Nous les zonards voyous (riot in the french banlieue 2005)

from Quinterna - 08.07.2006 14:01

We need to understand the reason of the Watts’ riot and what we need to prevent it in the future. Because only if we study and assimilate the Los Angeles’ lesson, drawing the due conclusions, could we hope to keep the unstable social components, which are presently clashing in the United States, under control (Robert Conot, The Watts’ summer, 1967).

Prevent the phenomenon? Keep it under control? At present? In the United States? (n+1 editorial staff’s note, 2006).

"Oh, les anars, les cocos! No god or owners. Great. We don’t have a conscience, true. It wasn’t a rebellion as it should be, true. But it’s very hard to do something while they put you under a projector for what you are, while everybody, from the imam to the trade unionist, invites you to be quiet. While the Left search for credit for the fire, this time, it is not their fault. While the Right would gladly lock up the ghetto throwing away the key to the servants who put themselves out for the work. This is not so catho, boys. So this time I will say something really réac, in the way of a petit-bourgeois zonard without conscience: I prefer the hooligans who mime the rappers and put molotovs under the bagnoles as you post your curricula to enroll for ScienPo. I prefer the little voyous who corrupt the language throwing you into ecstasies or getting you angry, depending on whether you are intello-bobo academics or normal academics. If you left enough space on the pavement that you occupy with your big jeep 4x4 I will go for a walk with other réacs like me, who don’t give a shit about the republican future, about the flicaille of Sarko and about the charity of Villepin. Ahmed, tiens le coup. No god or owners. Great".
We think the message of the banlieusard – the usual collage, just to give an idea – is clearer than so many intellectuals "taking sides": faire la part du feu, to burn (obvious: metaphorically) leftists without hope to be saved, to save everything that has a future. The riots, even if they are dumb, have something to say, and this is not expected. It’s useless make them speak using words which are not theirs as if we randomly put subtitles 0n a film of which we don’t know the language.
Complete article:  http://www.quinterna.org/lingue/english/articles_en/zonards_voyous.htm

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