de hecho, “vacilan entre el entretenimiento y la desolación, los decibelios y los rezos, la alta tecnología y el caos”, y se consideran expresiones artísticas individuales, unidas sólo en sentido temático, no en contenido ni estilo.

Würsa, el elefante apoyado sobre su trompa “a 18.000 km de altitud”, atrajo admiradores y fascinación. La gente se acercaba y se maravillaba, y el texto acompañante explica que el artista, Daniel Firman, fundó la escultura —la piel la acabó un taxidermista de renombre— sobre la ciencia de la exploración espacial y la física del fenómeno de la “cero-gravedad” que se encuentra a altitudes extremas en órbita alrededor de la Tierra.

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La escultura en sí, ya es un logro de ingeniería, un desafío impactante para cualquiera que no sea el diseñador más paciente, pero su idea básica, más que complejidad o paciencia, parece ser el contraste entre la levedad y el peso. La experiencia desorbitada de enfrentarse con los dos en la naturaleza de un mismo momento: la presión aplastante de enfrentar la fragilidad de lo que valoramos, la inconsecuencia elegante de lo que construimos y que apoya nuestras creencias.

El elefante en el centro de la sala se apoya sobre su trompa, porque increíblemente ha viajado hasta una órbita de 18.000 km sobre la superficie de la Tierra, y en esta circunstancia surrealista e inesperada, encontramos que la levedad y el peso se yuxtaponen, en una desintegración de su equilibrio aceptado. Las fuerzas que intervienen pueden volcar la realidad que conocemos, cambiar las leyes físicas de nuestro entorno dado, socavar la materia de nuestras presunciones metafísicas sobre qué es posible.

Al lado del espacio de Würsa, “Afasia 1″ es una construcción de cilindros de aire comprimido, amontonados y conectados a un cañón de aire, dentro de una jaula de alambre en malla. Una columna vertical de botellas de cerveza vacías, organizadas como si fueran misiles de mortero, esperan para ser disparados a 600 km/hora contra una pared al otro extremo de la jaula, donde se estrellan en un sonido súbito y aterrador. La mitad de la jaula donde se estrellan las botellas tiene una capa interior de plástico protector, para que no corran ningún peligro los visitantes.

La pieza fue diseñada para chocar violentamente a los que estuvieran cerca, con un sonido tremendo, inesperado. Los disparos ocurren a intervalos demasiado espaciados para permitir que se hagan rutinarios. Con cada segundo disparo, de la multitud sale o un suspiro colectivo cortado, el aire saliendo de repente de pulmones asustados, o una manada de gritos y aullidos descontrolados. El efecto queda claro: lo inesperado, en forma de una acción increíblemente violenta y cerradamente apuntada, choca el sistema, el cuerpo queda agredido, el espíritu rehuye.

La sección con la cola más extendida, donde el personal de seguridad sólo permitía que entraran unos cuantos visitantes a la vez, era “Last Manoeuvres in the Dark” —Las últimas maniobras en la oscuridad—, de Fabien Giraud y Raphaël Siboni. La pieza es “un ejército de 300 Darth Vader intentando producir la ‘bomba’ musical insuperable de la oscuridad”. Giraud explicó en su entrevista con PALAIS / Magazine que “Darth Vader es el Mickey Mouse de nuestra generación. Una figura aún más importante que Mickey Mouse.”

Siboni explica que esta importancia no se debe tanto a que sea una representación icónico del Mal, sino al hecho de que el ícono que lleva esa energía es una pista instantánea para las masas, un símbolo universal y reconocible, un “objeto cero” sobre el que se pueden construir mensajes más complejos. Giraud dice que la exposición funciona más “en la lógica de sobrepuja que de denuncia”, intentando enmarcar el asunto de la oscuridad y la malicia de una manera que active “el cerebro reptiliano”, sugiriendo que el contenido de la oscuridad es una experiencia instintiva, mensaje que pueda quitarles el poder a los que la impongan.

A new exhibit at the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris, France, examines the human suffering inherent in situations where disaster is followed by economic transformation of nearly incomprehensible proportions. ‘Superdome’ focuses its thematic attention on the situation encountered by citizens of New Orleans, displaced into chaos by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the devastation of their physical environment followed by the strange burden of seeing the economic geography of their city wiped away and replaced by something unknown to them.

The topic of conversation that seemed most present on visitors’ lips upon first seeing the exhibit was whether there was any continuity, any unifying thread to the distinct spaces that formed part of the exhibit. An elephant balanced on its trunk, an air-gun firing empty beer-bottles at a wall at 600 km/hr, a room full of hurricane refuse, antique clocks, an exploration of “the Dark Side”, a grey floor-covering puzzle that can be rearranged to suggest exclusion or inclusion, familiarity or difference.

As the exhibit literature eloquently explains, “Paradoxical, the Superdome builds a bridge between the greatest entertainment and the greatest anguish.” The five exhibits are in fact “balancing between entertainment and desolation, decibels and prayers, high-tech and chaos”, and are considered to be individual artistic expressions, joined only thematically, not in content or style.

Würsa, the elephant balanced on its trunk “at 18,000 km altitude”, was one of the more eye-catching pieces. People gathered and marveled, and the accompanying text explains that the artist, Daniel Firman, based the sculpture (the skin finished by an acclaimed taxidermist) on the science of space exploration and the physics of zero-gravity at extreme altitudes in Earth orbit.

In itself, the sculpture is a feat of engineering, complicated to work out for any but the most patient designer, but the idea conveyed is perhaps not so much patience or complexity, but rather the contrast between lightness and weight. The disorienting experience of engaging both in the nature of one moment: the shoulder-slumping pressures of facing the fragility of what we value, the elegant inconsequence of what we build and believe in.

The elephant in the middle of the room balances on its trunk, because incredibly it has traveled to an orbit at 18,000 km above the surface of the Earth, and in this surreal and unexpected circumstance, we find that levity and weight are thrown out of balance and juxtaposed. Interfering forces can upend reality as we know it, alter the physical laws of our given environment, undermine our metaphysical assumptions about what is possible.

Adjacent to Würsa, in a wire-maille cage, “Afasia 1″ consists of a stack of compressed air cylinders connected to an air-cannon, with a stack of empty beer-bottles, arrayed as if they were mortar shells one atop the other, poised to be fired against a wall at the other end of the cage. The half of the enclosure where the bottles shatter against the wall at 600 km/hr includes a layer of protective plastic, so spectators are not in danger from the projectiles or their fragments.

The piece is designed to shock those near it, as the sound is tremendous, unexpected, and the shots come at intervals too far apart to become routine. With every other round, the crowd will give either a collective gasp, air running out of startled lungs, or a handful of uncontrolled shrieks and howls. The effect is clear: the unexpected, in the form of an incredibly violent yet targeted action, shocks the system, the body is jolted, the spirit recoils.

The section with the longest queue, where security personnel allowed only a few visitors at a time to enter, was “Last Manoeuvres in the Dark”, by Fabien Giraud and Raphaël Siboni, described as “an army of 300 Darth Vaders attempting to produce the out-and-out musical ‘hit’ of darkness”. Giraud told PALAIS / Magazine that “Darth Vader is our generation’s Mickey Mouse. An even more important figure than Mickey Mouse.”

Siboni explains that this importance is not so much the iconic representation of evil, but rather that the icon carrying that energy is an instant cue for the masses, a universal and recognizable symbol, and “object zero” on which more complex messages can be structured. Giraud says the exhibit works “more in terms of outbidding than denouncing”, attempting to reframe the issue of darkness and malice in a way that taps into “the reptilian brain”, explains the content of darkness as an instinctual experience, perhaps robbing those who enforce it of their power.

The piece with the most direct tie to the exhibit’s title is Christoph Büchel’s “Dump”, a massive, sloping, pile of refuse representing the daily activities of the survivors of the Superdome experience in the dark aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The space is a curved room, receding away from the spectators, bending around an interior wall, taking us simultaneously deeper into the (meaning of) chaos and further away from the distant experience of those who lived it.

As the unifying idea is the sense of desperation and upheaval that can so unrepentantly invade the everyday, PALAIS / Magazine featured excerpts from Naomi Klein’s new book, ‘The Shock Doctrine’. The text is especially useful for grappling with the problem of living between chaos and normalcy, seeing one’s reality taken apart not only by tragedy, but by the disturbing manipulations that come in the aftermath.

The shock doctrine refers to an idea of controversial Chicago economist Milton Friedman. Friedman posited that “only a crisis —actual or perceived— produces real change”, suggesting that in the wake of major disasters, when chaos seeps into or replaces the routine of a functioning society, planners must take swift action to impose irreversible change.

Klein speaks of the impact of Friedman’s ideas on Pinochet’s takeover of Chile, in the 1970s, Argentina’s regime of the same period, in which 30,000 people were “disappeared”, and post-Saddam Iraq, which underwent “radical economic shock therapy… mass privatization, complete free trade, a 15 percent flat tax, a dramatically downsized government.” Iraq’s interim trade minister complained that these “experiments” were an unnecessary “shock therapy”.

Klein links the use of military force to the sort of radical economic reconfiguration of a place hit by a major disaster. In her analysis, it is not as surprising as it is to the majority of observers, that post-Katrina New Orleans was so heavily occupied by military forces. She cites mention of “‘clean sheets’ and exciting opportunities” at the time, and alleges some politicians planned to use the “[moment] of collective trauma to engage in radical social and economic engineering.”

Klein also takes us to Sri Lanka, after the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Boris Yeltsin’s 1993 deployment of tanks to the Russian parliament, NATO’s bombing of Belgrade in 1999 and the 1982 Falklands war, where in each case, she notes that the aftermath was an environment permitting massive, rapid privatization, and the dislocation of social and economic standards of the places in question.

The shock doctrine gives us a clue as to how the theme of chaos and darkness as a pressure on the human experience in today’s world, comes to be a unifying theme at Superdome. The last piece is Jonathan Monk’s “Time Between Spaces”, an “exhibit in stereo” shown simultaneously at the Palais de Tokyo and at the Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, part of the same complex.

In Superdome, we find “The Inside of Something”, a grey floor-covering jigsaw puzzle with no flat edges, while “The Outside of Something” is found in the half of Monk’s exhibit absent from the Palais de Tokyo. “The Odd Couple” is a pair of pendulum clocks slightly off in their measure of time, meaning that as time progresses their difference is enhanced, though it will eventually meet at some point.

The dual format for Monk’s exhibit is touted as an offering that “outlines the idea that ubiquity would allow us to thwart the linea progression of time”. The exhibit endures, because over the same course of time, it is doubled. Similarly, we find that the human instinct to retrieve what was previously known from the aftermath of a destructive or menacing experience is a basic human effort to reconnect the not always harmonious senses of time and space.

27 November :: 40 nations to gather at Annapolis summit for Mideast peace negotiations; Israel, Palestinian leaders express hope for progress on comprehensive peace deal, while Hamas leader, ex-Palestinian PM, Haniyeh, says the Palestinian people will not be bound by what his rival Abbas agrees to… French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy has urged calm as riots spread through Paris suburb Villiers-le-Bel in wake of hit and run death allegedly involving police; residents allege the police involved fled on foot after being unable to start their car, damaged by the accident, opposition leader François Hollande, condemning the violence, said it sprung from a “social and political crisis” the gov’t was unable to handle; similarity to situation that sparked 2005 riots across France leads some to fear more violence will ensue… In first private meeting since 2000 presidential election, US pres. Bush, fmr. rival Al Gore discussed climate change for 30 min. while Gore attended White House dinner for Nobel laureates… US, Iraq leaders sign non-binding bilateral cooperation agreement, via video conference; document is attempt to “codify” a relationship that would see phase out of US combat mission, conduct parallel security policy to UN mandate for occupation, stabilization troops…

22 November :: Recently retired army chief, long-time Chávez ally, Gen. Baduel under attack for break with Venezuelan president, as Chávez supporters label him ‘traitor’; Baduel, who helped restore Chávez to power after failed 2002 coup, has said he disagrees with plans to change constitution to allow indefinite presidential term; IHT reports such critique “considered especially dangerous not only because he was a close ally, but also because he is said to command respect within the powerful armed forces”, Baduel could mount viable opposition to Chávez, though general denies this, says he’s just expressing his opinion… Withering French strike situation aggravated as new negotiations meet with coordinate sabotage attack on high-speed trains; authorities suspect saboteurs wish to weaken gov’t position in negotiations; Laurence Parisot, head of a French business lobby, told press “The cost of the strike is quite simply incalculable. That’s to say it is probably gigantic. It is a real catastrophe for our economy”… UN-backed tribuunal has opened interrogations into Khmer Rouge reign of terror across Cambodia in 1970s, calling head of regime’s worst torture center to face charges for crimes against humanity; Washington Post reports “A presiding judge then read aloud from Duch’s case file: ‘Under his authority, countless abuses were committed, including mass murder, arbitrary detention and torture’”… Univ. of New Hampshire poll finds Hillary Clinton’s lead over rivals in Democratic primary has shrunk from 23 points to 14 points, as Obama, Edwards make gains on integrity, war, leadership qualities… Naples, Italy, has banned smoking near children or pregnant women, after studies showed rates of tobacco-related illness were higher there than elsewhere across country; critics say new law is folly as Neapolitans are notorious for flouting civic order laws…

21 October :: Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, has stepped down, allegedly over differences with Pres. Ahmadinejad; Iran gov’t says there is no rift among leadership, diplomats, Larijani will attend meeting with UN representatives to ease transition to new negotiator’s team… At least 9 casualties reported in PKK raid on Turkish forces near Iraqi border; BBC reports deaths have spurred popular support for military incursions into Iraq to hunt Kurdish rebels; Iraq gov’t says Turkish incursions would violate int’l law; observers fear Turkish cross-border raids would further destabilize Iraq… Reuters reporting US military raid on Sadr City district of Baghdad has killed 13, wounded 69, showing two toddlers among the dead; US says clashes with Mehdi militia group led to airstrikes on residential neighborhood… Chinese Communist party removes VP, two other top officials from party leadership, preparing to elevate new generation of leadership, as party conference comes to end… Far-right People’s Party (SVP) appears to have won Swiss election, is predicted to take 61 of 200 seats in parliament, Green party makes strong gains; with 50% of electorate estimated to have cast ballots, SVP ‘victory’ may represent as little as 15% of total voting-age population, the party’s ‘black-sheep’ campaign stoked fears of official racism… Houston Chronicle reports $90 oil is not record when adjusting for inflation, “The federal government says prices still haven’t exceeded the January 1981 inflation-adjusted record of $93.09. The Paris-based International Energy Agency says the actual record was in the previous spring and is $101.70 in today’s dollars”… Ségolène Royal has criticized Sarkozy’s new French gov’t for its “total improvisation” with regard to social policy; Sarkozy’s opponent in the presidential elections, Royal also said “Driving a modern country to strike is the mark of poor government”, referring to the ongoing transport strike…

16 October :: 1st official ‘baby-boomer’ begins collecting Social Security; as many as 80 million Americans from her generation will eventually collect the government pension payments… NY Times ‘The Caucus’ blog reports Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy would “Use both hard power and soft power; talk to your enemies and strengthen alliances with your friends; deal with systemic destabilizing issues such as poverty and disease; elevate pragmatism over ideology; use international institutions such as the United Nations as tools for progress; make the military a part of comprehensive solutions, not as the solution itself; and encourage the spread of “our values” and the rule of law”; she had said in previous debates she would hesitate to engage in direct talks with hostile states… Critics complain actions like her vote to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a foreign “terrorist organization” makes her too hawkish, moreso even than many in current administration, could risk intensified hostilities with Iran… Putin in Iran says Caspian nations should agree “that no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third powers for use of force or military aggression against any Caspian state“; declaration comes amid mounting tensions between Iran and western powers —namely France and US—, which suspect it is illegally developing nuclear weapons… China’s Communist party has said it is “furious” at the US awarding the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal; Tibet’s party boss is quoted as saying “If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world”; China has withdrawn from a planned meeting to discuss UN policy regarding Iran, as a matter of protest against the US award; Liu Jianchao, speaking for China’s foreign ministry, has said the award would have “extremely serious impact” on US-China relations… Fmr US pres. Bill Clinton’s Climate Initiative (CCI) is partnering with the City of Paris to overhaul energy consumption of 600 schools to make them more environmentally sustainable; the program will retrofit schools to reduce their consumption of greenhouse gases; Paris’ new Climate Strategy aims to bring emissions, energy consumption to 30% below 2004 levels city-wide by the year 2020…

SEVEN LIES THAT INFORM THE PUSH FOR AN ENGLISH-ONLY UNITED STATES

Is the United States an “English-speaking nation”, or a place where all cultures are welcome to converge, mix and evolve? To answer this question, we must consider that there is a natural human tendency to fear what is perceived as the definite and invasive “other”, that which is different and which we feel can be categorized in a way that fits our worries.

The human space is fluid, adaptable, sensitive to evolving circumstance. This is why democracy is the only legitimate form of government. The identity of groups, or for that matter of individuals is not implacable, nor is it absolutely relative. It follows the vicissitudes of the human health and mind, and requires sincere dialogue with the other in order to reach its fullest potential.

The push to establish a single national language can only be sustained on the basis of a number of false premises. We will explore seven such lies and misperceptions here, all of a particular sort, having to do with a way of rationalizing one’s aversion to difference or to change. And, in each case, it is fairly easy to illustrate how the lie works against the interests of both a democratic society and American tradition itself.

1.

The first key false premise is that there is an irrevocable danger to one’s identity, one’s security, one’s community and the integrity of one’s culture, if confronted with difference, if (to use the logic of the open market) one is forced to compete in the realm of ideas.

This is not only patently untrue (as will be shown in the enumeration of the other misperceptions that provoke xenophobia), but it would require that we reject both American history and the values of a democratic society. American society has never been uniform, has always had to find ways to bring harmony among disparate groups, and from the Constitution forward has sought to defend the rights and the role of minorities in society.

During the Second World War, the most decorated division was comprised largely of Japanese Americans from the Pacific Northwest and Native American tribes have lent soldiers, code-readers and specialists to all the wars since then.

E pluribus unum, the national motto, meaning ‘of the many: one’, has long been interpreted not as a call to flatten and evacuate the richness of an immigrant and pioneer culture, but to harness it, to make a more vibrant and adaptable continent-wide market, rich in ideas, abilities, distinctive methods and innovations.

2.

The second basic untruth to examine is that government sanction of a national language leads to greater unity and a stronger uniform sense of national identity. First, it’s worth referencing the brief glimpse of American history above and the words of great leaders who defended the idea of a potent national character, stemming from the global origins of the US population, to see that this is not even the goal of American society.

But more importantly, there are clear examples that show that imposed uniformity does not bring a healthy sense of national identity, but can in fact create and exacerbate divisions in society. France has a national one-culture policy that proclaims French the national language and requires that immigrants assimilate seamlessly into that one culture, leaving behind the trappings and traditions of their homelands.

Children are forbidden from wearing culturally specific clothing in schools, and the 31 other languages indigenous to France are simply ignored by the government as a matter of cultural policy. Foreign languages spoken widely in people’s homes, like Arabic, Berber, Lao and Vietnamese, are relegated to non-French status and communities that maintain close ties to their family culture often find themselves bunched into ethnic ghettoes, where many French citizens commonly identified as non-French due to their cultural background or race, are concentrated through several generations.

The result of this one-language policy has been constant and oppressive tension leading to the near total isolation of communities lacking the resources or the opportunity to integrate into the larger officially French culture, despite being French-born for one, two or three generations.

The explosive tensions promoted by this policy, and reinforced by the tacit discrimination it appeared to permit, led eventually to the riots of November 2005, which began in largely multigenerational, “immigrant” ghettoes in the northern Paris suburbs and spread quickly to 20 such suburbs and eventually 70 cities across the country and into neighboring countries.

The French interior minister (now president of the Republic), Nicolas Sarkozy, further inflamed tensions by suggesting that the young men involved were by nature “scum” and that he would deport everyone who was accused of participation. Apparently ignoring the proportion of French citizens involved, his view seemed obscured by racial considerations. He further pledged a comprehensive purge of immigrants; the one-culture policy fueled this irrational xenophobia, directed at communities officially invited into French society during the post-WWII period of rebuilding.

So, two evident problems with this lie of a sole unifying language: the declaration of a single culture does not erase cultural diversity (for this reason Europe pressured Turkey to eventually recognize its Kurdish minority, which it had officially labeled an historical fiction), and in the case of Paris, most of the “immigrant” youths were French born.

It is not the difference in culture that creates cross-cultural tension, but the refusal of the majority to accept that their nationality is not diminished or degraded by the presence of people who think and behave differently, but who also identify with that larger national identity.

3.

A third major false premise of the English-only movement is the belief in some sort of past golden age in which English was the sole unifying language, spoken by all and to the exclusion of all others. This is not only untrue —the gold rush of 1849 brought not only easterners to northern California, but also communities of adventurous emigrants from China and east Asia, as well as Chileans and Russians in signficant numbers— it is utterly ridiculous in its denial of historical reality.

Of the more than 300 languages currently spoken in the United States, at least 154 are indigenous languages, which predate the arrival of European colonists five centuries ago. Of those native languages still spoken inside the territory of the United States, about half are endangered, 7 have only 1 fluent speaker, and 42 have 10 or fewer speakers.

It is not the multiplication of languages that is the problem, but the disappearance of vast amounts of linguistic culture and knowledge from American society.

Immigrant languages have also played a role in making American society what it is. After decades of being treated as an unwanted ethnicity, Italian Americans, most often poor immigrants from southern Italy, or their descendants, in New York and other cities, speaking their own language, some even to this day, after several generations, introduced a new culinary culture into American society.

At the death of the New York restauranteur Delmonico in 1881, the exiled Cuban poet José Martí, writing in Spanish, noted the outpouring of popular affection for the man and his life’s work, specifically citing the gratitude expressed by many for his having introduced sauces, garnishes and ingredients that all agree enriched American culture and society.

At the founding of the republic, English was deliberately chosen as the language of standard use in law and government, not as a means of establishing a national vernacular, but simply to provide continuity in law, as the entire legal tradition of the British colonies in North America had been drafted in English.

There were even competing camps arguing that German or French should be used, to accentuate the break from England and because there were a large number of colonists who spoke those languages as their mother tongue. In fact, as of the 2000 US census, there were in the United States only 24,515,138 citizens of English ancestry (single or multiple ancestry included), while there were 42,885,162 citizens of German ancestry, 36,419,434 of African-American ancestry, 30,594,130 of Irish and/or Celtic ancestry, and 31,107,889 who were foreign born.

English-language culture has been a leading feature of American society, throughout its history, and has been most prevalent in publishing (books, magazines, newspapers and government documents), but it has never had an exclusive dominion over the American mind, and it does not represent any primary ethnic origin for the non-indigenous United States, as a republic. The United States is, as it has always been, and to its credit, the most linguistically diverse industrialized democracy in the world.

4.

A particularly insidious lie at the root of the English-only movement is the fear of an “invasion” of Spanish speakers. It is simply untrue that the Spanish-speaking population of the Americas could eclipse the English-speaking population of the United States and displace English as the unofficial lingua franca of the republic.

There are an estimated 450 to 500 million Spanish speakers across the globe, 40 million of whom live in Spain and 40 million more of whom already reside in the US itself, most of them speaking English as well. Spanish is also spoken by millions of people in Europe, south Asia and Africa.

The population of the US in 2000 was 281,421,906, according to the US census. The Census Bureau by 2006 estimated that figure at 298,820,183. The total number of people the US Census Bureau reported living in Spanish-speaking Latin American countries (including Mexico and Puerto Rico) in 2006 is 309,631,738.

So, unless every country in Latin America were emptied, there is no risk of a de facto overtaking of the English language in the US; nevermind the fact that there is no evidence of any hemispheric conspiracy to make the US a Spanish-speaking country.

Ultimately, it is the failure of imagination in the way individuals form their own sense of identity that generates the fear, not so much of foreigners or of another language, but of having to compete with fellow citizens who know more than one language.

The English-only movement is pushing very deliberately to limit the richness, vitality and adaptability of American culture, as well as its ability to learn of and respond to international crises or national security issues. It is in this that the nation itself faces the most serious threat to the potency and resilience of its linguistic and democratic culture.

5.

There is also the pernicious suggestion that people speaking other languages are not loyal Americans. This is directly tied to the false projection of “American” as connoting “English-speaking” and “white”.

What’s more, immigrants who have faced political hardship, economic depression, harsh journeys on foot or cramped in tiny enclosed spaces, violent smugglers and real mortal peril, all in hopes of reaching the promise of American society, tend to prize more passionately and more personally the freedoms and the rights afforded by American law than American-born citizens can normally imagine.

Throughout American history, from the Revolution, through the Civil War, into the World Wars and including the 2003 Iraq invasion, foreign-born US citizens and non-citizens have fought on behalf of the United States, risking their lives for a country whose ideals they believe in and to which they hope to one day belong.

6.

The sixth lie we must examine, which gives comfort to those who oppose the United States’ brave history of cultural diversity, is that suspicion of something one does not understand, or which is outwardly different, is somehow a useful tool in the furtherance of democracy, helping to seal the system against unwanted intruders.

This assumes many things: one, that democracy must be a closed system (the USSR, North Korea and Cuba have very effectively demonstrated the flaws of hermetically sealed societies)… two, that it is the sole privilege of an essentially distinct human population (who decides which people are essentially and naturally entitled to participate? how does one get around such stratification being antithetical to the US Constitutional system?)… three, that democracy means uniformity (we have covered this above).

Each of these rhetorical bases is contrary to the meaning, the direction and the lessons of American history. And each ignores the phrasing of the nation’s founding documents.

In his famous “I have a dream” speech, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said the “promissory note” represented by the language of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution had been “returned, marked insufficient funds”. He meant that the nation had to recognize that its core aspirations had not been achieved, precisely because a group identified by outward differences was still excluded from true equality before the law.

It is not by generating new exclusions and separating out the already-here from the imminent newcomers that we will make the United States more American in its identity and ideals, but rather by embracing the diversity of culture and the open humanity professed by the nation’s founding documents, Revolutionary treatises and greatest examples of community spirit.

7.

There is, lastly, the fundamental lie that says that official classification of all other languages as secondary, by establishment of an official state language, does not mean one discriminates or that the system of open democracy becomes less open.

In fact, there is no way around the basic truth that the declaration of a national language has only one purpose: to institutionalize discrimination in a way it has never been done before in the United States. And beyond that discrimination, its most immediate effect would be the degradation of the quality of the system of democratic rights and principles itself.

During the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain, from 1939 to 1975, his government declared Castilian (the language we know as ‘Spanish’) the national language of Spain. People who spoke one of the other languages widely spoken in Spain (Catalan [català], Basque [euskera] or Gallego [galego]), were pushed out of positions of importance, robbed of their property and systematically persecuted for not speaking the proper “Christian” tongue, as Franco’s regime would have it.

Eventually, people were detained, forced to do hard labor, enslaved by the state to build a tomb for the dictator, tortured and killed, because their use of a distinct language was perceived as a grave threat to national unity, despite those languages having been part of Spanish society for a thousand years or more, long before anything like a “Spanish” state came into existence.

When Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492, he was sponsored by the two kingdoms of Castilla-Leon and Catalunya-Aragon, joined in the marriage of Isabel de Castilla and Fernando de Aragon. It was not until the year 1714 that a single Spanish state was established under Castilian rule.

Since the transition to democracy, beginning in 1975, the present day constitutional republic has four co-official languages, persecution on the basis of language usage is forbidden, no matter the language, and the society is more politically and culturally vibrant, more economically prosperous, in closer contact with its neighbors, more sustainable as a political system, observing and protecting the principles of democracy, an example to other nations.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution promised that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech … [or] to petition the government for a redress of grievances”. So, the amendment to Senate Bill S.2611, proposed by Sen. Inhofe, which aims to strip all Americans of the right to interact with their government in any language other than English, directly assaults a basic constitutional liberty. It deliberately makes communication between the government and the people less effective and undermines the right of individuals to solicit the correction of an injustice.

That means less accountability in government when facing certain segments of the population, which is a stratification of legal protections and an abstract but very real form of segregation, enacted by law. Enactment of such legislation would not only violate Constitutional principles, it would hamper the ability of the people of the United States to gather information, share information, and assist in the direction of the republic, a right without which democracy is just an idea.

• YourDictionary: “How many indigenous American languages are spoken in the United States? By how many speakers?”
• Wikipedia: “Languages of France”
• US Census Bureau: “Census 2000 Gateway”
• US Census Bureau: “World Population Information”