Wednesday, October 20, 2010

It's Not Just About the Pensions--Listen to the Music

The protests that continue in France are not just about the pensions.  The US media fail to understand that and also distort the pension --“Social Security” in the US--issue. The age for full pension benefits in France is 65. The Sarkozy government wants to raise that to 67. Just as Americans can start receiving Social Security benefits at a reduced rate at age 62, the French can get reduced payments at age 60, but only if they have worked for 40.5 years.

The early stages of the protests, largely organized by the trade unions, were a response to the proposed changes in the pension. For millions of French people the protests also  became an opportunity to voice many other suppressed demands and dissatisfactions. The protests are rightly called a referendum on the Sarkozy administration, which is seen as pandering to the rich elites. The protests also target the huge economic inequality in French society, the squalor of the housing projects, and the way that immigrant populations have been received. The placards show a wide range of demands. In Nanterre, where, as in 1968, the protests are at times violent, issues include the fact that the opening of the University has this fall been delayed because of overcrowding, with 35,000 students squeezed onto a campus built for 14,000.

Taking to the streets and erecting barricades are what the French turn to when democratic participation in government policy is denied. Sarkozy is very unpopular. 70% of the French people support the strikers. The police are not liked because they resort too easily to violence.

My initial Wanderjahr project involved looking at the economic and cultural aspects of this late phase of late capitalism, particularly in Europe. Were I there, I would I hope grasp enough of the consciousness and mood of the protestors to offer some assessment. From this distance, the best insight that I have comes from the song adopted by the movement: “On Lache Rien” or “Never Give an Inch” as originally performed by HK and Les Saltimbanks but now cropping up everywhere on videos of the protests, on YouTube and other video and music-sharing sites.

“Never Give an Inch” speaks from the “urban project” and in behalf of “the homeless, the unemployed, workers/ Farmers, immigrants, the undocumented.” It directly indicts Sarkozy: “It’s crazy the way they’re protected/ All our rich and powerful/Not to mention the help they get/For being the friends of the president.” HK, who sings the song, is Kadour Haddadi, from an Algerian family settled in Calais. The music is a blend of Algerian Chaabi, reggae, rock, hip hop, blues, and gipsy, a mixture which reflects the emergent culture of France. But it must be heard, and its performance seen. It is perhaps the sound of revolution, but it is life-affirming, joyful, and sexual. One hears within it the potential for the completion within this new France of the project of human liberation that Marx set forth.

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