"I Don't Count': A Minority Report On The French Riots

By: Mathew Maavak

I have been literally disconnected the past few weeks. I no longer surf from home, as my dial-up service bill amounts to four times as much as a 24-hour broadband service. Problem is, despite Malaysia's over-hyped boondoggle called the Multimedia Super Corridor, my previous two attempts to get broadband came to a naught. I live in a middle-class home, not far from Kuala Lumpur's diplomatic enclave and as any rational Malaysian can tell you, Whites get the best of all worlds here, including speedier broadband connection.

I don't watch satellite TV either as I need every last penny for an exit plan. So, when a friend came down recently and asked "what is happening in France? There are riots there," I knew how the story would be spun once I accessed the first available online report at a nearby cafe.

It was extremely predictable and I could have written the draft for the Washington Post report with such detail that the correspondent only had to fill in the date, time, location, numbers of cars burnt etc. I am not belittling the correspondent but there are some things are predictable as the rising of the sun.

And that sun rises in the East first, giving light to denizens who should have taken some metaphor from its preferential rays. Instead, it is full of black holes that the grievances of the French Muslim youth is mirrored and relayed but cannot be spotlighted on native soils.

Anyway, "Asian Values" dictate that you don't riot for any just cause. You zip up your frustrations for generations, while you are consigned to be another unit of labor.

Frankly, I do not have much sympathies for the French youth. They want the best of all worlds for themselves and go on a riot when they can't. Here is my list of questions to the rioting French youth:

1) Have you or your fathers done anything to ameliorate the plight of minorities in your respective native soils? Do you understand their fears and the alienation they face? Do the plight of minorities in the soil of your origin ever enter your conscience? Do they exist in your world?

2) Have you tried integrating into the French society while maintaining your ethno-religious background? Do you dare riot in the United States, knowing full well that you might get a kick-ass pummeling you will never forget?

3) You say you don't count. But from out your community has emerged global icons like Zinedine Zidane and a host of others who have raised the tri-color into soccer's uppermost pantheon? Do you find such minority stars anywhere else in the Islamic world? How many minority doctors, lawyers or engineers have made it big in your native soil, while living on your native soil? You can count out businessmen who grease palms, often at your expense.

Is that question irrelevant to you?

4) Sure, you have a chance to riot and let the world know of your pent up anger. Do you think this is a privilege repressed minorities in Islamic nations enjoy? Have you heard of rioting by the Copts in Egypt or by the Chaldeans in Iraq or the Zoroastrians in Iran? There are ethnic Tamils in Malaysia who form a permanent, inter-generational labor class in the plantations. Foreigners who came after them enjoy far better rights. Rioting is not an option for them, though, it is quite an irony to see a community - most scientifically endowed within a hi-tech India - reduced to the penuries of thought and wealth out here.

5) Would you think I face the same frustrations as you do if I were a French citizen? Let me tell you a bit about myself:

* My voice is heard because of a globalization brought in by Western technology and a colonial language. Without those two lifelines, I would be consigned to nobody's diary, eking out a living in a place dictated by people who sympathize and champion your foreign frustrations and not mine. I don't live in a Manichean, East vs. the West world. Heck, some of these proponents speak English at home while I employ Malayalam. The likes of you see the evils of globalization. I see both the good and the bad.

* I have a doctoral proposal which has impressed some of the top faculties in the West. If I had a French passport - even if I hated the French - I would have been there by now. It really should be an honor to have a famous HoD stating that the University of Cambridge may not have a supervisor with the relevant expertise. The "honors list" grows longer when others repeat the same thing. To me, it causes more chagrin than pride. And I have TWO "impressive" proposals on separate subjects. Both are hanging in a limbo unless some Western institution backs up its offer with Western funding, and SOON. You call this imperialism? Neo-colonialism? You think your basic rights are being eroded? I was never under any illusion over mine.

Can you answer why I would not get automatic support from my own home nation, even if my thesis is deemed important? Right now, my countrymen who constantly seek merit, find more in your foreign riots. I can imagine the time spent on vacuous editorials and op-eds.

You know how I spend my time? I take to the keyboard and write up my grouses. Nobody gets hurts, no car gets burnt, no cop ends up in a hospital.

* Can you answer why academics, closer to Paris than Kuala Lumpur, ceaselessly recommend my candidature for any opening denied to me here? And this too, after I lampooned their leadership? If I had a French passport, I would have gone somewhere for something by now, instead of writing this piece - in minutes - while you riot over nights in Le Blanc-Mesnil. We have different orientations to seek restitution, bro ...

* I have more reasons to despise the West because they appease the likes of you at my expense (translated and read as local business opportunities). So do I go around throwing Molotov cocktails, the way you do? But I do know when to throw facts, straight to the jugular, without siding up to vermin who seek safety among their petty tyrants. Their only motto is: Take sides! It's something you excel in...

* You talk about erosions and assaults on your ethnic and religious identity. Let me tell you about mine. I have only one identity: A descendant of the Patriarchs, nothing more, nothing less. And like Jacob, grappling with God - and Him alone - may be my destiny. If He opens doors, no man can shut it. If He closes them, no man can open it.

If I meet a cul-de-sac - that's French - where no cunning, however ingenious, can help, I throw it up to Him, often angrily. And mind you, my faith is very shaky...

But what about you? Quo Vadis?

"We don't plan anything. We just hit whatever we find at the moment."

Keep on hitting! You are showing greater faith in your identity, culture and, your Creator…
PS. If you are not Black, why not settle in Kuala Lumpur? North Africans with a lighter tan especially welcome!

Copyright@ 2005 Mathew Maavak

Nov 9, Kuala Lumpur, 8.25pm

Most of Mathew Maavak's commentaries can be read here or visit the Panoptic World homepage.

Posted by rowan at November 9, 2005 7:17 PM | [eMail this article!] |