Hike along the beautiful Clinton River north of Troy (MI). From the road that leads to it, I see huge suburbs with identical houses, surrounded by greenery and trees. Two levels of salary, it seems to me, from the dimensions of the houses and the number of garage doors, as well as the area of the lot. Here and there, I get a glimpse of the regime above, for example vast mansions on lakesides, or the regime below, usually mobile home parks or very modest houses that preceded these new suburbs built in the seventies to the nineties. Difficult to imagine living there: where to walk to meet others, how to make friends if not in the malls or perhaps places with religious themes punctuating this huge space from at least the tenth mile until the fifteenth or sixteenth. Going to work, to school, to shops, everything has become transport outside oneself. No more “home” where one has the sense of residing, of transforming what one has in what one can be, of appropriating landscape and construction as being of oneself, at least partially. One is more and more intensely projected below and beyond a self that escapes the reach of tools of communication which to the services of research (Google) or of self-promotion (Facebook) add refinement upon refinement of desires of presence that they sell to the highest bidder. The stock market value of these smugglers, carriers and marketers of images and desires, according to what I read recently, is about two trillion dollars, just over half of the annual budget of the US government, or about 10% of the country’s economy (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet-Google, Facebook).

French

Balade le long de la belle rivière Clinton au nord de Troy (MI). De la route qui y mène, je vois d’énormes banlieues aux maisons identiques, entourées de verdure et d’arbres. Deux niveaux de salaire, ce me semble, à la grandeur des maisons et au nombre de portes de garage, ainsi qu’à la surface du lotissement. Ici et là, j’ai un aperçu du régime au-dessus, par exemple de vastes demeures au bord de lacs, ou du régime au-dessous, généralement des parcs de maisons tractées (= mobilhomes) ou des maisons très modestes qui ont précédé ces nouvelles banlieues construites depuis les années soixante-dix aux années quatre-vingt-dix. Difficile de m’imaginer y vivre: où aller à pied à la rencontre d’autres, comment se faire des amis sinon dans les malls ou peut-être les lieux à thèmes religieux ponctuant cet espace énorme depuis le dixième mille au moins jusqu’au quinzième ou seizième. Aller au travail, à l’école, aux magasins, tout est devenu transport au dehors de soi. Plus de “home” où on a le sens de demeurer, de transformer ce qu’on a en ce qu’on peut être, de s’approprier paysage et construction comme étant de soi, au moins partiellement. On est de plus en plus intensément projeté en-deça et au-delà d’un soi introuvable par les outils de communication qui aux services de recherche (Google) ou de “rapprochement” (Facebook) ajoutent raffinement sur raffinement de désirs de présence qu’ils vendent aux plus offrants. La valeur en bourse de ces trafiquants, transporteurs et fomenteurs d’images et de désirs, d’après ce que j’ai lu récemment, est d’environ deux mille milliards de dollars, soit un peu plus de la moitié du budget annuel du gouvernement des États-Unis, ou environ 10% de l’économie du pays (il s’agit de trois grandes compagnies de messagerie et deux d’électronique: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet-Google, Facebook).

Postscriptum by George Bensoussan to his Les territoires perdus de la République where he repeats his cry for help—help for everyone—by everyone, I mean the children, the vast segments of the population that feel abandoned, and even the so-called elites. It took six months for the initial book to be heard, or reviled. In it, he and his collaborators detailed the main reasons they saw for the catastrophic events in France since 2000 or so.

The most important reason, from his point of view, is the long, secular antisemitism found in Maghreb Islam, which became more virulent already at the end of the nineteenth century when Jews chose to be integrated via the schooling system, administration, political identity, and even army. and thereby escaped their fate as “protected minority” within Islam. The root for this is religious: the claim that Islam, after Christianity and Judaism, makes to be the only faith with access to final truths. This antisemitism was worsened by the resentment caused by having lost control of their own affairs and being demeaned and abused by colonial powers. It reached new levels in the French situation especially since the nineties. The author argues in this postscriptum that even without the existence of Israel, this antisemitism would still exist. I don’t disagree completely, but I think it would not have the murderous force it has taken in the past twenty years. The policies of Israel regarding Palestine cannot be factored out. Still, it remains that the author is right to insist that one cannot explain the surge of violence only by the memory of colonialism and the terribly unequal socio-economic situation found in many banlieues.

He sees a number of social factors at work, mixed with cultural aspects. The Maghrebi family and community model has seen paternal and male power diminished and humbled. I would tie these new forms of abasement to the historical humiliation of colonialism and modernist heyday associated with enlightenment and separation of powers. Education in public schools threatens the structure further. Girls may emancipate themselves in all sorts of ways. Integration and rationalism undercut or sap tradition. The return to a more virile, anti-rationalist, original, salafist version of religion and culture is tempting. Add the civic and economic troubles, the absence of jobs, the difficulty in landing one when they exist. Legal, educational, and political institutions lose completely their meaning and are replaced by criminality and violences, including among Muslims themselves (inter-gang and inter-family territorial fights).

Lastly, there has been the silence and avoidance cultivated especially by intellectuals and elites, though perhaps not at the highest level? Out of mauvaise conscience regarding WW II and especially the terrible crimes of colonialism, as well as regarding social inequities? and a cheaply acquired bonne conscience translated by minutes of silence, Shoah reminders and plaques, etc., that become occasions of revolt and insults on the part of angry, radicalized youth. Contempt, or rather mauvaise conscience also regarding the large majority of the rest of the population that has to live with a feeling of losing it. The Front national has become the first “working class” movement in France, no matter Macron’s victory… Elites and middle class avoid having their children in at-risk areas, schools, or jobs.

Dans le brouillard, sous les branches ballantes des séquoias sombres,
j’ai retrouvé la bibliothèque où deux livres m’attendaient:
le rêve mosaïque d’un vieux savant allemand
et le cri d’un juif français sur la faillite de la république.
Les pruniers sont en fleurs dans la cour du Pharaon,
On attend les cerisiers.